Lionel Who?

Another Champion's League night and another English team crashes out. Best league in the world or not, it won't be an English club winning the right to lose to Barcelona in Madrid next month.

Barcelona. What a team. Lionel Messi. What a player. Think he'd get a decent haircut but he might just win the World Cup for Diego Maradonna's Argentina. Think about that, an addled fatty who gets bitten by his own dog masterminding a World Cup win. That's how good Messi is.

But it wasn't always the case. We used to look Barcelona in the eye and laugh, roll our sleeves up and beat the Catalonian fancy dans. And they didn't like it one bit, especially when Hibs beat them 3-2 at Easter Road in 1961.

That game features in The Guardian's Joy of Six feature on the Fairs Cup/UEFA Cup. As does Dundee United's famous 1987 win at the Nou Camp (a feat they also managed in 1967).

Jim McLean and John Clark. I'll see your Lionel Messi, and I'll raise you a grumpy old man and a fisherman from Fisherrow.

He Knows SFA

With no input from the match official in charge, this would, in fact, contravene one of Fifa's fundamental laws of the game, namely ‘the decision of the referee is final’.

That was Gordon Smith, the bumbling incompetent atop the SFA slag heap, explaining why there could be no change to the appeals regulations in Scottish football.

And then up pops a contradiction:

So let’s not hide behind FIFA rules. Let’s look at our own appeals system and ask ourselves how it can be improved. Let’s admit that referees have a tough job and sometimes need help to make the best decisions. Let’s not have an appeals system in place that relies on referees admitting their mistakes. In this way we will prevent compounding a genuine error on the field of play with another, this time avoidable error, which adds points or suspensions to an innocent player’s disciplinary record.

And the author of these words? Rangers, Hearts, the PFA, Celtic, St Mirren, Hibs or any of the other growing band of critics of the way the SFA handles these disciplinary matters? No. In fact that quote is from Neil Doncaster, Gordon Smith’s counterpart at the SPL.

So basically the boss of the big league publicly rubbishing the big boss of the game.

And proof that Gordon Smith is either unaware of the rules his own organisations is governed by or is prepared to misinterpret those rules to fend off any critics.

Time, perhaps, for Mr Smith to be on his way?

Many moons ago when I worked in the civil service we discovered that some African republic had a farming law that made a specific expemption for farmers in Northern Ireland. Britain is seen as a model of good governance so younger countries would just lift our laws word for word.

So perhaps we’re doing the world a service. Anyone wanting to develop a structure to run football in their country could do worse than look at Scotland and just do exactly the opposite.

The SFA was established in 1873.

Why have we spent all that time perfecting our imperfections?

Aye Robot

From the BBC:

A robotic football team representing Scotland will compete against other countries in the Robocup contest in Turkey next year.

Android FC, made up of a two-foot-high striker, defender and goalkeeper, will compete in the contest in Istanbul.

The robots, which have been developed by academics at Edinburgh University, can make sense of its surroundings and react to other players' movements.

Craig Levein will be watching with interest.

The SPL At Easter

Easter weekend. Anybody in Scottish football in need of resurrection? Falkirk? Celtic? The whole national game?

Miracles are a bit thin on the ground these days so I suppose it's just another weekend of watching the usual fare.

Get the full preview at www.puntersrealm.com:

A crazy couple of weeks for Scottish football? You might say that, when four of the top six teams have conceded four goals.

We might expect Hearts to ship four to Rangers, even for a faltering Hibs to lose four against Dundee United. But for Celtic and Rangers to get cuffed by St Mirren and St Johnstone. It's been a topsy turvy time of late.

So what can we expect this weekend from our top division?

Quick tips:

• Motherwell v Falkirk. Home win. If it gets a bit dull Fir Park might be a good place to roll your Easter eggs.
• Rangers v Hamilton. Home win. Rangers were embarrased and angry in midweek. Insert your own Hot Cross Buns joke.
• St Mirren v Hearts. Draw. You could go to this match. Or you could save your 30 pieces of silver.
• Hibs v Celtic. Away win. John Hughes is not the Messiah. He's a very naughty boy.
• Kilmarnock v Aberdeen. Home win. Aberdeen fans thought Jimmy Calderwood was Pontius Pilate. Have they replaced him with Judas?
• St Johnstone v Dundee United. Draw. Game of the weekend. The Gospel of Derek v the Gospel of Peter.

The stats so far. Missed last week and can't be bothered going to back to check at the moment. Exhausted myself with tenuous Easter related one liners that didn't even make me laugh. A hard life, right enough.

And Hit Every Branch On The Way Down

Benfica 2 - 1 Liverpool

So what's going to annoy Rafa Benitez more? The red card, the dodgy referee, the defeat? Or that the goalscorer appears to be Gordan Petric's uglier older brother?

Case For The Defence

Part Three of STV's Greatest Team.

Unfortunately I missed it because my holiday - which regular readers will be pleased to know is now back on track - is outside the STV region.

Thankfully, displaying the kind of determination that brought Heather Brooke the MP expenses scandal scoop, I have been able to track down the shortlist of defenders that Kelly Dalglish-Cates brought viewers tonight.

I did this by looking at the STV website. I have no doubt that a Pulitzer is in the post.

The chosen few are:

Danny McGrain
Sandy Jardine
Tommy Gemmell
John Greig
Gordon McQueen
Willie Miller
Alex McLeish
Richard Gough
Billy McNeill
Alan Hansen

I'm keeping my powder dry vis a vis choices for a while longer yet. Except to say that if Danny McGrain isn't in your final back four then there's something wrong with you.

Next week 'keepers (I fear the shortlist will further depress Hibs fans - see how mighty you once were!) and managers.

Another Murder?

This is getting beyond a joke.

Another month, another club looking like it's about to disappear. This time Cowdenbeath.

A historic name in Scottish football about to become a historic relic. A club that has never achieved much but seems to make Scottish football just that bit more reassuring simply by being.

Sadly they play at a ground they can barely afford, on a pitch that is too small, surrounded by a stock car track that makes more money than the football club. Scottish football has come to this.

The most depressing thing about all this: it's just a cycle that we're too bloody stupid to stop. Cowdenbeath go bust, the SFL will invite somebody else to fill their place and carry on as usual.

The SFA have put a licensing system in place to ensure a certain quality of ground. If teams can't afford to comply they get fined. Because obviously most of our lower division clubs are the footballing equivalent of Lord Ashcroft. They could afford to pay the SFA's arbitary football tax but they choose not to. Because, well, there's others that can pay.

The most sickening thing I read about this whole situation was the SFA's reaction. Summarised simply as: "hell mend them."

Because the small minded idiots that are running this game love rules more than they love football, love the miserable thrill of power they get from causing misery more than they appreciate the idea of actually giving Scotland a football league that might actually do any more than encourage the game to stagnate.

So the SFA make their demands. And if you can't meet their demands then you'll be fined. Because they are the governors and you are only the football clubs trying to keep the game alive in communities that don't have much else going for them.

Beautiful system really.

Too simplistic? Possibly but for all their talk of the Scottish Football Partnership, the SFA are actually doing more to harm some of these teams than they are to help them. The footballing equivalent of a hospital full of Harold Shipmans. How can that be right?

The SFL simply shrug at every casualty and promptly elect another club to take their place. The footballing equivalent of First World War generals. How can that be right?

The story of Cowdenbeath is of more than a football club breathing its last. It's of Scotland's national game being slowly poisoned by the bodies that claim to govern it.

And how can any of that be right?