The World Cup

It's not long now until the greatest show on earth gets underway. Even though my beloved Scotland didn't qualify I'm still getting hyped up for it. A big part of why I'm looking forward to it this year is, my 8 year old son has become football daft over the last few months. This'll be the first World Cup that he will be taking an interest in. He will be cheering on England with gusto. He and his mates are all Frank Lampard fans. They love him. Beckham and Owen hardly get a mention.

This took me back to the first World Cup that I can remember. Argentina 1978. Ally's Tartan Army. I'm halfway through a cracking book. 78 How a nation lost the World Cup. By Graham McColl. The nation in question being Scotland. It's interesting reading about the background to the stories that were so big on the day and in most cases blown totally out of proportion. That would never happen these days. Would it? For example when Willie Johnston was sent home in disgrace because of his drug scandal, It was reported as if he had been pumping steroids into himself and using every performance enhancing drug he could find. In reality he had taken a tablet no more performance enhancing than Paracetemol. The tablets were actually given out to all the players at his club West Brom as a matter of course.
The other thing that struck me was the total ineptitude throughout the ages of the Scottish Football Association. (SFA) The petty bureaucrats that run the game. These were the ones who refused to go to a world cup because they hadn't finished first in the home international tournament. How arrogant is that? No thought for the players who could have taken part in the best tournament in the world and possibly achieved something. They also sent Scotland to one tournament with only 13 players. They hadn't expected to qualify and by the time they did they had had their final meeting of the year. They couldn't authorise increasing the squad without going through the proper process and refused to convene an additional meeting to sort it out. Is it any wonder that people make jokes at Scotlands expense when it comes to the World Cup. What do you call a Scotsman in the second round of the World Cup? A ref!!
The modern SFA are no different. My own club Hamilton Accies had a strike for one game a few years back. The SFA, much to the disgust of everyone with the exception of Queen of the South fans, docked the club 15 points. Enough to relegate them from a comfortable mid table position. I wont mention the name of the club who should have relegated but were spared. (I've left a clue above) If that had been one of the big clubs they would never have dreamt of doing something like that.
Ah well back to the book. We've just lost 3-1 to Peru and drawn 1-1 Iran(Thanks to their own goal) I'm looking forward to reading about the Holland game.
I can't wait until the next time Scotland qualifies for a World Cup. I reckon we'll probably win it!!