IT has been a week of finger wagging and finger pointing by the good and the great towards our supposed football stars of the future.
Malky Mackay, the SFA’s trying to get our players to have a first touch officer, gave a great interview when he said that he had high hopes for the under-17 squad because good habits can be put into them but those a level or two ahead of them, with some notable exceptions, don’t give enough of their time to their profession.
John Rankin, top man at the players’ union, agreed and said he had watched kids bullied if they wanted to hang around for maybe an extra half hour to do some work.
Apparently getting to Nandos, the favourite restaurant of the young, and then catching a film was more important than practicing free-kicks.
To be fair, it’s a little known fact that as soon as training was over, Xavi and Andres Iniesta wouldn’t dream of staying behind to work on their passing and instead could be found at the nearest Burger King.
Anyway, the Scotland under-17s trained and played last week. They stayed in Clydebank and, we hear, were given Wednesday off. So they all jumped on the SFA bus and went to Nandos. And then the cinema.
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Our colleague Nick Rodger is not only a world class golf writer and columnist but also something of a life guru as well.
I’d stop short to calling him some sort of God but he is getting there.
Nick found himself at Ayr United’s Somerset Park last week “Christ, it hasn’t changed” and his visit was cheered rather by what he called a ‘Boaby Pie’.
Is this thing? Has Nick’s unusual imagination run away with itself? And it is true, what is the filling made out of? Actually, we don’t need to know.
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When Ross County won the League Cup last season, it was said at the time that they would be dancing in the street of Dingwall.
It’s not Manhattan. Let’s put it that way. For some it’s the ideal way to live, for others it’s the equivalent of the bottom of Dante’s Inferno.
Ross County’s Dutch player Alex Schalk gave an interview which rather put down the town in no uncertain terms.
He said: “I phoned (former County player Marc Klok) to ask his advice. He found life here very difficult and told me ‘You’ll be bored to death’. And he is completely right.
“A group of Breda fans will come over next month to watch us against Celtic. They forgot to ask my advice. They have booked into the only hotel in Dingwall and there is absolutely nothing to do there. The place just has one pub.”
Schalk was quick to claim he had been badly misrepresented in an interview with a Dutch newspaper.
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The boat race this year is between Oxford and Cambridge who edged out Hamilton’s Bell College in the semi-final at Strathclyde Park.
“Despite winning last year, the Light Blues are virtually friendless to win this year’s race and with a biggest bet of just £28, they are being left in the wake of Oxford punters who are piling splashing the cash,” said William Hill spokesman Joe Crilly.
As one Rangers supporting acquaintance mused: “Even on the water we’re friendless with no chance of winning.”
By the way, Oxford are 2/5 with Cambridge 7/4 and the dead heat offered at 100/1.
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Joining the polis is a route many professional sportspeople take when their career comes to an end.
And so Mark Brown, formerly goalkeeper of Inverness, Motherwell, Celtic, Rangers and latterly Dumbarton, has hung up his gloves and picked up a truncheon.
It reminds the diary of Tom McKean, the accident prone but rather good 800m runner from the 1980s, who joined Glasgow’s finest after his track career had come to an end.
The worry at the time wasn't that Tom wouldn’t have the speed to catch crooks but that he would get boxed in by a couple of Kenyans which would stop him from his duties.
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When Americans aren’t voting for sociopathic morons and shooting one another, they sometimes fill in their time by watching saccer, as they call it.
Bastian Schweinsteiger, German football legend, joined MLS club Chicago Fire and at the press conference was asked whether he felt the Fire could now win the World Cup.
Derek Henkle was the reporter’s name and, fair play, he did hold his hands up for being so wrong.
“I'm truly sorry if I offended anyone," he said. "As a general assignment video reporter, I was seeking facts at a press conference. My question missed its mark, but it has allowed me to become better educated on the ins and outs of soccer.”
And hopefully what the word world means.
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