Given Scotland haven’t qualified for the
finals of a major tournament since the World Cup in France in 1998, there was
inevitable excitement when the draw for the qualifying stages of the 2016
European Championships was made in Paris the other week. After what seems like a
life-long struggle to make any kind of progress, there seems genuine hope that
Scotland, under the tutelage of the ebullient Gordon Strachan, might actually
qualify for the finals in France two years from now. Of course, Germany are
rightly the favourites but there’s no reason to suggest Scotland can’t get the
better of the Republic of Ireland, Poland – who the Scots defeated in Warsaw a
few days ago - Georgia and Gibraltar,
particularly when those countries visit Glasgow. And there would be a certain
symmetry if Scotland’s first appearance at the finals of a major tournament for
the best part of two decades were in the same country of their last appearance
in 1998.
Much as the draw was the cause of some
excitement, my enthusiasm was dampened somewhat when I saw the dates and
kick-off times for the fixtures. Not one of the scheduled games involving
Scotland will kick-off at 3.00pm on a Saturday. The Scots’ opening game in
Germany will kick-off at hardly the most traditional of times – 7.45pm on the
evening of Sunday 7 September. Scotland will play their next game on a Saturday
– against Georgia in Glasgow on 11 October – but it will start at 6.00pm. The
following fixture in Poland will be on a Tuesday evening before the Republic of
Ireland visit Glasgow – on a Friday six weeks before Christmas.
Those of you who regularly read my
ramblings on this website - and I thank both of you – may realise I’m something
of a traditionalist. Yes, looking back at years gone by can sometimes give a
false impression, with fifty-something supporters like me tending to view
things through maroon-tinted spectacles. I try not to hark on to youngsters
about how things were when I were a lad because it can be very irritating. However,
when I were a lad, for the most part, there were two days when games were
played and two kick-off times. Hearts and Scotland, for that matter, would
either play at 3.00pm on a Saturday or 7.30pm on a Wednesday.
Of course there are two main reasons why
football in 2014 can be played at any time, no matter how inconvenient to the
fans. Television and money – and one follows the other. Some of my childhood in
the 1970s was spent watching a struggling Hearts team and a Scotland team who,
on their day, could just about beat anyone (the Scots returned home from the
World Cup in Germany in 1974 as the only unbeaten team in the tournament) Back
then, we didn’t need to check the fixtures to see if Hearts were playing on a
Friday night, Saturday lunch time, Sunday or Monday evening. When Scotland played
it was usually a Wednesday with the home internationals occurring at the end of
the season, for example, Wales on a Saturday, Northern Ireland midweek and the
auld enemy of England on the following Saturday with the bi-annual weekend trip
to Wembley being the highlight of many Scots supporters lives.
Of course, back in the decade of glam rock,
flares and long hair – and I recall fondly the days when I actually had hair –
there was no satellite or cable television in this country. We had the BBC and
ITV and that was it. The attitude from the powers-that-be who ran Scottish
football was that televising an entire 90 minutes of football live would drive
fans away from the game. Therefore, only the Scotland-England international and
perhaps the odd World Cup qualifier were shown live on the wee box. Even the
Scottish Cup final wasn’t shown live on television until 1977. There were the
odd game or two, such as Celtic or Rangers in big European games which were
shown live but these were few and far between.
Now, television dictates when football will
be played. Hearts game with Dundee United this coming Friday is a case in point
although, in fairness, there’s something appealing about Friday evening
football as the increase in attendances at these games has shown. However,
there’s something which strikes at the heart when looking at Scotland’s
fixtures for the Euro 2016 qualifiers. The big kick-off in Germany will be
eagerly anticipated but a Sunday evening, when many people are contemplating
another fraught working week, may douse the fervour somewhat. And it will mean
another Saturday afternoon kicking our heels or being dragged through DIY
stores having to answer the perennial question ‘why haven’t you fixed that
shelf in the kitchen yet?’
The huge sums of money involved in club
football these days has led many people to question if international football
has quite the same appeal as it did in the days of the dodgy perm and the
dulcet tones of commentators Archie MacPherson and Arthur Montford. Having
obscure kick-off times will only add fuel to the fire of those who feel it
doesn’t.
And those who feel a sadness that a Saturday
afternoon at 3.00pm is fast becoming become eerily quiet…
Mike Smith
Twitter @Mike1874
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