What more could we want out of a football match? A huge fixture between two local rivals, contested between two extremely evenly matched teams with similar ambitions. Something to savour for supporters and neutrals alike. This Friday’s World Cup Qualification clash between Wales and Scotland in Group A ticks all of these boxes.
Perhaps we were wrong after all. The spectacular fall from grace of Rangers had led many – this column included – to speculate that the ramifications would be acutely felt across Scottish football as whole, and especially by their great rivals, Celtic.
However, the evidence to date has been less than compelling on that front.
After throwing away a 2-1 lead on the last day of the season to Manchester City, Queens Park Rangers held on to their Premier League status thanks to results elsewhere going their way. ‘Never again’, vowed manager Mark Hughes, would they be struggling so badly at the wrong end of the table. But that is exactly where they find themselves now. So where has it all gone wrong?
John Terry feels as though the FA has made his position as an England international untenable. At least that was the message from the Terry camp when the Chelsea skipper called time on his international career on Sunday at the age of just 31. This, a direct result of the FA’s on-going investigation into Terry’s alleged racial abuse of Queens Park Rangers defender Anton Ferdinand. After Terry had already been found not guilty in a court of law.
Of all the great quotes attributed to former Liverpool manager Bill Shankly down the years, perhaps one of his more memorable musings concerned centre half Tommy Smith. Describing his uncompromising defender back in the 1970s, Shankly stated that ‘Tommy Smith wasn’t born, he was quarried.’