We all know the rules to the senior game but do you remember the rules of Primary School playground fitba? (In other parts of the English-speaking world the game is known as football, in Australia it used to be called soccer).

Straiton Primary School. The football playing area is across the foreground. There used to be a shed at the right, with two supporting columns which acted as goalposts. Jerseys or dustbins were used at the extreme left wall.

Duration

Matches shall be played over three unequal periods: two playtimes and at lunchtime. Each of these periods shall begin shortly after the ringing of a bell, and although a bell is also rung towards the end of these periods, play may continue for up to ten minutes afterwards, depending on the nihilism or ‘bottle’ of the participants with regard to corporal punishment meted out to latecomers back to the classroom. In practice there is a sliding scale of nihilism, from those who hasten to stand in line as soon as the bell rings, known as ‘poofs’, through those who will hang on until the time they estimate it takes the teachers to down the last of their gins and journey from the staff room, known as ‘chancers’, and finally to those who will hang on until a teacher actually has to physically retrieve them, known as ‘bampots’. This sliding scale is intended to radically alter the logistics of a match in progress, often having dramatic effects on the scoreline as the number of remaining participants drops. It is important, therefore, in picking the sides, to achieve a fair balance of poofs, chancers and bampots in order that the scoreline achieved over a sustained period of play – lunchtime, for instance – is not totally nullified by a five-minute post-bell onslaught of five bampots against one. The scoreline to be carried over from the previous period of the match is in the trust of the last bampots to leave the field of play, and may be the matter of some debate. This must be resolved in one of the approved manners (see Adjudication).

Parameters

The object is to force the ball between two large, unkempt piles of jackets, in lieu of goalposts. These piles may grow or shrink throughout the match, depending on the number of participants and the prevailing weather. As the number of players increases, so shall the piles. Each jacket added to the pile by a new addition to a side should be placed on the inside, nearest the goalkeeper, thus reducing the target area. It is also important that the sleeve of one of the jackets should jut out across the goalmouth, as it will often be claimed that the ball went ‘over the post’ and it can henceforth be asserted that the outstretched sleeve denotes the innermost part of the pile and thus the inside of the post. The on-going reduction of the size of the goal is the responsibility of any respectable defence and should be undertaken conscientiously with resourcefulness and imagination. In the absence of a crossbar, the upper limit of the target area is observed as being slightly above head height, although when the height at which a ball passed between the jackets is in dispute, judgement shall lie with an arbitrary adjudicator from one of the sides. He is known as the ‘best fighter’; his decision is final and maybe enforced with physical violence if anyone wants to stretch a point.

There are no pitch markings. Instead, physical objects denote the boundaries, ranging from the most common — walls and buildings — to roads and burns. Corners and throw-ins are redundant where by-lines or touchlines are denoted by a two-storey building or a six-foot granite wall. Instead, a scrum should be instigated to decide possession. This should begin with the ball trapped between the brickwork and two opposing players, and should escalate to include as many team members as can get there before the now egg-shaped ball finally merges, drunkenly and often with a dismembered foot and shin attached. At this point, goalkeepers should look out for the player who takes possession of the escaped ball and begins bearing down on goal, as most of those involved in the scrum will be unaware that the ball is no longer amidst their feet. The goalkeeper should also try not to be distracted by the inevitable fighting that has by this point broken out. In games on large open spaces, the length of the pitch is obviously denoted by the jacket piles, but the width is a variable. In the absence of roads, water hazards or ‘a big dug’, the width is determined by how far out the attacking winger has to meander before the pursuing defender gets fed up and lets him head back towards where the rest of the players are waiting, often as far as quarter of a mile away. It is often observed that the playing area is ‘no’ a full-size pitch’. This can be invoked verbally to justify placing a wall of players eighteen inches from the ball at direct free kicks It is the formal response to ‘yards’, which the kick-taker will incant meaninglessly as he places the ball.

The Ball

There are a variety of types of ball approved for Primary School Football. I shall describe three notable examples.

1. The plastic balloon. An extremely lightweight model, used primarily in the early part of the season and seldom after that due to having burst. Identifiable by blue pentagonal panelling and the names of that year’s Premier League sides printed all over it. Advantages: low sting factor, low burst-nose probability, cheap, discourages a long-ball game. Disadvantages: over-susceptible to influence of the wind, difficult to control, almost magnetically drawn to flat school roofs whence never to return.

2. The rough-finish Mitre. Half football, half Portuguese Man o’ War. On the verge of a ban in the European Court of Human Rights, this model is not for sale to children. Used exclusively by teachers during gym classes as a kind of aversion therapy. Made from highly durable fibreglass, stuffed with neutron star and coated with dead jellyfish. Advantages: looks quite grown up, makes for high-scoring matches (keepers won’t even attempt to catch it). Disadvantages: scars or maims anything it touches.

3. The ‘Tube’. Genuine leather ball, identifiable by brown all-over colouring. Was once black and white, before ravages of games on concrete, but owners can never remember when. Adored by everybody, especially keepers. Advantages: feels good, easily controlled, makes a satisfying ‘whump’ noise when you kick it. Disadvantages: turns into medicine ball when wet, smells like a dead dog.

Offside

There is no offside, for two reasons: one, ‘it’s no’ a full-size pitch’, and two, none of the players actually know what offside is. The lack of an offside rule gives rise to a unique sub-division of strikers. These players hang around the opposing goalmouth while play carries on at the other end, awaiting a long pass forward out of defence which they can help past the keeper before running the entire length of the pitch with their arms in the air to greet utterly imaginary adulation. These are known variously as ‘moochers’, ‘glory hunters’ and ‘fly wee bastarts’. These players display a remarkable degree of self-security, seemingly happy in their own appraisals of their achievements, and caring little for their team-mates’ failure to appreciate the contribution they have made. They know that it can be for nothing other than their enviable goal tallies that they are so bitterly despised.

Adjudication

The absence of a referee means that disputes must be resolved between the opposing teams rather than decided by an arbiter. There are two accepted ways of doing this.

1. Compromise. An arrangement is devised that is found acceptable by both sides. Sway is usually given to an action that is in accordance with the spirit of competition, ensuring that the game does not turn into ‘a pure skoosh’. For example, in the event of a dispute as to whether the ball in fact crossed the line, or whether the ball has gone inside or ‘over’ the post, the attacking side may offer the ultimatum: ‘Penalty or goal.’ It is not recorded whether any side has ever opted for the latter. It is on occasions that such arrangements do not prove acceptable to both sides that the second adjudicatory method comes into play.

2. Fighting. Those up on their ancient Hellenic politics will understand that the concept we know as ‘justice’ rests in these circumstances with the hand of the strong. What the winner says, goes, and what the winner says is just, for who shall dispute him? It is by such noble philosophical principles that the supreme adjudicator, or Best Fighter, is effectively elected.

Team Selection

To ensure a fair and balanced contest, teams are selected democratically in a turns-about picking process, with either side beginning as a one-man election committee and growing from there. The initial selectors are usually the recognised two Best Players of the assembled group.

Their first selections will be the two recognised Best Fighters, to ensure a fair balance in the adjudication process, and to ensure that they don’t have their own performances impaired throughout the match by profusely bleeding noses. They will then proceed to pick team-mates in a roughly meritocratic order, selecting on grounds of skill and tactical awareness, but not forgetting that while there is a sliding scale of players’ ability, there is also a sliding scale of players’ brutality and propensities towards motiveless violence. A selecting captain might baffle a talented striker by picking the less nimble Big Jazza ahead of him and may explain, perhaps in the words of Lyndon B Johnson upon his retention of J Edgar Hoover as the head of the FBI, that he’d ‘rather have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in’.

Special consideration is also given during the selection process to the owner of the ball. It is tacitly acknowledged to be ‘his gemme’, and he must be shown a degree of politeness for fear that he takes the huff at being picked late and withdraws his favours. Another aspect of team selection that may confuse those only familiar with the game at senior level will be the choice of goalkeepers, who will inevitably be the last players to be picked. Unlike in the senior game, where the goalkeeper is often the tallest member of his team, in the playground, the goalkeeper is usually the smallest. Senior aficionados must appreciate that playground selectors have a different agenda and are looking for altogether different properties in a goalkeeper. These can be listed briefly as: compliance, poor fighting ability, meekness, fear and anything else that makes it easier for their team-mates to banish the wee bugger between the sticks while they go off in search of personal glory up the other end.

Tactics

Playground football tactics are best explained in terms of team formation. Whereas senior sides tend to choose – according to circumstance – from among a number of standard options (e.g. 4-4-2, 4-3-3, 5-3-2), the playground side is usually more rigid in sticking to the all-purpose 1-1-17 formation. This formation is a sturdy basis for the unique style of play, ball-flow and territorial give-and-take that makes the playground game such a renowned and. strategically engrossing spectacle. Just as the 5-3-2 formation is sometimes referred to in practice as ‘Cattenaccio’, the 1-1-17 formation gives rise to a style of play that is best described as ‘Nomadic’. All but perhaps four of the participants (see also Offside) migrate en masse from one area of the pitch to another, following the ball, and it is tactically vital that every last one of them remains within a ten-yard radius of it at all times.

Stoppages

Much stoppage time in the senior game is down to injured players requiring treatment on the field of play. The playground game flows freer having adopted the refereeing philosophy of ‘no Post-Mortem, no free-kick’, and play will continue around and even on top of a participant who has fallen in the course of his endeavours. However, the playground game is nonetheless subject to other interruptions, and some examples are listed below.

Ball on school roof or over school wall

The retrieval time itself is negligible in these cases. The stoppage is most prolonged by the argument to decide which player must risk life, limb or four of the belt to scale the drainpipe or negotiate the barbed wire in order to return the ball to play. Disputes usually arise between the player who actually struck the ball and any others he claims it may have struck before disappearing into forbidden territory. In the case of the Best Fighter having been adjudged responsible for such an incident, a volunteer is often required to go in his stead or the game may be abandoned, as the Best Fighter is entitled to observe that

A: ‘Ye canny make me’; or B: ‘It’s no’ ma baw anyway’.

Stray dog on pitch

An interruption of unpredictable duration. The dog does not have to make off with the ball; it merely has to run around barking loudly, snarling and occasionally drooling or foaming at the mouth. This will ensure a dramatic reduction in the number of playing staff as 27 of them simultaneously volunteer to go indoors and inform the teacher of the threat. The length of the interruption can sometimes be gauged by the breed of dog. A deranged Irish Setter could take ten minutes to tire itself of running in circles, for instance, while a Jack Russell may take up to fifteen minutes to corner and force out through the gates. An Alsatian means instant abandonment.

Bigger boys steal ball

A highly irritating interruption, the length of which is determined by the players’ experience in dealing with this sort of thing. The Intruders will seldom actually steal the ball, but will improvise their own kick-about amongst themselves, occasionally inviting the younger players to attempt to tackle them. Standing around looking bored and unimpressed usually results in a quick restart. Shows of frustration and engaging in attempts to win back the ball can prolong the stoppage indefinitely. Informing the intruders that one of the players’ older brothers is ‘Mad Chic Murphy’ or some other noted local pugilist can also ensure minimum delay.

Menopausal old bag confiscates ball

More of a threat in the street or local green kick-about than within the school walls. Sad, blue-rinsed, ill-tempered, Tory-voting cat-owner transfers her anger about the array of failures that has been her life to nine-year-olds who have committed the heinous crime of letting their ball cross her privet

Line of Death

Interruption (loss of ball) is predicted to last ‘until you learn how to play with it properly’, but instruction on how to achieve this without actually having the bloody thing is not usually forwarded. Tact is required in these circumstances, even when the return of the ball seems highly unlikely, as further irritation of woman may result in the more serious stoppage: Menopausal old bag calls police.

Celebration

Goal-scorers are entitled to a maximum run of thirty yards with their hands in the air, making crowd noises and saluting imaginary packed terraces. Congratulation by team-mates is in the measure appropriate to the importance of the goal in view of the current scoreline (for instance, making it 34-12 does not entitle the. player to drop to his knees and make the sign of the cross), and the extent of the scorer’s contribution. A fabulous solo dismantling of the defence or 25-yard* rocket shot will elicit applause and back-pats from the entire team and the more magnanimous of the opponents. However, a tap-in in the midst of a chaotic scramble will be heralded with the epithet ‘moochin wee bastart’ from the opposing defence amidst mild acknowledgment from team-mates. Applying an unnecessary final touch when a ball is already rolling into the goal will elicit a burst nose from the original striker. Kneeling down to head the ball over the line when defence and keeper are already beaten will elicit a thoroughly deserved kicking. As a footnote, however, it should be stressed that any goal scored by the Best Fighter will be met with universal acclaim, even if it falls into any of the latter three categories.

*Actually eight yards, but calculated as relative distance because ‘it’s no’ a full-size pitch’.

Penalties

At senior level, each side often has one appointed penalty-taker, who will defer to a team-mate in special circumstances, such as his requiring one more for a hat trick. The playground side has two appointed penalty-takers: the Best Player and the Best Fighter. The arrangement is simple: the Best Player takes the penalties when his side is a retrievable margin behind, and the Best Fighter at all other times. If the side is comfortably in front, the ball-owner may be invited to take a penalty. Goalkeepers are often the subject of temporary substitutions at penalties, forced to give up their position to the Best Player or Best Fighter, who recognise the kudos attached to the heroic act of saving one of these kicks, and are buggered if Wee Titch is going to steal any of it.

Close Season

This is known also as the Summer Holidays, which the players usually spend dabbling briefly in other sports: tennis for a fortnight while Wimbledon is on the telly; pitch-and-putt for four days during the Open; and cricket for about an hour and a half until they discover that it really is as boring to play as it is to watch.

Roy Hay

The death of Alfredo di Stefano at the age of 88 has robbed us of one of the greatest players the world of football has ever seen. Though a modern generation would mention Maradona, Lionel Messi, Pele as incomparable superstars, it is arguable that over his long career di Stefano exceeded all of them and his contemporaries Ferenc Puskas and Stanley Matthews.

Alfredo di Stefano won league championships in Argentina, Colombia and Spain and represented all three countries though never in a World Cup final tournament. With Real Madrid from 1956 to 1960 he won the first five European Cups (now the Champions League), a feat that is never likely to be repeated. Real won the Spanish League eight times while he was playing for them, plus the Spanish Cup and the intercontinental cup.

Earlier in his career he had helped River Plate win the Argentinian league in 1945 and 1947, then moved to Colombia to play for the well-named Millonarios leading them to the league title four times. At that time Colombia, like Australia from 1958 to 1963, had its membership of FIFA suspended for persistent breaches of the rules of the world body. So his four international appearances for Colombia are not recognised, though his six games for Argentina and 31 caps for Spain are in the official record books. He was twice European player of the year in 1957 and 1959.

I saw him play in the flesh twice. The second occasion was the European Cup final of 1960 at Hampden Park, which Les Murray and I believe is still the greatest game ever played, because it opened our eyes to level and quality of play that we had never believed to be possible. Real Madrid beat Eintracht Frankfurt seven-three in a stunning display of attacking football in which di Stefano scored a hat-trick and his partner Puskas scored four. Eintracht had beaten the cream of Scottish football, Glasgow Rangers, 12–4 over the two-leg semi-final, so they were no mugs, but that night in May 1960 at Hampden Park in front of 137,000 and probably more Scots they were simply outclassed. Di Stefano ran the game, as he often did, picking the ball up in defence from the centre-back Santamaria then loping forward, so it seemed, though he covered the ground like a gazelle, spraying passes to left and right and then being in the opposition penalty area to score or support the attack.

di Stefano scores for Real Madrid in the European Cup final in 1960

After the game the crowd did not move for roughly an hour mesmerised and almost unbelieving at what they had seen. They insisted Real return to the field to receive their acclamation before they finally departed. I came out of the ground horizontally balanced on the heads and shoulders of the tightly packed crowd. I had seen a master at work at the peak of his career.

But that was not the first occasion I saw di Stefano in action. I was only sixteen when he came to Hampden in May 1957 during the qualifying competition for the World Cup in Sweden. Spain were expecting to run all over the Scots with a forward line which included Ladislav Kubala, di Stefano, Luis Suarez and Francisco Gento. But George Young and the Scottish defence held firm and wee Jackie Mudie of Blackpool scored a hat-trick for the Scots and John Hewie converted a penalty kick, while Kubala and Suarez replied for Spain. You could not but admire di Stefano’s efforts to turn the tide but Tommy Docherty, Ian McColl and Bobby Collins conspired to keep him from dominating the match. The Spanish national side was not as attuned to his promptings as his Real Madrid colleagues. Spain and di Stefano restored Spanish pride with a four-one reversal of the outcome in Madrid a couple of weeks later, but Scotland qualified for the World Cup.

After his playing career ended he returned to Argentina to coach Boca Juniors and River Plate to league championships, then came back to Spain to take Valencia to the La Liga title. In 1982 Real summoned him back as coach but finished as runner up in five competitions during his tenure. One defeat in a final was in 1983 in the Cup Winners Cup when Aberdeen won its first European title under Alex Ferguson. On the advice of another legendary Scottish manager, Jock Stein, Ferguson presented di Stefano with a bottle of single malt before the game to give the impression that he was conceding that his side could not match Real. But they did by two goals to one in pouring rain in Norway. Di Stefano coached Real again in 1990 beating Barcelona in the Super Cup and in 2000 he became Honorary President of the club a post he held until the end.

Every one of the greats of the code who has commented on his passing has paid tribute to his skill, his status and his complete command of the game. He had a huge influence on generations of players around the world. Let Sir Bobby Charlton describe his contribution, ‘He takes the ball from the goalkeeper; he tells the full-backs what to do; wherever he is on the field he is in position to take the ball; you can see his influence on everything that is happening…I had never seen such a complete footballer’.

Coming full circle: Betting scandals then and now

Roy Hay

Betting scandals and corruption in sport are not new, nor are links between sport and organised crime. The scale and impact have increased and the widespread links between betting on sporting outcomes now promoted assiduously by sporting organisations and abetted by governments and the media must be held partly to blame for the current episode affecting Australian soccer. International security expert Chris Eaton may say that Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States are the benchmarks for good governance of gambling but it is the insidious growth of a gambling culture in these countries, as elsewhere, which is at the root of the problems. It is easy and hypocritical to blame other countries for laxity in matching organised crime with an organised response. Soft targets abound in Australia as elsewhere and as long as there is a buck to be made by rigging a betting game, whether it is two up or World Cup football, fixing will go on. This time round we may see some exemplary punishments of low-level participants, but an end to match fixing in sport is not in sight.

In my own family, the story begins in late 1925 when our local club, then managed by my grandfather, was in danger of relegation from the top division of the Scottish Football League. My grandfather had been the captain of Glasgow Celtic, Newcastle United and Scotland before the First World War and he asserted that a director of the club had attempted to bribe a referee to secure a favourable result in a match against Third Lanark. When the issue became public and went before the Council of the Scottish Football Association my grandfather was told he had no evidence to support his allegation and that he should apologise. When he refused to do so he was suspended sine die (effectively a life time ban) from the game that had been his life to that point.

The man he had accused had been the Treasurer of the Scottish Football Association for 20 years and the SFA were not prepared to have him cross-examined about the issue. The next year he was voted off the SFA executive, the first time an incumbent had lost an election in more than two decades. My grandfather’s suspension was lifted a short time later. But he refused to have anything to do with the game thereafter, apart from acting as a scout for new players for Newcastle United. The impact of his suspension continued in the family for my father won a Scottish Schoolboys Cup medal in 1926 but never pursued a football career. Two lives had been changed irrevocably. Much later, in 1954, the future head of the Scottish Legal System, Donald (later Lord) Cameron told a Glasgow Rangers player Willie Woodburn that his sine die suspension was illegal, it being beyond the powers of a private body to suspend a member indefinitely, where it was depriving him of his livelihood. If that was the case then, it would have been so in 1926.

Talent skipped my generation, but I often used to reflect that when my son played for local clubs in the Third Division of the Victorian league, the matches would appear on the British football pools. So the fate of millions of devotees of the soccer pools run by the likes of Littlewoods and Vernons could rest on results in games in which my son took part.

There were several more high profile match fixing scandals in British football over the years and last month a leading Rangers player was suspended for betting on football matches, including, it is alleged, some games in which he played and bet against his own team. The manager director of Accrington Stanley has admitted on his own website that he made over 200 bets on his own side, including 37 when he had backed them to lose. Remember Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh when playing for cricket for Australia against England in 1981 or Shane Warne and Mark Waugh and ‘John the bookmaker’ or Hanse Cronje in South Africa. Some of these may be regarded as small beer compared with the millions wagered in betting coups in Asia, where the sums generated allow for the suborning of players all round the world, particularly in lower leagues. But the principles involved are exactly the same.

Roy Hay

Quite a surprise at the amount of media coverage of the retirement of a former Ayr United player given that he hasn’t turned out for the club since 1974. Also there has been little recognition of his visits to this country as a player in 1967 and as national team manager in 1985. These episodes were significant moments in the career of a man who went on to rewrite the record books as manager of Manchester United, which has hogged the major share of the panegyrics on his retirement.

As a boy Alex Ferguson wanted to play for Glasgow Rangers and after a spell at Queen’s Park and stints at St Johnstone and Dunfermline Athletic he joined the club in 1967. That year Celtic won the European Cup, Rangers reached the final of the European Cup-Winners Cup and Leeds United won the Inter-city Fairs Cup, the three major European trophies of the time. Earlier that season Scotland had been persuaded to send its international team to Australia, a major coup for the relatively new Australian Soccer Federation. Ferguson was still at Dunfermline when the team was selected. When the time came to leave for a nine-match tour in May 1967 which took in Israel, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the clubs involved in European competitions withdrew their stars. So the Scottish Football Association downgraded the international matches to ‘B’ rather than ‘A’ status and Fergie never received a full international cap. This has always rankled with the man and he devoted much of a chapter of his autobiography to the issue. Nevertheless he scored nine goals in seven games on the tour including both Scotland’s goals at Olympic Park in a two-nil win over Australia on 3 June 1967.

When he returned to Scotland Ferguson was transferred to Rangers where he scored 25 goals in 41 games. A change of manager occurred and Fergie was transferred to Falkirk and then as his career wound down Alastair MacLeod persuaded him to join Ayr United in 1973. MacLeod kept Ayr in the top division in Scotland with brilliant man-management and a unique incentive scheme. He handled spiky characters splendidly and got the best out of a collection of players who lacked the brilliance of some previous Ayr United teams. George ‘Dandy’ Maclean and Fergie were two of his entertainers with whom he had some immortal struggles. He and Ferguson—‘a real barrack-room lawyer’, according to MacLeod—had some blazing rows, but professional respect and slightly bizarre senses of humour kept them going. Ally left Ayr to manage Aberdeen and won their first trophy for seven years then took over as manager of Scotland. He recommended Ferguson as his successor at Aberdeen. That was where Fergie began piling up the trophies which led to his appointment as manager of Manchester United.

Always willing to learn, Ferguson buried the hatchet with the SFA and became assistant manager of the Scottish team under the legendary Jock Stein of Celtic. When Stein died following at heart attack at the end of a World Cup qualifying match in Wales in 1985, Ferguson took over as national coach. Scotland faced a two-leg play-off against Australia. My father-in-law died in November 1985 and my son was already in Scotland playing with the Victorian Country Under-13 team. So I took him to Hampden Park where he tried to outshout 60,000 Scots as the home team won the first leg two-nil. Frank Arok, the Australian coach, wanted the return game played on a bumpy pitch in Darwin at mid-day, but the ASF needed the money and decided it should take place on the bowling green surface at Olympic Park in the evening.

I sent Fergie a dossier on the Australian team and I still have his thank-you letter acknowledging it, but after the game when Australia just could not score against the Scots I realised that I had to reconsider my allegiance. So Scotland, not Australia, went to the World Cup in Mexico in 1986 and we had to wait another twenty years to qualify. Meantime Fergie was appointed manager of United, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Roy Hay

Scotland took on Australia in a pre-world cup qualifier friendly match at Edinburgh’s Easter Road last night. It was a pouring wet night even before the match started and it rained incessantly throughout.

Both sides were below full strength though the Socceroos were very close to the line-up for the next series of matches against Jordan, Oman and Iraq. Scotland had young Jordan Rhodes of Huddersfield leading the attack after a stellar season in the championship in which he had knocked in 40 goals in all competitions. Gary Caldwell, formerly with Celtic and now at Wigan, captained the team and Charlie Adam of Liverpool pulled the strings in midfield.

Alex Brosque, Daniel Fox, Luke Wilkshire and Charlie Adam in action in the Scotland v Australia match at Easter Road.

Scotland started brightly enough and James Morrison’s shot was deflected for a corner, then Alan Hutton set up Andy Webster, but the Hearts man headed wide. Gradually the Socceroos settled and Robbie Kruse got to the bye line and cut the ball back as it was running out of play. Brett Holman’s shot seemed to be blocked by a Scottish hand on the goal line, but no penalty was given and the ball was finally put behind for a corner kick. The corner kick was only cleared as far as Marco Bresciano who struck the sweetest of volleys into the bottom right corner of the goal. It was a goal which required great technique and coolness and came in the 19^th minute.

Scotland keeper Alan McGregor was injured in this passage of play and replaced soon after by Matt Gilks. Another Scottish change saw Shaun Maloney take over from James Morrison. The latter move lifted the Scots and full back Daniel Fox got away down the left and his well-struck cross was headed home by Jordan Rhodes on his full international debut.

As expected the second half saw a spate of changes to both teams and with Mitch Langerak replacing Schwarzer and Scott McDonald coming on for Brett Holman who was injured just before half-time. Jason Davidson took David Carney’s place in defence but the youngster was caught facing his own goal when Daniel Fox put over another excellent cross and Davidson’s attempt to clear flew past his own keeper to put Scotland ahead in the 63 minute. The goal came after a spell of Scottish pressure and the result was deserved even if the manner was cruel. Another Scottish substitute, Leeds United striker Ross McCormack, then twisted past Neill and Ognenovski before firing wide of Langerak for Scotland’s third goal. That came after 74 minutes. Ryan McGowan of Hearts came on to replace Ognenovski but the local Hibs support gave him a rough reception, as they did for Ian Black of Rangers who replaced Scotland skipper Gary Caldwell.

Australia looked increasingly ragged as the game wore on. Scott McDonald went for glory when he had support inside. Archie Thompson got a few minutes at the end and won a free kick after he outstripped the defence. He also latched on to loose ball in the area and forced it past the keeper, but there was no one to finish the move. But it was a rare flourish in a second half dominated by the home team which deserved its victory.

Roy Hay

The games of the 30^th Olympiad begin tomorrow when Team GB women’s team kicks off against New Zealand at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff at 4 pm British Summer Time.

The UK squad will be hot favourites to win this game and set up qualification from a group which includes Brazil and Cameroon, but New Zealand, the Oceania champions, will not be overawed.

Nine of its squad of 18 play professionally in Europe and recently they beat China and almost held the United States after leading one-nil only to conced two goals in the final five minutes.

Coach Tony Readings said, ‘What we have showed this year is that, when we are on our game, we are capable of beating anyone. We are very, very confident of making the last eight. Once we do that, we are only one more win away from playing for a medal.’

Brazil should be too strong for Cameroon, though African sides, women as well as men, are capable of causing surprising upsets.

In Coventry, Japan plays Canada in what should be a tight contest, even though Japan are the world champions at senior level.

They will be followed by Sweden versus South Africa, which the Swedes should win.

In Glasgow at Hampden Park, the United States and French women kick-off the first match of the tournament in Scotland.

US coach Pia Sundhage is under pressure to see that her charges win the tournament and even took to singing to calm press nerves.

‘Have a little faith in me,’ she sang to the surprise of the media, while French coach Bruno Bini tried to tell his interrogators, ‘My dream was to play Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and San Marino, but unfortunately none of them qualified.’

France did extremely well in the recent senior world cup in Germany and might run the USA close but it would be expected that these two will qualify from a group which has two other strong teams—Colombia and North Korea.

They meet in the second game tomorrow.

A crowd of up to 40,000 may turn up for the games because that is the number of tickets distributed, but only 5,000 were sold and the rest were given away to schoolchildren and others.

When the men’s tournament begins on Thursday with a cracker between Spain and Japan a similar crowd is expected because the proportion of sales and giveaways is reversed.

I did my reconnaissance of the Hampden facilities today, reminding myself of many games seen at the stadium over the years and trying to assess how best to get to and from the venue.

The security practised on me putting me through scanners and searches but once through the force field I found an old friend in Andy Mitchell the former media head for the Scottish Football Association now carrying out the same role for the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG).

Along with a bunch of young, keen and knowledgeable volunteers he had the support services ready and a copy of his latest book which he had promised to have waiting for me on arrival.

It is a superb account of the people who conceived of and organised the very first football internationals between Scotland and England in the 1870s.

I invited him to come to Australia in 2015 when we host the Asian Championship of Nations, adding that there would be cricket, tennis and motor racing as well as football going on around that time.

I think he might bite.

Olympics only just surfacing in a wave of sport

Roy Hay

It is only two days until the football tournament kicks off the summer games of the 30^th Olympiad, even before the opening ceremony takes place, but the focus of media interest this week has been elsewhere.

Bradley Wiggins’ Tour de France win has provoked the kind of hysteria we had in Australia last year when Cadel Evans finished in the yellow jersey. It is ominous for our Olympic cyclists, for Wiggins, Chris Froome and Mark Cavendish will all be competing in the track and road program.

Sir Chris Hoy, who has been deprived of the chance to defend his Olympic sprint gold medal, has been nominated to carry the British flag at the opening ceremony, which is a kind of consolation prize.

He will compete in his other events.

Then there was the British Open golf which Adam Scott had in his grasp until he imploded over the last four holes and handed the victory to Ernie Els.

However, England’s cricket team, which humbled Australia recently in a one-day series, was hammered in turn by South Africa in the first of a three-match test series.

England started with a first innings of over 385, but Hashim Amla scored and Jacques Kallis 182, both not out to reply with 637 for two wickets. Then Dale Steyn and Imran Tahir demolished the England batting in the second dig to set up victory by an innings and twelve runs.

That at least has had the benefit of stopping a string of jokes at the expense of Australian sportsmen to the effect that they had lost the capacity to win anything.

Security at the games has been a big issue with the company which won the contract to provide it, G4S, failing to meet its obligations.

Now it has had to be supplemented by the British army and replaced by local firms at St James’s Park in Newcastle.

Mexico plays South Korea in the first game there on Thursday.

So Olympic football has hardly surfaced as yet.

The organisers, worried about poor ticket sales and half-empty stadia, withdrew half a million seats from sale and closed the upper tiers of grounds for some low-drawing matches.

In the last few days sales have picked up in Scotland and there are still 2 million places at the soccer venues across the country and it will be the best drawing series of events at the games.

The Scottish Football Association set its face against participating in the Olympics, feeling that this might threaten their separate membership of FIFA.

They also discouraged Scottish players from taking part.

Among the many examples of the small-minded approach to the administration of the game north of the border, this one did not generate as many headlines as the disaster of their approach to the Glasgow Rangers debacle.

But it was equally sad in its ineptitude.

The Olympics went on despite them and the Scots people have gradually realised that they will be able to see some excellent football in the national stadium.

Team GB men had an outing against Brazil which resulted in a two-nil defeat but they will kick off their campaign against Senegal on Thursday.

Meanwhile the women start a day earlier with double headers at Hampden Park in Glasgow, at the City of Coventry Stadium and the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff where Team GB plays New Zealand.

Hope Powell’s side drew with Sweden in their most recent warm-up game and the Kiwis come in as champions of Oceania and nothing to lose against the hosts.

I will be in Glasgow for the matches between the United States and France followed by Colombia versus North Korea, both of which should be excellent matches.

The North Koreans and the Japanese represent the Asian Confederation in the women’s tournament, while the men are Japan and South Korea.

Later this week I expect to be writing about the Olympics and way that the games have taken over the media, but not so far.

Roy Hay

Last season Motherwell finished third in the Scottish Premier League behind Celtic and Rangers and with Rangers banned from European competition the Steelmen will play in the qualifying rounds of the European Champions League later this month.

Ayr United were relegated from the First to the Second Division of the Scottish League last year.

I spoke to a friend this morning who said that Motherwell would beat Ayr in the friendly match at Somerset Park this afternoon by three goals to nil.

So look at that scoreline again.

OK, it was a pre-season friendly, but both clubs put out something close to their best starting elevens, though Ayr had a young triallist Ally Semple in goals and another in midfield, Darren Brownlie. Semple started with St Mirren but was playing with Glenafton Athletic in the Scottish juniors a year or so ago. He looked the part with a series of confident saves.

David Sinclair orchestrated things from the Ayr midfield and his team-mates resisted a spell of early Motherwell pressure.

After 19 minutes the complexion of the game changed when Ayr broke down the right and Ross Robertson, converted from central defender to striker by new manager Mark Roberts, sent a looping header over Darren Randolph in the Motherwell goal.

Ayr fans have seen this all before. An early lead, backs to the wall defence and often a late defeat.

This time however it was very different.

Christopher Humphrey tried to play a square ball across the Motherwell penalty area but the alert Michael Moffat pounced on the loose effort and ran through to put Ayr two ahead in 27 minutes.

At the interval Ayr made only one change, with another trialist Ally Brown replacing Semple in goals.

Four minutes after the break any thought of a Motherwell comeback in the second half was squashed when Ayr won a corner on the right.

Anthony Marengi fired it into the danger area and Martyn Campbell made a run from deep which was not picked up and finished through a static Motherwell defence.

Motherwell then replaced more than half the team in a mass substitution but Ayr continued to play good one-touch football.

‘Just like Barcelona’ I said optimistically at one point but then man-of-the-match David Sinclair fired a shot over the keeper from the edge of the penalty area to round out the victory for the Honest Men.

Somerset Park in the sunshine prior to the Ayr United v Motherwell match on 14 July 2012. Photo: Roy Hay.

I spent the afternoon beside David Harkness, the former Ayr United groundsman, who kept Somerset Park in immaculate condition for the best part of four decades.

David and I were at primary school together and it was a delight to get his perspective on the club and its people over the years as well as talking about old times in the village where we grew up.

He retired three years ago but is still helping keep the place in good order.

At half-time he took me down to the staff canteen where he was greeted by Lyn, the manageress, with a huge hug.

When he introduced me and I said ‘I am with him’, I got the same treatment.

A family club with a lot of good people who have survived the ups and downs over the years, for Ayr has been a yo-yo club for most of its history—one year up, and then the next one down.

Let’s hope this victory is not a false dawn.

My Dad was always wont to pour water on any early success. ‘Too soon good’ he would say, but this supporter is basking in the result for the moment at least.

A bad week for football might do some good?

Roy Hay

The game of football has taken a battering this week though it is possible that the crises which have occurred will result in improvement in future. Racial vilification incidents have been the focus of media attention in Melbourne and in England, the once mighty Glasgow Rangers will start next season in the Third Division (actually the fourth tier) of the game in Scotland and the former head of FIFA, Joao Havelange and the president of the Brazilian Federation, Ricardo Teixeira, are now said by a Swiss court to have received massive bribes from the ISL company from 1992 to 1997.

John Terry, captain of Chelsea and England, has just been acquitted of racially abusing Anton Ferdinand of Queens Park Rangers during a match last season. Terry protested his innocence throughout claiming that he simply repeated something which was thrown at him during a testy encounter in which sledging on an Australian football scale was rife. Though acquitted of the offence at law, Terry could face an investigation and sanction by the Football Association, whose independent disciplinary commission only requires a balance of probabilities rather than the legal standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt. It would seem that this is double jeopardy but the FA handed out an eight-match ban to Luis Suarez of Liverpool for abusing Patrice Evra of Manchester United. So the precedent might lead to pressure on the FA to act.

In Melbourne a match between two clubs, Sunshine Heights Western Tigers and Tullamarine City ended in a brawl among spectators which the Age claimed was sparked by racist abuse of the Sudanese players with Sunshine Heights. Many things are not clear from the report and Football Federation Victoria has been quick to point out that it has policies and procedures in place to prevent racial vilification and deal with incidents should they occur. The tailpiece to the article is a note that one person had given up playing AFL because of ‘racist comments and violence’. So the issue is not confined to soccer and occurs despite the great efforts of both AFL and FFV to combat racist abuse. If the publicity leads to more awareness of the distress caused by this type of ‘violence of the tongue’ then good may come of what has been a very unsavoury episode.

Here in Scotland, the mighty Glasgow Rangers, which was put into administration towards the end of the recent football season, will play next month in the lowest division of the Scottish league. Or rather the new company, Sevco, which owns the club will field a team at that level. The consequences for the game in Scotland are only just being worked out and there has been a clear failure of leadership at the head of the governing bodies, of which there are three. The Scottish Football Association has overall responsibility for the game and has the membership of FIFA as its charter to do so. The Scottish Premier League is a separate company which presides over the top echelon with its 12 clubs, while the rest of the senior clubs in the land are members of the Scottish Football League. The league has three divisions and the top team in the first division at the end of each season has no automatic right of promotion to the Premier League.

Now that Rangers’ successor club is in the third division the existing Sky television contract is almost certainly to be torn up or renegotiated. Some of the figures being bandied around are derisorily low, so the idea that the game itself should take charge of its own football channel has been reactivated. Scotland tried to pioneer this option many years ago but the experiment foundered when only 80 per cent of votes rather than 88 per cent were cast in its favour. A wider reconstruction of the governance of the game is called for and if it occurs it might do better than the current incumbents have done. Breaking the Celtic-Rangers duopoly might also be no bad thing.

Sepp Blatter and Joao Havelange in Australia in 1983. Photo: Les Shorrock. Les Shorrock collection, Deakin University Library.

It was always said around football that FIFA and its leadership was corrupt. Andrew Jennings detailed many of the scandals in his books and articles over the years. Now a Swiss court has provided details of the extent of the malfeasance. Havelange resigned from the International Olympic Committee just before he was due to face an ethics committee investigation into his role in the ISL scandal. Now it is likely that he and his son-in-law will escape sanction as will several other leading members of the organization. Question marks about the current president, Sepp Blatter, will remain, despite his much trumpeted plan to reform the organisation. Perhaps the sponsors and others whose good name is vital to them can do something to bring about a cleansing of these Augean stables, but I would not be holding my breath.

The future of the Old Firm and Scottish football

Roy Hay

Glasgow Rangers is an institution in Scottish football and has been since the late nineteenth century. One half of the ‘Old Firm’ of Rangers and Celtic, their rivalry has dominated the Scottish game for more than a century. Whether this is for good or ill has always been questionable and their contribution to the burning issues of sectarianism and religious bigotry provokes controversy today. However it is the recent financial dealings of Rangers under the stewardship of David Murray and his successor Craig Whyte which has brought Rangers undone. The club was put into administration when it was found that Whyte had not paid monies due to the Inland Revenue in the United Kingdom, but this was only the trigger for a series of financial scandals dating back many years to be revealed. Not only that but criminal investigations have been launched into the actions of the various people involved.

Now the club has been sold by the administrators to a new company presided over by Charles Green, an English businessman connected with Sheffield United, and it is applying to play in the Scottish Premier League in the new season beginning next month. The Scottish Football Association, the body responsible for the game in this country, is on the sidelines awaiting the decision of the clubs in the Premier League. The League agreed recently that membership issues should be decided by a vote of all the clubs participating in the league and this is planned to take place later today. Most of the clubs have already indicated that they will vote against the readmission of Rangers, though Celtic, Kilmarnock and a couple of others have not announced their position publically.

While there are likely to be contractual issues relating to the televising of matches if Rangers is not part of the Premier League, the majority of the clubs are arguing that Rangers should not be admitted. In that case, Rangers would probably seek to be included in the First Division of the Scottish League, the division below the Premier League but a separate competition. Here too there are problems as any new club applying to join the Scottish League must begin at the bottom in Division Three. So there is a very real possibility that Rangers could be playing against Annan Athletic, East Stirling and Stranraer in season 2012-13.

Rangers have already been excluded from European competition and there is ban on their signing new players, while many of the existing players took a pay cut to help the club fight the collapse into administration. Their understanding is that if the club was wound up they would be free to leave with no transfer fees involved. Striker Kyle Lafferty, for example, has already exercised this option and signed for Sion in Switzerland and most of last season’s first team squad have also indicated they will leave or have already done so. Rangers’ manager Ally McCoist is caught up in the imbroglio and though he has said he is staying relations with Charles Green are strained.

Since the Green takeover a number of high profile individuals in the game have been making noises about buying the club but so far none of these have got to the stage of credible offers and Green is understandably annoyed that they are exploiting concerns about his standing. Meanwhile the new season is fast approaching and unless decisions are made soon the whole of the professional game in Scotland will be in turmoil. There is an argument that only cleansing on the grand scale and the end of the Rangers-Celtic duopoly would give a chance for the game to be reconstructed from the grass-roots upwards. But given that attendances at games outside the Old Firm are in the low thousands and in most cases in the Second and Third Divisions in the hundreds it is not clear that this is  realistic prospect.

It is above all very sad that the country which did more than any other to foster the modern game has reached such depths.