This is why I don't ride the bus

Rangers may have pulled off the Scottish double this year, but some fans probably wish they had missed out on the SPL-clinching game at Dundee United. In a story that seems so last month here in the US, 13 fans from Dunoon took a bus to watch their team play, and now all 13 have swine flu. Or, if you prefer (as I do), Pig AIDS. Either way, all 13 are now scary statistics for the media to throw at you.

So, yeah, stay off the bus if you can. Especially three hour trips with lousy, drunken Scots with poor hygiene and poorer taste in teams. This advice alone is proven to add three years to your life expectancy.

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Scottish players shamed and suspended **Updated**

So it has come to this. If you are Scottish and a football player, you are not allowed to binge drink after getting outclassed on the pitch. Well, at least not if you play for Rangers.

Last Saturday, Scotland lost at Netherlands 3-0 and were pretty much run off the pitch. Barry Ferguson was the team captain and Allan McGregor started in the goal, deputizing for the normal number 1, Craig Gordon. The team reconvened that night at their usual Scottish haunt, Cameron House on Loch Lomond. Here's a picture, it's pretty swell. It's supposed to be an out of the way place where the Scots can relax while preparing for upcoming home games. Unfortunately, a Scot's way of relaxing is consuming alcohol in copious amounts, something manager George Burley took exception to.

The story that leaked out of camp was that Ferguson and McGregor had gone too far and had been kicked off the team by Wednesday morning. By afternoon, however, Burley had relented and had only relegated the duo to the bench. A bruising blow to the ego for the two in question, but nothing with long-term implications, or so it seemed.

The Scottish FA wedged itself into the mix yesterday, saying that it did not back Burley's decision to bench the two and that it would have to perform its own investigation into the mess before it was decided what should have been done. Great job there fellas.

Then some other news started to make the rounds, as much as you can trust The Sun to be actual news, at least. Now there were seven players said to be involved in the late night to early morning booze up. Perhaps the inequity in punishment got to Mr. Ferguson, because at the Iceland game, he gave the press an indication of what he thought about them.


As the above article mentions, Walter Smith--previous manager of Scotland and current Rangers boss--was livid at the actions of his players and especially ticked off with that picture making the rounds. Apparently, making such a gesture in Scotland colors really sent Smith off the deep end. How deep is pretty amazing. Rangers have suspended both players, fined them two weeks' wages, stripped Ferguson of his captaincy, and some are reporting that both have been transfer-listed.

The SFA seems to have made up its mind as well. Today the association announced that Ferguson and McGregor will no longer be considered for a Scotland call up.

Wow. Just, wow. If you ever wanted to see an athlete's career go up in flames, here it is. Maurice Clarett is looking at these guys and saying "What the **** were they thinking?" On the upside, two more players with international experience just became available for MLS duty. As long as these Huns don't end up at DC United, I think I would be OK with that.

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Footballing Nightmares

News Of The World has it out for Gordon Ramsay. They were the ones to first report on Ramsay's affair(s), now they have dug a little deeper into the past. Apparently not content to take a philanderer at his word, they started digging into his footballing past. And guess what--they found some inconsistencies.

Wait. That's not the right term. They found bald-faced lies, and a lot of them.


This is the famous picture that Ramsay built his fib around. As News Of The World deftly points out, it's not of the level that Ramsay says it is. It's not of a first-team appearance for the Huns. In fact, it's from a testimonial against a Junior side.

But at least he got his name on the team sheet, right? No. This is the team line up from the day, helpfully spotlighted by the London newspaper.


"Trialist". No more, no less.

Ramsay's lies about his career with Rangers don't end there. Going back through interviews given over the last 15 years, since Ramsay started to push the idea that he was with Rangers before an injury ended his career, Ramsay had stated that he had played at least three first-team matches for Rangers. Unfortunately for him, such claims are verifiable. Ramsay never played in any of the matches he mentioned and, even worse for Rangers fans, he got the results incorrect, often making the team out worse than they were.

Curiously, Ramsay's lies about his career go back even further than these. He claims that he was spotted by a Rangers scout while playing for Oxford United in a FA Youth Cup match against Arsenal when he was 16. The problem with this is that Oxford United and Arsenal have never met in that competition. Oops.

The article linked above has even more wonderful lies debunked within, and includes the nickname given to Ramsay while at talking to fellow cooks about his time at Rangers: Billy Bullshit. Ramsay has always had a knack for stretching the truth, as well as self-promotion, it would seem. But, and I stand by this, all of these lies don't make Kitchen Nightmares any less entertaining. That show is awesome.

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Scotland Wrap Up 07/08

Because your internet access only goes so far, we are here to let you know exactly how things finished up in Scotland, and how that jibes with what we wrote at the halfway point. The top and bottom picks look pretty good, but the middle gets kind of murky. Oh well, no one is perfect.

SPL Final Standings
Celtic (89 points)
Right off the bat, here's one I got correct, and even for the reasons stated. Back in January, Rangers and Celtic were in a dead heat, and Rangers had two games in hand--aganst Gretna and St. Mirren. On the surface, it would look like Rangers had the advantage. Instead, as I astutely pointed out, Rangers were set to face some serious fixture congestion, and they did. As April and May unfolded, Celtic kept winning in the league, unburdened by cup runs. Rangers on the other hand were chasing an impossible quadruple. As Rangers were facing a need-to-win match seemingly every three days in the last month, they faltered, giving Celtic the title.

Rangers (86)
As mentioned above, Rangers were done in by their quadruple dreams. Back in January, they had just been knocked out of the Champions League into the UEFA Cup. I opined that they would go further in the UEFA Cup than Celtic in the Champions League, but I had no idea they would go so far. Rangers made it all the way to the final, where they lost 2-0 to Zenit St. Petersburg. What killed Rangers' ambition in the end was not the SFA, no matter what fans may think, but too many games in general. when the season ended on May 24 with a win over Queen of the South in the SFA Cup final, Rangers had not had a midweek without a game since March 22. From March 29 to May 24, Rangers played 18 matches. To their credit, Rangers were in every competition to the end, and could have pipped Celtic on the last day of league, if they had bettered Celtic's result. Celtic won, Rangers lost, and the dream was over. Rangers do finish with the cup double to hang their hats on.

Motherwell (60)
This is where the prediction start to look rather dodgy. In January, Motherwell had just lost their captain Phil O'Donnell after he collapsed and died on the pitch against Dundee United. I said that the death would cause Motherwell, at the time in third, to freefall in the standings and that a sixth place finish would be lucky. Boy was I wrong. Instead, all of the teams around them faltered and Motherwell turned out to be surprisingly resilient. For their season-long effort, the team will be rewarded with a UEFA Cup spot next season.

Aberdeen (53)
Sure, it was a homer pick, but it looked so good on paper. Based on their shock advancement in the UEFA Cup and their early activity in the January transfer window, I thought Aberdeen would easily end up third in the league. Instead they managed a pretty shocking fourth. I say a shocking fourth place because of how they got there. After Aberdeen was dumped out of the UEFA Cup by Bayern Munich, everything fell apart. Aberdeen was struggling with injuries at the time, with up to 9 first-teamers out of the lineup. The Bayern loss was in the middle of a 9-game non-winning streak where Aberdeen fell from fifth to ninth in the league with four games left before the split. Aberdeen got 9 of 12 available points, and pipped Falkirk into the top 6. From there, Aberdeen did well enough to overtake Hibs and Dundee United for fourth place. If only they had not met the beast that is Queen of the South in the Scottish Cup semis (after knocking out Celtic-away!).

Dundee United (52; +6GD)
First of all, for those of you who are not familiar with Scottish football, I have to say the following: This team is Dundee United, not Dundee. Dundee FC are another team entirely who actually play across the street from Dundee United. Dundee are currently in the First Division. Thank you for playing attention. Dundee United spent most of the season battling Motherwell for third spot. That is, until the split, when United decided winning was useless and pulled off two draws to go with three losses. All in all, a pretty good season for the Terrors, they just got done in by their poor run over the last third of the season. Ending the season pulling 14 points from 14 games is never going to get you into Europe.

Hibernian (52; +4GD)
Finishing sixth by way of goal differential was Hibernian. There is not much to say about Hibernian's season. Like Aberdeen, they had a good, early '08 run to get into the Top 6. Once the split occurred, they played as poorly as Dundee United. A perennial mid-table finisher finishes mid-table.

Alright, so I got the correct teams in the split, though I nearly dropped the ball on Motherwell. Let's speed through the bottom half, shall we?

Falkirk (49)
Poor Falkirk. Done in on the last day of the pre-split season by way of losing to Aberdeen 2-1 when only a draw was necessary. Though they had slim European ambitions, such a loss hits a team hard financially, as you miss out on a likely home tie against either Rangers or Celtic, or both, depending on how the regular season broke down. I must say, this was a pretty strong season for Falkirk. They challenged for a Top 6 spot until the last day and looked fairly dangerous all season long. If they keep it up, I would look for a fourth place finish out of them next season.

Heart of Midlothian (48)
Here is a team that did much better over the second half of the season, but still never got over the hump. Back in January, this team fell all the way to 11th place after five straight losses. Things looked bleak for the Lithuanian-backed club. However, they found some form and started to alternate wins with losses and climbed up the table. An eighth place finish flatters their mid-season form.

Inverness CT (43)
ICT never jumped out of the Bottom 6 all season, despite having ample opportunity to do so around the mid-season mark. A horrible run in February and March saw them take two points off of nine matches. Unfortunately, given their location and ambition, this is probably as high as we will see them finish in the next souple of years. Look for their manager, Craig Brewster, to move on to great things over the next decade.

St. Mirren (41)
St Mirren was another team that never got out of the Bottom 6. A big reason for that was their stunning inability to score goals. They scored 26 in 38 games, less than relegated Gretna. If not for Gretna's troubles, this would have been one hell of a lucky team to escape relegation.

Kilmarnock (40)
The team I bag on for being boring finishes 11th. Back in November, they had reached up to fifth place and looked to be doing very well. By the time January rolled around, Kilmarnock had already slipped to ninth and were sinking fast. Will be part of the relegation battle again next year.

Gretna (13)
What can I say about Gretna that I have not said already? Well, this: the team no longer exists as of today, June 3. Things started off rocky in the south and never got better. Their point total is artificially low because of a 10-point deduction for going into administration, but Gretna never were going to threaten to stay up. A sad end for a club that made a pretty fun run up the leagues, all the while engendering hatred from the rest of teams in the country.

Hamilton Academical take the lone promotion spot into the SPL, besting Dundee (remember what I said above?) by seven points in the First Division. It will be their first time in the Scottish top flight in 20 years. At the bottom of the First Division, Stirling Albion was relegated, while Clyde fought off Second Division challenges for their First Division place. However, since Gretna was demoted to the Third Division (and now out of the SFL entirely), playoff losers Airdrie United were promoted into the First Division, joining automatic promotees Ross County.

In the Second Division, Berwick Rangers were left for dead at the middle of the season, and Cowdenbeath joined them in going down. Arbroath won the playoff into the Second Division, with Stranraer taking the "Gretna back door" promotion. Those two join East Fife, who won the Third Division by a whopping 23 points, securing their promotion in March.

Finally, now that Gretna is out of the league entirely, who will be invited to the SFL? There have been four names bandied about, and I'll give them to you in the order of the likelihood they will get the invitation.

Spartans FC - This was the team who tried to buy their way into the league by taking over the debts for Gretna. They have a nice size stadium with all of the necessary trimmings to be allowed into the Third Division, though some may have taken offense to their gambit to buy their way in.

Cove Rangers - My pick for inclusion would be Cove Rangers. Scottish football has always suffered for too much congregation around the forty mile wide belt between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Cove Rangers are situated just south of Aberdeen, Scotland's third largest city. If the three East of Scotland League teams split votes, Cove Rangers may just slide in.

Preston Athletic - Word is they will change their name if admitted to the SFL. Don't hold your collective breath. Their stadium still needs expensive updating to get up to SFL standards, and with that being part of the reason for Gretna's demise, I think the SFL will be loathe to go down that path again so soon.

Annan Athletic - Truly on the list as a sentimental choice, as this team's home is rather close to Gretna. Stadium is up to snuff, I believe, but their election to the SFL is highly unlikely.

You need to go to the excellent billsportsmaps.com for the image at the top. He does some great work there.

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