After some horse-trading towards the end of last week, involving a reluctant Spartak Moscow, a huge step was taken on Monday towards establishing a Unified Football Championship across former-Soviet countries. 14 Russian clubs met a representative club from the Ukrainian league in Moscow, with Ukrainian clubs now due a corresponding meeting.
The event was hosted by Gazprom deputy chairman, Alexei Miller, an ally of Vladimir Putin, who afterwards briefed Russian media and indicated Uefa were aware of their plans.
Miller said, “We think it is realistic to hold the championship from the autumn of 2014 to the spring of 2015, but if the time to reach agreements drags on, we plan to hold the championship from autumn 2015 to spring 2016.
“Since a championship like this is a complicated diplomatic matter, we have decided to initiate the championship initially with Ukraine only.
“In the future, if everything works out, we will be able to co-opt clubs from the other countries in the post-Soviet territories, but that’s the next step. All former-Soviet countries would be eligible to join.”
Show me the money
Gazprom sponsor the Uefa Champions League and are keen to sponsor the new league. Miller was clear that money would drive the change, promising annual sponsorship of €1 billion, which in world football is (a close) second only to the value of the next FA Premier League TV contract.
Uefa Financial Fair Play requirements make change, of some sort, inevitable in Russia and Ukraine. Leading clubs there are heavily subsidised by benefactors and, unless they manage to considerably improve their income, they will have to either get rid of all their expensive players, or forgo European competition.
As things stand, the sums don’t add up but money from a Unified Football Championship would allow clubs in Russia and Ukraine to meet Uefa Financial Fair Play requirements and compete with major leagues in the west. Gazprom have the seed cash and political influence, both domestically and at Uefa, to oil the wheels.
In 2005 Uefa sanctioned the Royal League in Scandinavia between the top four clubs from Denmark, Sweden and Norway, but the initiative was poorly organised and perished three years later due to a lack of a TV deal.
After this experiment several clubs across Europe started lobbying to extend the strategy to other leagues which were disenfranchised by a lack of competition or TV income. The principle was further confirmed by Michel Platini and the Uefa Executive Committee in March last year, when they approved a three year probationary period for the BeNe League, which combined top women’s teams from Belgium and the Netherlands, the first season of which is now underway.
The Committee stated at the time that, subject to a satisfactory outcome of the BeNe experiment, other cross-border leagues would be considered by the Executive Committee if all stakeholders (national associations, leagues and clubs) came to agreement on a way forward.
The former-Soviet countries are now motivated to regionalise. The Scandinavians have understood the potential of regionalisation for years but didn’t get it right (they retained national leagues which determined European qualification, the Royal League was effectively a friendly competition). The Belgians and Dutch have a pan-national league already underway, while the former-Yugoslav countries have discussed implementing the same for a couple of years now.
Wales and England have the longest-established regionalised league system in the world.
Meanwhile…………. at a national stadium near you, the only change on the agenda is whether to have three lower leagues or two.
Scottish football is fully aware the viability of many clubs is at a critical level, but have singularly failed to present the vision evident elsewhere in Europe. Whatever world-class technical, stadium and coaching resources we have is being squandered by unambitious leadership.
Months into deliberations Scottish football is only addressing how to slice up an ever-smaller pie. The enormous increase in income possible from regionalisation to SPL clubs, and what trickles-down to the lower leagues, dos not seem to have registered.
Hard cash can focus minds..
Spartak Moscow owner, Leonid Fedun, was highly critical of plans for the new league and insisted he would not attend Monday’s meeting but after doing so he said, “When I heard the budget per year was €1 billion I changed my mind and decided to attend. You can’t miss a chance to be the part of that game.”
Football across Europe is set for change, a fact a great deal of the UK media seem to have missed.
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Memo to Ian Livingstone – CEO of the BT Group and a director of Celtic PLC since 2007.
Your company have entered the race to show live EPL matches paying, I believe, almost £800 million for the privilege.
Is there any chance that you could use your influence, and undoubted business clout, to facilitate Celtic’s move to a more lucrative, and competitive, cross-border regional league?
One, possibly, sponsored at least in part by the company of whom you are CEO?
HH!!
Millions of Russians lead lives of squalor and degradation so these people can play their games.
Hurling is experiencing a surge in popularity the world over. Hurling eschews such sponsors and values.
The Celtic board have no such qualms about taking the oligarchs’ money.
Neither do many footballers.
I do.
Tallybhoy.
How does that sponsorship sit with the ffp rules?
Tallybhoy – Ian Livingston is the BT chief exec.
Ian Livingstone is the guy that set up the Games Workshop retail chain, where chubby guys with ponytails and 12-sided dice go to ensure they never pass on their genes.
The more you know… (thumbsup)
Ntassoolla – See you on HurlingQuickNews. (thumbsup)
Strathclyde Police said a man, 24, two 16-year-old boys and an 18-year-old woman were arrested in Glasgow today following an investigation into an incident at Ibrox stadium on December 18 last year.
It is said to have happened during a Scottish Third Division fixture when Rangers beat visitors Annan Athletic 3-0.
From The Herald
Lurcy
The problem that I have with the combined regional models is that I cant get my head round how it would actually work.
If you just amalgamate leagues then that seems to be a clear enough solution – a bit like Cardiff and Swansea playing in the Anglo/Welsh league system – is that what is being proposed?
I could also see how a closed-shop franchise system would work with no promotion or relegation – a bit like American football – is that the proposal?
What I can’t see working is some conglomerate regional Super League fed by promotion/relegation to and from national leagues – how would you decide who gets promoted and relegated based purely on merit rather than geography?
Any clarifications or suggestions would be welcome…
SuperSutton
Have always said that zonal marking is no worse than man to man marking but you can rest assured that the next time Celtic concede from a corner, there will be cries about how poor zonal marking is.
Mort
Paul67
It’s all about Leadership
We have guys who know how but don’t seem to want to
It’s all very well adopting and implementing a previously tried and tested formula ( a la Ajax, Lyon & Porto) and to be fair it is working rather well
But
The really complex visionary and strategic thinking seems beyond our current leaders-they have the talent -but perhaps just lack the necessary energy & motivation
Meanwhile we are consigned to watching games against teams no better than Conference s
The Honest mistake…
Ffp rules?
A joke.
UEFA are bent and Platini is a crook.
Platini voted for Qatar in the 2020 World Cup vote.
Shortly thereafter the Qataris bought PSG, and proceeded to pour hundreds of millions into the club.
Coincidence?
philvis
So Ian Livingstone might not be the man to help us then?
I had always suspected that.
HH!!
philvisreturns
12:43 on 20 February, 2013
Gordon_J – Horse trading in football? Bloody horses get everywhere these days
Mostly it’s donkey trading in football.
I understand Sloth-from-The-Goonies lookalike Filip Sebo is currently available on a free. (thumbsup)
————————————————
Surely magnificent investment for any club looking to train their ball boys in retrieving the said object from the upper tiers of stands and corner flags?
SuperSutton,
Interesting Stats.
Any idea what the stats are for goals scored from corners not taken by KC?
curly
13:15 on 20 February, 2013
Strathclyde Police said a man, 24, two 16-year-old boys and an 18-year-old woman were arrested in Glasgow today following an investigation into an incident at Ibrox stadium on December 18 last year.
It is said to have happened during a Scottish Third Division fixture when Rangers beat visitors Annan Athletic 3-0.
From The Herald
Lurcy
—————————————
Does it say whether it was Annan fans or Chelsea lads up for the weekend?
Forces driving idea of ‘Superleague’ wield considerable power
Gabriele Marcotti
Published at 12:01AM, February 18 2013
Periodically, someone in Scotland or the Netherlands ruffles feathers by dusting off Atlantic League proposals.
Versions of the idea vary, but fundamentally it is about taking the top sides from four or five small-to-medium nations and having them compete in a transnational league, presumably with promotion and relegation back to their own countries. I think it is a great concept and necessary to achieve the critical mass to enable these clubs to compete with Europe’s five biggest leagues who, by an accident of geography, have a huge inherent advantage.
Uefa, of course, officially balks at the notion, but what is interesting is that there is a growing push for something similar coming from the opposite end of Europe, and there are some heavy hitters behind it.
Russian clubs such as Zenit St Petersburg, Rubin Kazan, Anzhi Makhachkala and CSKA Moscow have discussed the creation of a regional “Superleague” to include top clubs from former Soviet Republics, such as Shakhtar Donetsk and Dynamo Kiev, of Ukraine, BATE Borisov, of Belarus, and perhaps a few other nations who want to participate.
The blueprint, in part, comes from the successful Kontinental Hockey League. Founded in 2008, the KHL features 26 teams from seven nations and, in its sport, is widely regarded as second only to North America’s National Hockey League.
As with the Atlantic League, the rationale is not hard to understand.
You raise the level of competition, you increase the size of the market — thereby making it more attractive to sponsors — and you put yourself in a position to compete with the traditional big leagues.
Compared with the Atlantic League, there are pluses and minuses. On the plus side, most of these clubs were playing each other 20 or so years ago, so there is a historical basis there (though one which, you might think, for obvious reasons some might rather forget). On the minus side, unless you’re a minor oligarch with access to your own private aircraft, following your team will be tough.
Yevgeni Giner, chairman of CSKA Moscow, may have jumped the gun somewhat when, last month, he was quoted as saying that Uefa “has said it will allow the unification of championships”. That’s news to me and to Uefa as well. What they have done is allow the Netherlands and Belgium to merge the top tiers of their women’s league, but only on an experimental basis for three years.
Yet, at the risk of giving conspiracy theorists more ammunition, you cannot ignore the original source of the former-Soviet Superleague proposal. Aleksey Miller is the chief executive of Gazprom, the company that owns Zenit St Petersburg, the folks who shelled out £80 million plus on Hulk and Axel Witsel last summer.
Gazprom also happens to be one of the world’s largest companies and a big sponsor of both the Champions League and Europa League. There is more, of course. Sepp Blatter is on the record as being an opponent of transnational leagues. But hey, guess who is hosting the 2018 World Cup? Russia. It is not hard to see how that might make for a tasty bargaining chip.
Make no mistake, the links between Gazprom, Miller and the folks running Russia are pretty strong. When Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, worked in the St Petersburg’s mayor’s office promoting foreign investment, Miller was part of his team. Guess who was chairman of Gazprom for eight years, until 2008? That’s right, Dmitry Medvedev, now Prime Minister of Russia.
What all this suggests is that, if they want to go through with this, Fifa and Uefa will have a fight on their hands to stop them.
A former-Soviet Superleague would be no tragedy. But the real threat will come with the enforcement of Financial Fair Play and whether Uefa can apply its own rules when dealing with folks used to getting their own way. Especially when they are footing part of the bill for Uefa’s top two club competitions.
“Combined Regional Models”
Is that where you get to comp the best bits of ladies from all over the country and bring them together into one SupperStunna??
Is there an App for that?
Surely has to beat a can of Tennent’s…
Follow the money
Now where have i heard that before?
When will people realise what is truly killing football is the insane quest to buy success and the desire to bed anyone to get it. Basically its a sham but a sham that everyone including us wants to take part in.
Very sad
Ntassoola
From last thread
I would be delighted if Celtic fans owned Celtic, but you still need someone to run the club. From CQN it seems that Peter Lawwell is either the devil incarnate or the best thing since sliced bread. Would you prefer a Celtic fan or a business person to run the finance of Celtic?
Not looking for an argument but just some posters thinking that getting rid of the board will make everything wonderful.
On 15th/16th of March 100 cyclist will set off from 5 locations in the UK & Ireland for Belfast to raise funds that will go towards helping Wee Oscar Knox (check out the wee man himself – http://youtu.be/oVyxi7ypT4Y) fund the Immunotherapy treatment he so desperately requires. We will be leaving from:
Celtic Park – 32 Cyclists
Leeds – 7 Cyclists
Duleek – 25 Cyclists
Roscommon – 10 Cyclists
Dublin – 26 Cyclist
We will be supported by 16 support team members over the 2 days also.
Our team is made up of CQN’ers, KDS’ers, friends and family members and non Celtic supporters.
You can support our cyclists and support team by making a donation to this event by clicking here (remember to leave your blog name for us to thank you):
Wee Oscar 4 Life Cycle’s To Belfast March 2013
or by texting BELF88 to 70070 followed by amount (between £1 to £10) you wish to donate:
eg.
To: 70070
BELF88
£10
We would like to thank Burns Interior Design, Morrisons Facilities Services – FM Division, Gardiner & Theobald Surveyors, ProAir Conditioning, Firewater, DAMM Environmental, Access, AJ Print, Oracle, Project Pipework & Piling, Business Continuity Services and Sublime Designs for their sponsorship of the WeeOscar4Life cycle’s to Belfast. If your company would like to sponsor this event please drop an email to weeoscar4life@gmail.com
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charliebhoy
actually im in turkey on friday any tips ?
Just 1…………… dont tip the Kurds.
Wee Gordon Strachan used to point out the stats on Zonal defending all the time. It is more effective than man to man marking. I would add that I do like to see obvious danger men picked up by a spare man combined with zonal.
In theory the attacker always has the advantage as they decide when and where to run, they are always a split second ahead of their marker – or at least they should be.
Tallybhoy – Platini voted for Qatar in the 2020 World Cup vote.
Shortly thereafter the Qataris bought PSG, and proceeded to pour hundreds of millions into the club.
You just can’t trust the French.
Did you know that French children are born with tails? And that it’s illegal in France not to have extramarital affairs? The only honourable Frenchman were Charles De Gaulle, Charles Martel, and Jacques Clouseau. All the rest of them are louche onion-pedlars with stripey jumpers, horrible fags, and skinny little moustaches.
The French are so transfixed by their idiot socialisme that they have no word in their language for “entrepreneur”. We should invade France, steal their women, take their wine, and give them our women. That’d learn em.
(thumbsup)
RobertTressell – Surely magnificent investment for any club looking to train their ball boys in retrieving the said object from the upper tiers of stands and corner flags?
Also he’d scare away the crows. (thumbsup)
Mort,
My problem with zonal marking was, is and always will be, why give your opponent a free run at the ball?
The guy with a running jump at the ball will invariably outjump the guy from a standing or say 2 or 3 yrd “running” jump at the ball. Ronaldo excepted of course. His standing jump is phenomenal.
Of course there is no guarantee that the attacking player will score, for a number of reasons, lets face it, just because you get a free header doesnt mean you will score (as Efe will attest to from last week) but why give the advantage or chance away to them for nothing?
It also allows the opportunity for blame deflection. ie, i was marking my area, not my fault the ball didnt come near me, I just stood my ground and watched the guy who was closest to me run onto it.
Mertesacker and Van Buyten being the perfect illustration of that last night for Bayern’s 2nd goal.
Similarly I still dont understand why teams dont have a player covering both posts at corners. Happens all to regularly.
More than happy to debate this though mate.
HAIL! HAIL!
Token
Roberttressel
given tha the arrests were in Glasgow i`d be surprised if they were Annan fans
yorkbhoy – Celtic fans do own Celtic. (thumbsup)
charliebhoy.
A couple of good lines for you to fit right in:
“Bir cay lutfen” one tea please…..or as the locals would say “bir-tana cay” which is friendly and informal.
Instead of saying “Tesekkur Ederim” Thank you ,,,,,,,,,,,,,hust say “Sal” informal and polite.
*just
And dont leave till you’ve sampled “Backlava”…………….a kilo should do it.
Phil
DD owns quite a lot more than most…
Was he a regular visitor to Celtic Park?
The Spirit of Arthur Lee
12:53 on
20 February, 2013
bankiebhoy1
Mitre Mouldmaster
It’s a fact that, by the time you have finished reading this entry, your hands will have instinctively drifted down to cover your nether regions. The Mouldmaster does that to a person; it was the Candyman of footballs. Parents and schools loved it because it was relatively cheap, and it was certainly nasty. Up and down the country there are millions of Mouldmaster Vets, bearing the tattoo of its rough, basketball-coating on their inner thigh, whose eyes glaze over as they recall the time they went to war. Unless you have felt the stinging kiss of the Mouldmaster during a PE lesson on a witheringly cold day, while wearing shorts that amounted to little more than a piece of elastic and in an environment that was a torture camp in all but name, you cannot truly say that your time on this earth has been justified.
It’s a serious oversight that it isn’t used as a tool in police interrogations: any fool would sing like a canary rather than have that beast boinging off their skull at high speed. This said, the Mouldmaster had some hidden benefits. Sweet-spotting a half-volley into the business area of a bête noire was a teenage experience only exceeded by the discovery of a swearword in a foreign language. And, as one internet forumista recalled, “on impact, as the ball rebounded off my bollocks, the surge of pain allowed me to unleash a 20-yard screamer into the top corner, before I collapsed in agony on to the red blaise.” Hands up who can relate to that
———————————————————————————————————-
i believe, it truly came into its own on days that were so cold ice formed in the wee rivulets between the dimples.
….PFayr
13:36 on 20 February, 2013
Roberttressel
given tha the arrests were in Glasgow i`d be surprised if they were Annan fans
………………………………………….
Maybe they were Annan fans lifted at their work in glasgow or at the airport coming home from their holidays.
Could’ve been!
I am sure the FFP intro will be the catalyst for a reduction in the quality gap between Europe’s established elite, and the also rans, but it will take a lot more to allow teams like Celtic to close it enough to become re-established as a regular participant in the last 16. The SPL can reformat, restructure and reinvent itself in any which way it chooses, but regardless of which way they go, the problem is geographical and numerical based and unless we ship out of Scotland then some fundamental changes at grass root level is the only way forward.
Which brings me to my main point.
We are in a one horse race for the forseeable future, perhaps 3 seasons, maybe a good few more. It would be the ideal time to start looking at how we can best utilise that time period to ensure that in 10 years time, we are seeing a conveyor belt of “quality street kids” rolling out of the youth academies. If that means investing £20m or so over the next 2 or 3 years to bring in European youth coaches of the highest standard, then in my opinion it would be money better spent than using it to bring in medium rated foreigners who will not take us to the level we want be on a consistent basis.
My feelings are that of course we will not do this. We will spend the 20m or so over the next 3 years to try and get into the group stages of the CL. We might manage it, we might not, and my feeling is that we will fail more than we don’t, leaving us no further forward 10 years down the line.
Around 1999, the Germans had a rethink about the way their football was shaping up, or not as it was, and they turned to the more successful nations to find the best approach to improving standards on a long term basis. The results are showing now. Every German club had to set up training academies, and those academies were set up to produce skilful talented footballers. It is working, and results are showing. They will only get beteer, because the gravy train of talent is now up and running.
I would love to see Celtic in the semi final/final of the CL in my lifetime. I honestly believe that under the current structure, it is a forlorn hope. I think my kids though could be seeing it every few years if we decide to sacrifice the spend on over-rated foreigners for a few seasons, and reinvesting it into quality coaching from quality coaches.
As I said, the league will take care of itself for the foreseeable future, an opportunity never afforded to us in my lifetime. Grasp it with both hands. The mix of youth and experience we have at present, with a few additions of players at a young age, Johnny Russell etc, will see us over the line in Scotland. In the background the real work needs to be done. We will never have a better window of opportunity.
Charliebhoy
You may prefer ” bir tani buyuk Efes lutfen” – one large beer please….
floridaghirl
Efes ? ……………………….not on your life -))))
yorkbhoy – Dermot Desmond is one of the best things to have happened to Celtic since Fergus McCann. Neil Lennon thinks highly of him, and his appraisal is good enough for me.
We’re extremely fortunate to have highly competent, successful, and respected businessmen associated with Celtic. Men who understand business and finance and who know how to run an company prudently and professionally. Were our circumstances different, we could so easily instead be saddled with colourful flim flam artists looking for a quick buck or foreign despots of mysterious wealth using our club as their personal plaything. (thumbsup)
SOAL @ 1253,
“Hands Up”
I still vividly remember the pain and mouldmaster etchings on the front of my right thigh from, what could only be described as a “blooter”, by what appeared to me to be a Giant from Newmains Public (as it was then) school, down on the old West Coltness park.
Typically it was a freezing cold day with the sleet coming almost horizontally and the puddles beginning to ice over – you know the kind, where you almost cut your leg on it when slide tackling! – and here was me, a wee skelf of a laddie (Shut it T4!!) bearing the brunt of the power from the giant’s great muckle feet.
I mind in the bath that evening at home and staring transfixed at that red-and-white marking stand out in stark contrast to the rest of my poor freezin wee legs.
Im convinced I can still see that outline to this day…….but i wear it like a badge of honour, i never turned away side-on, or even back to that thunderbolt. I took it like a real man……..even though I couldny see the game right for the next 30 mins due to the tears that had practically frozen in my eyes and lashes in the immediate aftermath :-)
HAIL! HAIL!
Token
Regarding the ‘ol mouldmaster –
http://ghostgoal.co.uk/2010/05/14/top-5-iconic-footballs/
Think someone might have mentioned it, but here is Christopher Brookmyre’s took on P. Schoole fitba’. (QUITE LONG BUT WORTH A WEE READ!)
The Rules of Playground Football
Matches shall be played over three unequal periods: two playtimes and a lunchtime. Each of these periods shall begin shortly after the ringing of a bell, and although a bell is also rung towards the end of these periods, play may continue for up to ten minutes afterwards, depending on the nihilism or “bottle” of the participants with regard to corporal punishment met out to latecomers back to the classroom.
In practice there is a sliding scale of nihilism, from those who hasten to stand in line as soon as the bell rings, known as “poofs”, through those who will hang on until the time they estimate it takes the teachers to down the last of their gins and journey from the staffroom, known as “chancers”, and finally to those who will hang on until a teacher actually has to physically retrieve them, known as “bampots”.
This sliding scale is intended to radically alter the logistics of a match in progress, often having dramatic effects on the scoreline as the number of remaining participants drops. It is important, therefore, in picking the sides, to achieve a fair balance of poofs, chancers and bampots in order that the scoreline achieved over a sustained period of play – a lunchtime, for instance – is not totally nullified by a five-minute post-bell onslaught of five bampots against one.
The scoreline to be carried over from the previous period of the match is in the trust of the last bampots to leave the field of play, and may be the matter of some debate.
This must be resolved in one of the approved manners (see Adjudication).
Parameters
The object is to force the ball between two large, unkempt piles of jackets, in lieu of goalposts. These piles may grow or shrink throughout the match, depending on the number of participants and the prevailing weather. As the number of players increases, so shall the piles. Each jacket added to the pile by a new addition to a side should be placed on the inside, nearest the goalkeeper, thus reducing the target area.
It is also important that the sleeve of one of the jackets should jut out across the goalmouth, as it will often be claimed that the ball went “over the post” and it can henceforth be asserted that the outstretched
sleeve denotes the innermost part of the pile and thus the inside of the post.
The on-going reduction of the size of the goal is the responsibility of any respectable defence and should be undertaken conscientiously with resourcefulness and imagination.
In the absence of a crossbar, the upper limit of the target area is observed as being slightly above head height, although when the height at which a ball passed between the jackets is in dispute, judgement shall lie with an arbitrary adjudicator from one of the sides. He is known as the “best fighter”; his decision is final and may be enforced with physical violence if anyone wants to stretch a point.
In games on large open spaces, the length of the pitch is obviously denoted by the jacket piles, but the width is a variable. In the absence of roads, water hazards or “a big dug”, the width is determined by how far out the attacking winger has to meander before the pursuing defender gets fed up and lets him head back towards where the rest of the players are waiting, often as far as quarter of a mile away.
It is often observed that the playing area is “no’ a full-size pitch”. This can be invoked verbally to justify placing a wall of players eighteen inches from the ball at direct free kicks It is the formal response to “yards”, which the kick-taker will incant meaninglessly as he places the ball.
The Ball
There is a variety of types of ball approved for Primary School Football. I shall describe the most popular:
The rough-finish Mitre or Trophy 5. Half football, half Portuguese Man o’ War. On the verge of a ban in the European Court of Human Rights, this model is not for sale to children. Used exclusively by teachers during gym classes as a kind of aversion therapy. Made from highly durable fibre-glass, stuffed with neutron star and coated with dead jellyfish. Advantages: looks quite grown up, makes for high-scoring matches (keepers won’t even attempt to catch it). Disadvantages: scars or maims anything it touches.
Offside
There is no offside, for two reasons: one, “it’s not’ a full-size pitch”, and two, none of the players actually know what offside is. The lack of an offside rule gives rise to a unique sub-division of strikers. These players hang around the opposing goalmouth while play carries on at the other end, awaiting a long pass forward out of defence which they can help past the keeper before running the entire length of the pitch with their arms in the air to greet utterly imaginary adulation. These are known variously as “poachers”, “gloryhunters” and “fly wee bastarts”.
Adjudication
The absence of a referee means that disputes must be resolved between the opposing teams rather than decided by an arbiter. There are two accepted ways of doing this. 1. Compromise. An arrangement is devised that is found acceptable by both sides. Sway is usually given to an action that is in accordance with the spirit of competition, ensuring that the game does not turn into “a pure skoosh”. For example, in the event of a dispute as towhether the ball in fact crossed the line, or whether the ball has gone inside or “over” the post, the attacking side may offer the ultimatum: “Penalty or goal.” It is not recorded whether any side has ever opted for the latter. It is on occasions that such arrangements or ultimata do not prove acceptable to both sides that the second adjudicatory method comes into play.
Team Selection
To ensure a fair and balanced contest, teams are selected democratically in a turns-about picking process, with either side beginning as a one-man selection committee and growing from there. The initial selectors are usually the recognised two Best Players of the assembled group. Their first selections will be the two recognised Best Fighters, to ensure a fair balance in the adjudication process, and to ensure that they don’t have their own performances impaired throughout the match by profusely bleeding noses. They will then proceed to pick team-mates in a roughly meritocratic order, selecting on grounds of skill and tactical awareness, but not forgetting that while there is a sliding scale of players’ ability, there is also a sliding scale of players’ brutality and propensities towards motiveless violence. A selecting captain might baffle a talented striker by picking the less nimble Big Jazza ahead of him, and may explain, perhaps in the words of Linden B Johnson upon his retention of J Edgar Hoover as the head of the FBI, that he’d “rather have him inside the tent ****ing out, than outside the tent ****ing in”. Special consideration is also given during the selection process to the owner of the ball. It is tacitly acknowledged to be “his gemme”, and he must be shown a degree of politeness for fear that he takes the huff at being picked late and withdraws his favours. Another aspect of team selection that may confuse those only familiar with the game at senior level will be the choice of goalkeepers, who will inevitably be the last players to be picked. Unlike in the senior game, where the goalkeeper is often the tallest member of his team, in the playground, the goalkeeper is usually the smallest. Senior aficionados must appreciate that playground selectors have a different agenda and are looking for altogether different properties in a goalkeeper. These can be listed briefly as: compliance, poor fighting ability, meekness, fear and anything else that makes it easier for their team-mates to banish the wee bugger between the sticks while they go off in search of personal glory up the other end.
Tactics
Playground football tactics are best explained in terms of team formation. Whereas senior sides tend to choose – according to circumstance – from among a number of standard options (eg 4-4-2, 4-3-3, 5-3-2), the playground side is usually more rigid in sticking to the all-purpose 1-1-17 formation. This formation is a sturdy basis for the unique style of play, ball-flow and territorial give-and-take that makes the playground game such a renowned and strategically engrossing spectacle. Just as the 5-3-2 formation is sometimes referred to in practice as “Cattenaccio”, the 1-1-17 formation gives rise to a style of play that is best described as “Nomadic”. All but perhaps four of the participants (see also Offside) migrate en masse from one area of the pitch to another, following the ball, and it is tactically vital that every last one of them remains within a ten-yard radius of it at all times.
Stoppages
Much stoppage time in the senior game is down to injured players requiring treatment on the field of play. The playground game flows freer having adopted the refereeing philosophy of “no Post-Mortem, no free-kick”, and play will continue around and even on top of a participant who has fallen in the course of his endeavours. However, the playground game is nonetheless subject to other interruptions, and some examples are listed below.
1. Ball on school roof or over school wall. The retrieval time itself is negligible in these cases. The stoppage is most prolonged by the argument to decide which player must risk life, limb or four of the belt to scale the drainpipe or negotiate the barbed wire in order to return the ball to play. Disputes usually arise between the player who actually struck the ball and any others he claims it may have struck before disappearing into forbidden territory. In the case of the Best Fighter having been adjudged responsible for such an incident, a volunteer is often required to go in his stead or the game may be abandoned, as the Best Fighter is entitled to observe that A: “Ye canny make me”; or B: “It’s no’ ma baw anyway”.
2. Stray dog on pitch. An interruption of unpredictable duration. The dog does not have to make off with the ball, it merely has to run around barking loudly, snarling and occasionally drooling or foaming at the mouth. This will ensure a dramatic reduction in the number of playing staff as 27 of them simultaneously volunteer to go indoors and inform the teacher of the threat. The length of the interruption can sometimes be gauged by the breed of dog. A deranged Irish Setter could take ten minutes to tire itself of running in circles, for instance, while a Jack Russell may take up to fifteen minutes to corner and force out through the gates. An Alsatian means instant abandonment.
3. Bigger boys steal ball. A highly irritating interruption, the length of which is determined by the players’ experience in dealing with this sort of thing. The intruders will seldom actually steal the ball, but will improvise their own kickabout amongst themselves, occasionally inviting the younger players to attempt to tackle them. Standing around looking bored and unimpressed usually results in a quick restart. Shows of frustration and engaging in attempts to win back the ball can prolong the stoppage indefinitely. Informing the intruders that one of the players’ older brother is “Mad Chic Murphy” or some other noted local pugilist can also ensure minimum delay.
4. Celebration. Kneeling down to head the ball over the line when defence and keeper are already beaten will elicit a thoroughly deserved kicking. As a footnote, however, it should be stressed that any goal scored by the Best Fighter will be met with universal acclaim, even if it was lucky/crap/took a deflection.
Penalties
At senior level, each side often has one appointed penalty-taker, who will defer to a team-mate in special circumstances, such as his requiring one more for a hat-trick. The playground side has two appointed penalty-takers: the Best Player and the Best Fighter. The arrangement is simple: the Best Player takes the penalties when his side is a retrievable margin behind, and the Best Fighter at all other times. If the side is comfortably in front, the ball-owner may be invited to take a penalty. Goalkeepers are often the subject of temporary substitutions at penalties, forced to give up their position to the Best Player or Best Fighter, who recognise the kudos attached to the heroic act of saving one of these kicks, and are buggered if Wee Titch is going to steal any of it.
Close Season
This is known also as the Summer Holidays, which the players usually spend dabbling briefly in other sports: tennis for a fortnight while Wimbledon is on the telly; pitch-and-putt for four days during the Open; and cricket for about an hour and a half until they discover that it really is as boring to play as it is to watch.
My personal favourtite memory of playing playground fitba was when we stayed out late after the bell had gone one day (to take penalties to decide the winner of the lunchtime game on a Friday) which led to a group of us being denied our afternoon playtime and made to sit in the class. Not entirely remarkable but for the fact Barry Gray was swinging on his chair whilst holding his pencil in his hands that were cupped and sat on the desk in front of him. He was laughing so hard at something he swung forward and the pencil went flush right up his nose. I thought I was going to have a coronary at the age of 10 I was laughing so hard. Glory days indeed.
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HH
mort
13:16 on 20 February, 2013
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Indeed, that was my raison d’être for posting the stats. I’ve asked the question many times, can anyone remember the last time we conceded a goal from a corner?