SCOTLAND'S FOOTBALL SHAME.

When alex salmond waxed lyrical about what a wonderful country Scotland was he resolutely avoided any mention of ugly issues such as racism and sectarianism, he was of course and still is an habitual and devious liar. The present controversy about certain footballers deciding to play international football for countries other than the country of their birth reminds me once again of Scotland’s disgrace when it comes to the twin evils of racism and sectarianism. It is difficult to find a more hypocritical stance than that taken by people who willingly encourage and support footballers who decide to play for Scotland who were not born here while levelling criticism and abuse at a couple of footballers who do exactly the same thing by deciding to play for Ireland despite being born here in Scotland, I refer of course to the Irish internationalists McCarthy and McGeady, what kind of an idiot is Gordon McQueen who actually encouraged Scottish fans to abuse both these players despite he himself  having played with players for Scotland who were not born here?. Is big Gordon an idiot, a bigot, a hypocrite or is he a mixture of all three?. Incidents like this give the lie to those who claim bogusly that Scotland is not a country infected by these issues and they are still mainly directed at Irish Catholics, and McGeady and McCarthy fit the bill nicely.

During the Jock Stein years at Parkhead Celtic brought unprecedented glory to Scotland by being one of the dominant teams in Europe and over a period of about 6 or 7 years they won the European cup reached another European cup final and contested semi and quarter finals regularly, there was not a team in Europe at this time who did not fear coming to Glasgow to face that mighty Celtic team. It is also my contention that Celtic did not get the credit or respect that their achievements deserved because of the aforementioned twin evils of racism and sectarianism in Scottish society, this was and still is down to their history of being an Irish Catholic institution in Scotland. The 11 players who won the European cup were all eligible to play for Scotland and indeed they all did so, and here are the stats. Ronny Simpson 5 caps, Jim Craig 1 cap, Tommy Gemmell 16 caps, Bobby Murdoch 12 caps, Billy McNeill 29 caps, John Clark 4 caps, Jimmy Johnston 23 caps, Willie Wallace 7 caps, Steve Chalmers 5 caps, Berti Auld 3 caps and Bobby Lennox 10 caps. Check it out, Murdoch, Wallace, Chalmers, Lennox, Johnston, McNeill etc. dominated Europe but were not considered good enough for Scotland, are there people out there who think these guys actually were not good enough?. These eleven players could have gone to the world cup as Scotland’s first choice players and based on their ability to do so well in Europe where Man U, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Ajax, the Milans etc etc played they could have made their mark and done very well indeed. Can anyone explain that?, perhaps McGeady and McCarthy got the impression that they, like the players I have spoken about were not welcome.   Oh just a thought did I mention one Jimmy McGrory?, he got 7 caps, ken?.