Joe Baker, Hargreaves, Fraser, playing to the galleries

Neil Lennon’s suggestion that fostering Fraser Forster from a lower-league loaner to an England international is “one of the best things [he’s] been involved with as a manager” is difficult to dispute, despite his various trophies and Champions League exploits.

Owen Hargreaves earned an England cap before he made an appearance in either of England’s top two divisions, although he was playing with European champions, Bayern Munich at the time.  Hargreaves and Lanarkshire’s Joe Baker are the only two to have been capped for England without playing in any of the country’s four leagues.  I’ve no idea if there are any others to have earned a cap without having played in the top two division but there must be precious few.

In short, Fraser’s appearance between the sticks on Friday was exceptional.  We can now help fulfil the international ambitions of English players, just as long as we continue to compete in the Champions League.

Playing to the galleries

There’s a great line in the movie, Wall St, when Martin Sheen says, “If you live long enough you get to see everything”.  Today we got to see the incredible sight of Craig Whyte’s former PR, who represented him before and during his Outstanding Contribution to Scotland, who in fact, represented him well before this, when Whyte was stalking STV as they teetered on the brink of oblivion, use Twitter to turn on another member of the Whyte coterie, for being a part of the Whyte coterie.

It reads like playing to the gallery, which the Daily Record, is a particularly useful punch bag for.  No one cares what you say about the Daily Record, so exploit a common enemy and pile on.  Tub thumping like this is embarrassing.

Puppet master

It will be interesting to see if the Record investigate who first suggested Whyte turned his attention to Rangers, after his STV ambitions ended….
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