Tag Archives: football

Tradition versus Innovation.

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(Tradition)

So, Hampden Park is to remain the home of Scottish Football. Huzzah!

It’s not very often I agree with our game’s administrators and policy makers, but I do feel they have made the right choice this time. Whatever steps they next take, may however, elicit a completely different reaction. But for now, let’s give them some credit, and look on the bright side.

You see, I’m an out and out traditionalist. And if that means being regarded as a misty-eyed plonker who views sporting life through a black and white lens, then I’m afraid I’m guilty as charged, m’lud.
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Toys and Prams.

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The recent incident where Celtic fans unfurled a huge banner declaring that Dedryck Boyata was unfit to wear the shirt of Celtic Football Club, no doubt proved an embarrassing episode for all parties concerned. Certainly, from the brief highlights I watched on TV, the player looked very subdued and sheepish. I didn’t see the faces of those fans bearing the banner after their anti-hero scored the only, and winning goal of the game, but surely they must have been a picture of confusion?

That a group of fans would go to such lengths (and it was a lo-o-o-ong) banner) and expense (unless they had all roped their grannies into a week’s worth of communal needlecraft) to express their feelings, raises several points of worthy debate.
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It’s Football, But Not As We Know It.

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Time and tide wait for no man.

But, it would seem, both are understanding of the tardiness displayed by this great game of ours, Football.

While the world of sport in general has been quick to embrace the advancement of technology, Football has remained rather reticent; reluctant to change a perceived winning formula, preferring instead to adopt an ‘if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it,’ mentality.

For although there have been circa seventy changes to the laws of the game in the last fifty years (I will, perhaps, count them properly for a future article), many are simple tweaks to existing rules for the purpose of clarification, and nothing more.

Others are purely cosmetic, it would appear, instigated one could imagine, as a simple tactic to further delay the implementation of available scientific advancement. (Non-intervening, pointless and superfluous assistant referees behind the goals, for instance.)
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How Much Do You Want It?

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HOW MUCH DO YOU WANT IT?

As football fans, each and every one of us wants our club to be successful. That’s the whole point of sport, right? To win. Unless of course your name happens to be Claude ‘Lefty’ Williams, the three-game losing pitcher for the infamous Chicago White Sox (subsequently referred to as the Black Sox) in the 1919 World Series.

But what price, success? How much do you crave it?
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REVIEW: ‘The Bottom Corner: A Season with the Dreamers of Non-League Football’ – Nige Tassell

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As a follower of Non-League football myself, I found this book quite engrossing.

The format was tidy, accounting for the season and off-season on a month by month basis, and concentrating on only a couple of clubs each chapter. I would, though, have preferred to read about more teams from the middle the pyramid, my only slight criticism being that the book seems more focused on National League, and then clubs right at the bottom of the pyramid.

But that really doesn’t detract from providing a well written account of life at the Bottom Corner. of British football