HAVING A family connection to Wullie Shankly, and getting into football when the Busby Babes did their supernova impression, the only English football teams I can watch are Liverpool and Manchester United. It helps that both clubs have their flaws at the moment – there is still an element of uncertainty about watching these clubs play, so unlike the metronomic efficiency expoused by Manchester City and Arsenal. Watching these two clubs playing possession football, passing their opponents to boredom and death is not for me. And that, in essence, is the difference between Professional Football a ..read more

WE NOW know the Final Four in the Investec Champions Cup; it's situation normal, with the Scots largely on the outside looking-in. While taking nothing away from Harlequins, who played a collective blinder in Bordeaux, it must be galling for Glasgow Warriors, to see a side who only beat them because of Warriors' poor decision-making and some iffy refereeing, now in the semi-final. The cast list for the two semi-finals: Harlequins, Leinster, Northampton Saints and Toulouse gives the TNT Sport team to continue their: “Isn't the Gallagher Premiership wonderful” act, mind you I will be amazed if t ..read more

HIGH-UP on the list of Scottish Rugby clichés are the following: “The clubs ARE the Union” “A strong Hawick means a strong Scotland” Among the less-frequently-quoted saying we have loved over the decades are: “All clubs are equal, but some are more-equal than others” “The Border clubs might have a meeting, and agree on something, but, before the last car has left the car park afterwards, Hawick will have decided to do something else”. (Before the massed ranks of the Moss Troopers - or more-frighteningly, the Bright-Eyed Daughters - are mobilised to come up here to God's Orange Coun ..read more

THE BIG news in Rugby Union this week has been this plan to start a World Club Championship competition. Ah hae ma doots if it will work. This, to me, is the latest example of the warped thinking of the High Heid Yins of the game – a rehash of that venerable television sit-com of the 1960s 'Never Mind The Quality – Feel The Width'. It is also yet another example of Rugby Union trying to be Association Football, and getting it wrong. For all its institutionalised corruption and its unstated policy of “Big is Beautiful” Football's World Club Championship works (sort of) – because it is a truly g ..read more

YOU WOULD think, by now we would be used to it, and could adopt the Kipling take on matters, by treating triumph and disaster both the same. But, that's never been the Scottish way, so we are sick as the proverbial parrots this morning, as we reflect on Glasgow Warriors' absence from the last eight in the Investec Champions Cup competition. However, let's take the Monty Python approach – at least Warriors are not heading for the Stade Chaban-Delmas this weekend. Because, on the evidence of the thrashing they handed-out to Saracens in the last 16, Union Bordeaux-Bègles will prove more than a ha ..read more

SOME 40 years ago, watching a Scottish basketball team being robbed blind by a one-eyed referee in a European game, I asked one of the High Heid Yins in the Scottish Basketball Association, just how you win in Europe. That slightly world-weary individual, who had seen it all, remarked that the key to a lengthy European campaign was to “buy the referee in your home game”. He was, I should stress, speaking metaphorically, rather than advocating bribery and corruption. What he meant was, you made the official feel special from the moment he arrived until he left. Nothing was too-much trouble, tre ..read more

AS I WAS saying yesterday, what would I do if I was suddenly to become the Pooh Bah – Lord High Everything Else – of the SRU. First Item: Get the finances under control. Make the recruitment and installation of the new Chief Financial Officer the prime priority. Then have the new CFO forensically go through the accounts and budgets and have an Action Plan to cut costs and identify where we were going up and running, to be done within 100 days of appointment. Second Item: Appoint the new Chief Executive Officer, with the same rough remit as the CFO, to, within 100 days, have an initial blueprin ..read more

HOW THIS here United Kingdom is governed is truly one of the wonders of the world. Here we are, an archipeligo, off the north west coast of Europe; four distinct nations, one of them divided still by the fall-out of religious/political differences dating back to the 17th century: the two smaller of the other three controlled by their larger neighbour. This dominant nation, itself formed by invasions from European neighboiurs dating back 1000 years, once managed to rule most of the globe, but is now ruled over by, well, to be honest a sorry collection of hooks, crooks and comic singers who, in ..read more

AFTER THEIR less-than-uplifting mini-tour to South Africa, it must be clear to whoever is currently driving the bus around Murrayfield, that, something has to be done about Edinburgh Rugby. OK, I doubt if even the most-rabid regular at The Hive had high hopes about the trip to South Africa, but back-to-back losses: 21-43 to the Stormers, then 13-23 to the Sharks are not results likely to keep the faithful enthused for the rmaining games of the season. If the results were disappointing, the actual performances, from the television evidfence, were even-more depressing. Edinburgh are now embroile ..read more

IT NEVER gets any easier being a Scot with a liking for one particular sport, or team which plays that sport. If you're a member of the Glasgow Warriors Nation this morning, of course you're chuffed to bits that your club is back in second place in the BKT United Rugby Championship table. You bet you're equally delighted that they got there, beating The Scarlets with a bit of style, and while minus a clutch of Scotland caps. Then that small inner voice, the one which keeps reminding you: “Hey, you're Scottish, keep the heid and don't get carried away” kicks in, and you remember – it was “only ..read more