Scottish Football Podcasts Part One

I was asking around on Twitter a couple of weeks ago to try and get some sort of definitive list of Scottish football podcasts.

Then I thought: "Why do all the work myself" "Maybe there's a better way to do this than simply posting a list."

So the plan is to give any podcast-ers who would like to introduce themselves and tell people a little about their shows the opportunity to do so in their own words.

First up is Andrew Gibney, blogger and pod-der at the almost eponymous gibfootballshow. Judging from his tweets he also watches more football than Opta. He's fitba' crazy and he must have an understanding other half:

Hi my name is Andrew I am the host and editor of the gibfootballshow podcast, after the World Cup in South Africa I was inspired by The Times and Guardian podcasts and thought it would be fun to try my hand at a new type of medium.

My aim was to provide people a different way to view the blog, we are in an iTunes era where people can listen to all types of shows while on the move, so instead of having to sit and read a blog post on my views you could have a listen on the bus to work or on their lunch.

The pod started as a solo recording, mainly just recording my views on the world of football, it has now expanded to a 3 or 4 person podcast where we dicuss the current football issues, predictions on upcoming games and I hope to be able to provide the listeners with a broad range of subjects so far we have covered football in not only this country and Europe but as far a field as the USA and Mexico.

When I invited fellow bloggers to join me in the pod I was overwhelmed by the amount of replies from all over the country and abroad, which should make for some interesting recordings in the future.

Just as an example on the show so far have been Gav Stone from the excellent site Les Rosbifs, Charlie Anderson (@Luciano Says on twitter) who is an expert on Scandanavian football, Chris Mayer a fellow blogger who covers not just the English Premier League but French Ligue 1 and other European Leagues, and Brent Atema one of the co-founders of the Global Football Today website all the way from Austin, Texas.

As a host I am still developing my style and the direction of the show, feedback so far has been very positive and I hope with future guests and the discussions, hopefully the pod can grow and grow.

Over to you: if you've got a football podcast dealing with Scottish football (or mentioning Scottish football occasionally, or based in Scotland - it's not a narrow classification) then feel free to drop me an email with a few lines about your show. I'll be delighted to post them and give you some free publicity.

Alan Gow: A Drastic Change

The Scotsman strikes again.

Tell you what is a disgrace, the subbing in "Scotland's national newspaper" at the moment.

You might not know what Alan Gow looks like. But the national team captain?

Lithuania v Scotland: Let's Get Ready To Rumble

Scotland launching a qualifying campaign for a major championship with a tricky away tie. What can possibly go wrong for Craig Levein's bravehearts?

Loads and loads and loads can go wrong. But it doesn't do to look at a glass half empty. No. Onwards and upwards.

The team, the chosen eleven for the manager's competitive debut, will line up like this:

McGregor, Hutton, Weir, McManus, Whittaker, McCulloch, Naismith, Brown, Fletcher, Robson, Miller

Hmmm. A few things spring to mind. David Weir's return makes him Scotland's oldest ever player. It's a remarkable achievement for him and it should return a certain stability that was lacking in the back four that played against Sweden.

But it's a fairly depressing indictment of the talent available to Levein.

Lee McCulloch will be the holding midfielder in a 4-1-4-1 formation. It's a return to favour for the a player who looked to have ended his international career. I'm a touch surprised that Paul Hartley wasn't picked in that role but it would seem to be a position that suits McCulloch.

And Steven Naismith is back after a long absence from the starting line-up, meaning there is no place for James McFadden, whose reputation as a talisman might just be slipping a bit after more than a few anonymous displays. Still, not a selection I was predicting.

Whittaker (slightly worried that a defender who doesn't always inspire confidence will be playing on the other flank from his normal berth) and Hutton will be expected to get forward from full back and, with McCulloch sitting in, the rest of the midfield must offer support to Kenny Miller, restored his traditionally lonely role up front.

We've also got a right to expect that Miller will have brought his early season domestic form with him to banish memories of his apparent profligacy at this level.

It's not a team that has got me shouting from the rooftops. But it was never going to be. And there's a lot of changes from the Sweden game. That has to be a positive.

Organisation and spirit: the two things I thought Levein could bring to Scotland. Well, now is the time to start showing that he can deliver.

Lithuania are no mugs. But a defeat tonight and we might as well give up. It's a Scotland team that looks like it has been designed to be cautious. But they can't be too cautious because a draw would be a big blow to our chances of getting second place (if I'm be presumptuous enough to expect Spain to win the group).

I'm almost entirely unmoved by the prospect of tonight's game. But I want some excitement, some sense of anticipation.

I think we all do. So there's the challenge: these are the eleven men who need to restore the pride, the passion, the reasons to believe.

Don't let us down, boys.

> I can't get excited but I can still moan. Friday night internationals. Gie's a break. Friday nights are for either a restorative nap or a barrel load of beer. Although, now that I think about it, Scotland are probably capable of inspiring both.

In Bed With Maradona

Some of you might have seen on your trundles around the world wide web a new football site called In Bed With Maradona. If you haven't visited yet you should check it out.

You'll find a new section has been added called "Scotland" and that's where you'll be able to find my fortnightly missives on the state of Scottish football.

Given their almost total lack of exposure anywhere else my first article deals with the season ahead for Rangers and Celtic. Nice to give a shout out to the minnows.

But I've promised that will be the last mention of either of them for at least three articles:

The early season international break seems as good as place as any to dive into this new, regular run-down of events in Scottish football.

After just three rounds of fixtures there’s still uncertainty about the season ahead. But some things never change.

Already Rangers and Celtic sit atop the SPL. They’ll remain there in May but it’s too early yet to predict who’ll have the bragging rights at the end of season.

As is traditional in any discussion of the SPL I’ll be concentrating on the big two here. But I’ll do you a deal. Unless something spectacular happens over the coming weeks I promise that neither Rangers nor Celtic will appear in the next three installments of these fortnightly ramblings.

There's an ever growing roster of writers on In Bed With Maradona and I'm delighted to be part of the team. It's a site for football fans, pure and simple and is developing into quite a resource.

Partick Thistle Fans Boardroom Conspiracy

A guest post from a concerned Partick Thistle fan. Seems the Jags Trust, Scotland's first supporters trust and an instrumental force in saving Thistle, isn't as welcome as it one was at Firhill.

I don't know much about the story. And there are probably two sides to it so feel free to respond. An interesting read though:

A football club is nothing without its fans...

...but that doesn’t seem to be the view at Partick Thistle, where the first supporters trust in Scotland was set up in 1998 after the “Save the Jags” campaign prevented the club slipping into administration. The Jags Trust’s reward back then was to be gifted one fifth of the newly created shares in the club and a promise of a place on the board. This new dawn for Scottish football saw hard working directors Brown McMaster and Tom Hughes being gifted the same amount of shares as “custodians”, in order to make sure that control of the club could never again be held by one individual and the club would never again sleepwalk into a financial crisis.

Fast forward to 2010, where the club has just told the Jags Trust (after discussing the matter at two recent board meetings) that its latest board nominee has not yet been invited to join the board. This doublespeak (they’ve not said no, just not said yes) seems to indicate that the club now has a problem with the concept of supporter representation on its board, at a time when Stirling Albion’s move to fan ownership has only recently been announced.

To the outsider looking in, the trust’s announcement on its own website holds little in the way of a clue as to what the heck is going on in the Firhill boardroom. The club chairman, Allan Cowan, who was instrumental in the 1998 fans campaign, has reportedly told the Jags Trust that it needs to “concentrate on activity which directly benefits the club”.

This is confusing, since, amongst other activities in the recent past, trust members voted to merge their own, profitable fundraiser, with the club’s new scheme, allowing the club to take direct control of an income stream that is vital to continuing to pay its debts. Jackie McNamara’s loan signing last season was funded by the trust, prompting the chairman to say “without their financial assistance we would have been unable to bring Jackie to Firhill at this point and our grateful thanks are extended to the Jags Trust”.

It seems that as one boardroom is being opened to the fans at Forthbank, the door at Firhill is being closed in the face of an active and supportive trust. At least two board meetings have now taken place with no representative of the fans present, a development that can only be viewed with suspicion in the absence of any reasonable explanation.

Thistle fans are entitled to wonder what on earth is going on in the boardroom that will not stand the scrutiny of their representative, while fans of other clubs with a place in the boardroom will now be looking over their shoulders in case the habit is catching. Conspiracy theorists will no doubt watch this with interest – here’s hoping that it can be sorted out soon and that it will all turn out to be a misunderstanding, because if it isn’t then there’s a clear message to Thistle fans that they are not welcome at the top table.

John Hughes Going Nowhere, Yet

What do John Hughes and William Hague have in common? Not, admittedly, all that much.

But yesterday the Hibs manager and the Foreign Secretary were both subjected to a frenzy of speculation and rumour that, it seems, was entirely unfounded.

The big gossip in Scottish football seemed to surface about 6.30pm when a radio station apparently reported that John Hughes had left Hibs.

My phone started vibrating like mad, Tweets appeared, emails were sent.

By coincidence I arrived at Easter Road’s 1875 function suite at around 7.05pm yesterday evening.

And who was already in position ready to take place in a quiz organised by Hibs’ sponsors. Why, surely it was the newly walked-out Mr John Hughes. As bold as brass and most definitely sitting in the stadium rather than storming out of it.

“A lot of rubbish” was his standard response to the inevitable questions regarding the reports.

And, this is an admission that pains me, his team beat mine. Although he did appear to have roped in a couple of ringers. (The players team led at the halfway stage before fading badly: a quiz based metaphor for Hibs' normal pattern during a league season.)

So it was a nonsense that appears to have been a case of somebody failing to get an interview and putting two and two together.

That’s football and it’s hardly on a par with the intrusive gossip that Mr Hague and his family have had to cope with.

But the rumour interested me less than the reaction to it.

The fans I was with gave no sign of being upset at the thought of a Yogi-less Hibs. More than one ruminated that they “hoped” it was true.

The Easter Road support have slipped away from John Hughes. Fans can point to six home defeats on the bounce and last week’s loss to St Mirren as being symptomatic of a wider malaise that has shrouded the team since around January of this year.

The reality is that Hughes’ form in those months has not been good enough.

Knee-jerk reactions are, of course, what fans do best. And an Easter Road board that craves financial stability will have no desire to be fishing around for yet another new manager in the near future.

But even there we can maybe see some fault-lines developing. Alan Gow didn’t impress many supporters during his spell with Hibs last season. But the manager is a big fan.

With Anthony Stokes lost on deadline day and Gow still available Hughes might have hoped to bring him in. For whatever reasons that didn’t happen and Gow has signed for Motherwell.

If Hughes feels the frostiness from the terraces is being matched by a reluctance from the board might he begin to consider his own position?

Last night somebody joined up a loose series of dots and came up with a pattern that fitted Hughes’ departure.

That was wrong.

But that so many fans were happy to believe it, that there were clues appearing that suggested it might be true, could just mean that Hughes and Hibs are now entering the last days of their relationship.

Hughes wasn’t going anywhere last night. Don’t be tempted to bet big on him still being around for the annual quiz next year though.

Transfer Anarchy To End?

UEFA supremo Michel Platini has again been giving us his man of the people, greed is bad routine:

UEFA president Michel Platini has declared the new regulations to halt excessive spending will bring an end to the transfer market "anarchy".

The organisation are set to gradually implement new financial fair play rules from next season in attempt to keep a lid on club debt and create a level playing field.

These measures could put a halt to the influence of billionaire benefactors such as Roman Abramovich and Sheikh Mansour on the sport, and the ex-Juventus and France superstar backs the governing body's action.

He said: "For years and years we were in total anarchy but the clubs asked for the rules because they knew they could not continue.

"We can see already that the clubs are spending less as they look to balance their books.

"This is because the first time the break-even rule will kick in is in the coming year, the 2011-2012 season.

"It's very soon and this means that the strategy to say 'I can now go and spend hundreds of millions' doesn't work because we will see it in two years at the latest.

"Transfers have not been as crazy as in the last few years, they are pulling up their socks and the clubs are making special efforts to comply with the rules."

The legislation will allow owners to inject €15 million (£12.3m) a year into their clubs up until 2015, and then €10m (£8.2m) until 2018. This cash cannot be a loan, which is an approach already taken by the Manchester City and Chelsea hierarchy. (From Goal.com)

We'll see.

One thing that struck me yesterday though.

The transfer window and the apparent rush to get signatures and close deals is a stupendously bad way to run a business.

I understand the need for a transfer window - although I'd prefer it to end before the league season starts - but I can't see how it encourages a sensible financial approach.

Yesterday may have been quieter than some windows of the crazy, recent past (Sam Allardyce and his Bolton helicopter springs to mind) but even so, it seems a strange way to reconnect the game with a degree of financial sanity.

Maybe Michel the Red should turn his attention to that next.

Co-Operative Insurance Cup Third Round Draw

With football fans across the world desperately searching for the latest transfer news and Jim White doing his man-on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown-because-of-the-excitement-of-it-all routine, today seems like a strange day to schedule a national cup draw. Especially one that sees Rangers, Celtic, Dundee United, Hibs and Motherwell feature for the first time.

But Scottish football’s administrators are a strange bunch so the Scottish Football League held the draw for the next round of the Co-operative Insurance Cup at Hampden this afternoon.

I dare say Jim White will be able to muster more excitement for the news that Ryan Babbel has gone to the toilet today than a lot of people will for the lesser of our two cups.

But still. Someone’s going to have a Hampden party at the end of all this.

The draw is:

Rangers v Dunfermline
Kilmarnock v Hibs
Aberdeen v Raith
Falkirk v Hearts
Celtic v Inverness
Ross County v Dundee United
St Johnstone v Queen of the South
Brechin v Motherwell

Two all SPL ties as Mixu’s Killie take on Hibs and Celtic and Inverness reignite their cup rivalry. Tricky trip to Brechin for Motherwell, Raith might fancy a wee drive up to Pittodrie and Dunfermline won’t be greeting at the thought of an Ibrox payday.

Just thought that I’m probably not supposed to list the fixtures.

So I’ll not tell you when they’re being played. But it might be a good idea to keep Armenian Independence Day and the American Business Women’s Day free this September.