Scotland Football Team.

[John Donnelly]

With pain in my heart, I have to admit that I have not been interested in the Scots national team in a long, long time.
I can't wait till we get independence and the Scots will pull on a real Scottish dark blue jersey instead of one representing a region of the UK.

JD.

[creamolafoam]

With pain in my heart, I have to admit that I have not been interested in the Scots national team in a long, long time.
I can't wait till we get independence and the Scots will pull on a real Scottish dark blue jersey instead of one representing a region of the UK.

JD.

Aye, we will play like world champions if we were independent

[bonzo]

We'll find out soon enough

[John Donnelly]

With pain in my heart, I have to admit that I have not been interested in the Scots national team in a long, long time.
I can't wait till we get independence and the Scots will pull on a real Scottish dark blue jersey instead of one representing a region of the UK.

JD.

Aye, we will play like world champions if we were independent

Well Creamolafoam,

I appreciate your cynisism, I know how you feel. My remark was tongue-in-cheek.
BUT, other small countries can be very successful;
Holland, population 17.28 mill.; - 3 x Scotland
Belgium, 11.43 mill. - 2 x
Northern Ireland, 1.88 mil.l !!! - 0.4 x
Scotland 5.25 mill.

How come they can do it? What's the matter with us?
You can't argue that we're not a football-mad country.
I've argued before a good few times, that here in Holland and in Belgium, there is a huge youth football organisation.
Since the demise of Junior football in Scotland we don't have a pool of youngsters coming through.

Moan Scotland. The double entendre was intentional.

JD.

[meekan]

[/quote]


Since the demise of Junior football in Scotland we don't have a pool of youngsters coming through

JD.
[/quote]

I’m not sure what you mean by Junior football’s demise.
“Junior football” ie Ardrossan Winton Rovers etc as far as I can see is fairly healthy though attendances are down. If you mean youth football, Laidykes playing fields Saturday and Sunday are busy with school age kids and with youth teams playing matches. Winton Rovers have Six or seven different age group teams playing matches under their umbrella.
Problem as I see it is nobody plays just to have fun anymore, just having an impromptu kick about in their own street. You need to be part of a team, and the team has to pay to use a pitch. Green spaces scattered around not official sport areas, usually have signs saying “No Ball Games”
Tennis balls against a wall is no longer a game played these days.
Playing for a team, the kids get all their natural skills subdued to conform to team tactics. The parents attend these “matches” and tend to be less than encouraging to skill-full youngsters.

[John Donnelly]

Angus, hi.

I stand corrected, - a wee bit.
I'm away from Scotland for 40-odd years, so I'm more than a wee bit out of touch.
I'm glad to hear that the Winton is alive and well, but Junior football is not a scrap of what it used to be like.
Me and my pals learned out football skills as tanner-ba' players, in the playground every free time we got.
Your point about the natural skills being subdued hits all my buttons. This is really what I was trying to get at when I said there were no youngsters coming through.
All these football academies are not worth a damn in my opinion.
Let the youth grow up with a ball at their feet and you'll soon see who's going to be worth something in later life.
Sorry, this is an old soap box of mine.

JD.

[meekan]

John I Totally agree with you

[Meg]

Stretching the ‘on topic’ a wee bit here, but it all feeds through to the Scotland team eventually - I was helping at a primary school football match at a south Ayrshire school a year or so back and we had to get the police to control the visiting team’s fathers who, not only were on the pitch screaming at the referee but physically threatening the ten year olds playing against their snowflake weans. That was enough for me - I didn’t volunteer again.

Sad really...

[bonzo]

It's definitely the way of it now, something that has stuck in my mind for the past few years is we were in alicante for Spain v Scotland and walking to the match there was loads and loads of football pitches and every one was crammed with weans playing football. This was at 8PM on a Saturday night, couldn't help thinking that kids that age at home would be on the beer.

[brian f]

With pain in my heart, I have to admit that I have not been interested in the Scots national team in a long, long time.
I can't wait till we get independence and the Scots will pull on a real Scottish dark blue jersey instead of one representing a region of the UK.

JD.

Aye, we will play like world champions if we were independent

Well Creamolafoam,

I appreciate your cynisism, I know how you feel. My remark was tongue-in-cheek.
BUT, other small countries can be very successful;
Holland, population 17.28 mill.; - 3 x Scotland
Belgium, 11.43 mill. - 2 x
Northern Ireland, 1.88 mil.l !!! - 0.4 x
Scotland 5.25 mill.

How come they can do it? What's the matter with us?
You can't argue that we're not a football-mad country.
I've argued before a good few times, that here in Holland and in Belgium, there is a huge youth football organisation.
Since the demise of Junior football in Scotland we don't have a pool of youngsters coming through.

Moan Scotland. The double entendre was intentional.

JD.

I get what you're saying, J.D.

3 Previous winners of the UEFA European Championship within the last 30 years are....

Denmark, 1992, population 5.77
Greece, 2004, population 10.77
Portugal, 2016, population 10.28
Keep taking the statins and one day you will see the bonny Triumph.
Holland is some team, improving rapidly ...

[creamolafoam]

Turkey 82 mill, football fanatics, only qualified for two world cups & have been poor at international level. Poland 40 mill, done very little either. There is always a flip side.
Scotland national team has been on the decline for yrs & the blame is firmly on the sfa.
Run by amateurs

[bonzo]

Yes the most of the blame is with the SFA but the surely the clubs that insist buying second class players from other countries instead of bringing through players from their academies should shoulder some of the blame as well?