Cup fever

This might seem a little premature, given that our cup date with Threave is still ten days away, but the draw for the Second Round of the Scottish Cup (or the 'Homecoming Cup' as it's now called) caught my attention. In focusing on the Cup, of course, my main objective is to avoid dwelling too long on the current predicament of the national side. Yet the temptation to give a brief summary of my views on that matter is, nevertheless, difficult to resist. Recent press coverage has, as usual, been overly pessimistic: in reality, finishing second in the group should hardly be rocket science, even after a draw with Norway. The real worry at the moment, though, is Kris Boyd's international 'retirement.' As Scotland supporters, we have to support the manager on this: Boyd's refusal to play under George Burley is out of order, and George was right to vent his frustration. Yet in spite of this, I have a certain degree of sympathy for Boyd: he is without doubt one of the best strikers around, and the decision to omit him from the side was unfathomable. I remain confident, though, that our World Cup campaign will get back on track, with or without Boyd, and with or without his potential replacement Chris Iwelumo. The latter has (at present) dubious credentials in international football, and a name which is (nearly) an anagram of 'I'm a wally.' Still, hopefully he'll come good - all those goals he's scoring for Wolves must count for something...

Anyway, returning to the Scottish Cup, the primary focus of my musings isn't our chance for revenge against the Castle Douglas outfit, but the tie which, when the draw was made, read as follows:

'Annan Athletic v Pollok or Spartans'

For anyone with an interest in non-league football, this tie has it all. The most recent graduates of the non-league system, our SFL Third Division rivals Annan Athletic, were to be paired with either Spartans - their erstwhile rivals for that coveted place in the league, champions of the East of Scotland League in which Annan competed last season, and thus probably the strongest side in the senior non-league pyramid, or Pollok - widely recognised as the 'giants' of the junior setup. When Spartans defeated Pollok after a replay, I, for one, was pleased. Whilst some supporters of top junior clubs like Pollok tend to assume that they could hold their own in the SFL, the senior non-league setup (e.g. the East of Scotland League) is often overlooked. Whilst junior sides periodically enjoy a reasonable profile in the national media, the same cannot be said for the likes of Spartans. I am, though, delighted that junior sides now have the opportunity to compete in the Scottish Cup, if only because it allows the myth of their supposed superiority to be debunked.

Spartans' forthcoming clash with Annan is no less 'politically interesting' than their first-round tie, and once again I find myself on Spartans' side. Put simply, I have a great degree of sympathy with the Edinburgh outfit after their failure to gain election to the SFL during the summer. Very few clubs can match their commitment to youth and community football, and I believe that admitting them to the League would not only have been a worthwhile experiment, but ultimately also a successful one. (Besides, the club which produced Kevin Motion surely deserves some reward!) That is not to say that I have anything against the Annan club - I thoroughly enjoyed our encounter with them in August, and they made us most welcome, quite unlike Gretna, their predecessors in the SFL. If we manage to get past Threave, alas, what I'd like most of all is a trip to Spartans in the third round!

Reffin' hell

Quarter 1 complete and we are unbeaten. Happy days, but it could have been so much better. Having taken the lead against Forfar we seemed to be, not quite cruising, but certainly drifting towards another 3 points. Forfar had enough possession but like most teams we have played against they struggled to create too many clear cut chances, and when they did, there was usually a defender in the way, literally, to prevent an equalizing goal. Until the whistler got in the way that is. To be honest, I normally can’t get too worked up about what is perceived as poor officiating. Mainly because I’m not sure I could do any better, and if there were no ref’s then we wouldn’t have a game at all. And given that we are at the arse end of Scottish Football, we can’t really expect to have the Collina’s, or Dougal’s, of the refereeing fraternity officiating at our matches. The players aren’t the best so why should they expect the top refs? So it is really a case of like it or lump it. The guy on Saturday seemed particularly “Green behind the ears” – the amount of flak from McLeish, Mathie and Brady that he seemed prepared to accept was cringeworthy – but the fact is that hopefully, anyway, the guy will learn from it. However, despite this relatively pragmatic view, on Saturday Mr Watters managed to make my blood boil. Personally, while I might get worked up about decisions for and against, my general view is that over the course of the season the (bad) decisions will even themselves out. The match against Forfar was an illustration in point. Both teams had what appeared to be stonewall penalty decisions turned down (although the Forfar incident was the direct result of a crude challenge on Jordan Smith) Nevertheless, you take the rough with the smooth. Even the so called foul that lead to the equalizer was “soft”, but you could understand (maybe) why the ref gave it. But for me, what was unforgiveable was the amount of time added on at the end. Surely this was pure incompetence. In a match without incident or major delay why on earth did the ref add so much time? No matter how inexperienced the official is, surely he can tell the time? I came away from the match feeling as though we had lost, where in fact we had maintained our lead at the top and our unbeaten record.

Autumn falls...

The last couple of weeks have seen a dramatic fall in temperature as we head into October, but this has been offset by a dramatic increase in our lead at the top of the table. After our recent victories over the Shire, Berwick and Albion Rovers there is now a five-point gap between ourselves and our nearest challengers. My last few weekends have been spent househunting in London, but thanks to the ever-efficient service of ShireTV I have at least seen a few minutes of the Warriors in action: the highlights of our derby victory were undeniably pleasing on the eye, and the same high standards have, by all accounts, been maintained in subsequent matches. In the midst of all this, Kevin Motion seems to have been doing especially well in recent weeks, both individually and as a valued team player. Against the Shire, for example, he scored both goals, but was also involved in a lovely move which created an opening for Alan Brazil. Another great source of strength in our current line-up is, of course, our central defence. Jordan Smith had an excellent start to the season prior to his injury, and I have heard nothing but praise for the performance of Gary Thom, who stood in for him against Albion Rovers. John Ovenstone, meanwhile, has excelled himself not only by having a bizarre nickname (Zanussi Washing Machine or something?), but by providing ShireTV with it's most amusing piece of footage yet. Their attempt to 'prove' that John had handled the ball on our goal line consisted of: (a) having the *impartial* commentator insist as much, and persist in doing so; (b) having a sufficiently bad camera angle that no viewer could possibly dare to disagree. Forgive me if I prefer to trust the referee on this occasion. In general, though, the basis for our good form has been teamwork. Once again, the Shire game is a good example. Players from all positions made valuable contributions to attacking moves: from the midfield, Brand fashioned a decent chance for himself through sheer perseverance, whilst Thomson's through ball for Motion's second goal was a joy to behold. Even the defenders play their part: both Ovenstone's long throws and Lyle's crosses have added spice to our attack this season. As I write this, we're 25 minutes into our game against Forfar and the scores are tied at 0-0. Despite Sky Sports' mistaken belief that we've got someone called Craig Rankin in goals, I see no reason why we won't be celebrating again come 4:45.

BOGOF

This season’s kit is produced by multinational Adidas, the same people who produce the Liverpool strip amongst others. There the similarities end. I presume that the deal Stenhousemuir have struck for the provision for our 2008/09 strip is not quite as lucrative as the one the Reds negotiated. Which got me thinking. Where is the cut off? At what point do the leading football strip manufacturers stop approaching clubs to become their exclusive leisure wear provider? I presume, but perhaps with a misplaced sense of importance, that all the SPL clubs are an attractive proposition to the likes of Adidas, but where is the cut off? And when you hit that point, I guess the clubs have to pay the kit manufacturer to supply the kit, in much the same way as the local boys U10 team do. I suppose the one difference will be that there will be some sort of deal to be struck regarding who keeps the cash from replica strip sales, but otherwise I presume it is pretty straightforward for Stenhousemuir, as it is for most other football teams i.e. two sets of strips, one home, one away, a few tracksuits = £2,000 or £3,000 I presume. But does it need to be that way? I recall from the dim and distant past that the French Division 1 clubs struck a deal with a kit manufacturer (Adidas I think) to produce the strips for every club in the league. It meant that each team had the same design of strip but it also meant that the league was able to negotiate a deal for each of the clubs which meant that they paid £2,000, minus a little bit. Not quite “Buy One Get One Free” but every little helps, as they say. Could the Scottish Football League do something similar? If not why not? Why can’t the SFL negotiate a deal for all clubs which would result in some sort of bulk buy discount. Hey, they could even throw in the referees strips for free. I guess it needn’t stop at strips. There must be all sorts of expenses clubs incur where if they got together surely their collective bargaining power would net some sort of saving – insurance, goals posts, balls, pies. If having the SFL operating on behalf of its member clubs (a ludicrous thought, I know) doesn’t happen, then why not have Stenhousemuir and The Shire, or Berwick, or any other club for that matter getting together and sharing costs? On the pitch, Stenny continue to set the pace. The league is so open that everyone else is cutting one anothers throats. Every week when we win it seems that we add another point to the gap between ourselves and the chasing pack. While we keep winning of course. Saturday brings Forfar to Ochilview who by all accounts are a bit of an enigma. Their home record is bad and their away record is good. An away record that includes a victory against our tenants earlier in the season. If we avoid defeat then we will have played everyone once and avoided defeat. A fantastic base upon which to build a promotion challenge.