Emotionally Bankrupted by Scotland

It might just be me. I have thought about it a few times since Saturday afternoon and through a haze of intoxication I decided that I just couldn’t emotionally invest as much in the Scotland team anymore.




Now admittedly I wasn’t at my most sober on Saturday, nor, as few shall attest to, was I my usual passionate (feel free to refute that adjective) self. But upon watching Scotland once again be done by back luck and glorious in failure, I failed to see anything glorious about snatching defect from the jaws of victory. The draw felt every bit as bad and tasted every bit as bitter and insipid as defeat.



For as long as I can remember Scotland have been shite at football. We’re famous for it. We used to get away with it to, getting to tournaments and then getting found out, but nowadays folk a bit more switched on globally and we’re now getting exposed for how truly bad we are.



But here is the interesting thing, how does one measure relative or absolute quality of football? Is it games won? Passes completed? Tournaments reached? Silverware won? I am at a loss as to how to quantify this. Short of having the Scotland teams from each era playing each other on a top class modern football pitch with the best of equipment used to ensure fairness there can be no other way to measure how good/shite we have become.



Well quite frankly that is not good enough in my eyes. Football, as a commodity, deserves to be measured and what is more the stats have to be corrected for various factors such as high tech balls, modern boots, better pitches, etc. This measurement once corrected and agreed upon has to become part of an evolving system allowing everyone to see how their team is progressing.



The bottom line is I am sick fed up of the guys who play for us getting paid lots of money and failing; I would like to know, empirically, why these lads are failing and as such how best to get behind them.



I am a passionate Scot, I love my team and I look forward to those great events when the country cheers as one, but what I hate is the ethereal mysticism surrounding our future plans. Hot air hangs over every press conference and association event, people speak grandly, promising to deliver the Earth but in reality not being able to deliver pizza.



Perhaps going forward, so my children do not have to just accept the yoke of “yer team is shite, get on with it” and plough that depressing furrow, perhaps just for once someone can figure out a way to gauge our progress, good or bad and chart this going forward to see whether or not we are improving and indeed whether or not the current lads in those oh so hot seats are making the right choices.



If the promise of capitalism is increased democracy for the consumer, and football is there to be consumed as a delicious commodity, then the perhaps it is time to unleash a tool, a metric, a shit encrusted yard stick to give the emotionally bankrupt supporter like myself something to wave around and help me to get onboard and truly support forthcoming changes, policies and what-not required to improve our game.



Currently we are fumbling around in the dark, paying out loads of cash for what can be a mixed bag in return. Perhaps it is time we stopped relying on the opinions of journalists that happen to align with whatever mood we are in and get straight down to the not so sexy business of publishing something, devoid of bias to tell us where we truly are. It isn’t enough for support to be well intentioned and we need to be better informed and better advised to become better supporters.





I wish we could lead the world, if at least not on the pitch then off it. Then, maybe then, I can emotionally budget with one less loss looming on the intoxicated horizon.