Yes. Now fuck off.
Author: sartomutiny
we welcome the chase
This is unusual.
In the time I have been doing this blog, I have not had to write about a good set of results too often.
I certainly haven’t had to write about a run of seven consecutive wins before.
United have won eight out of their last nine games, and the game they didn’t win was a draw at Easter Road. Not too shabby.
With the caveat that this is obviously a lower level, United have only one point fewer than they managed in the entirety of last season. And the same number of victories.
And, all of a sudden after their draw with 10 man Falkirk, we’re only one point behind league-leading Hibernian.
We’re also into the semi final of an international cup competition. Yes, really. Sort of.
OK, it’s only the Irn Bru Cup, but given United stuck the reserves out against Dunfermline and still won, it’s all good. As much as that competition is not exactly the priority this year, it keeps the winning run going. A few fringe players got a run out, and Lewis Toshney and Stewart Murdoch got some badly needed game time after returning from injury. It’s all good.
Most of the victories in this run have been by one goal. Indeed, aside from the win against Queen of the South, it’s hard to point to a truly breathtaking performance.
But this league is not the environment to play scintillating football. What United have discovered, for the first time in who knows how long, is the ability to grind out results.
The defence has been excellent. Credit must go to Cammy Bell as well as to the defenders in front of him. William Edjenguele has been superb after a shaky first few weeks, and Mark Durnan has been unrecognisable from last season.
Durnan’s performance in the recent win over Falkirk was as good as any I have seen from a United defender in recent years, and the run he made which led to his winning goal was bordering on the ridiculous. His defendive work has been excellent, and it doesn’t hurt that he has pitched in with a few goals.
The loss of Paul Dixon through injury for a few weeks is regrettable, but given the form of Jamie Robson it’s not the fatal blow it might have been.
Scott Fraser has also been excellent during this run, and it’s great to see this kind of form from a player who, to be frank, has not always been a fan’s favourite. If he keeps this form up, he may yet go far in the game.
It’s easy to forget how lacking in confidence United were as a club at the start of the season. The work Ray McKinnon has done to turn this around has been fantastic.
It’s been a gradual process, but to turn the ship around in this relatively short period of time is impressive. I have to say, I did not expect United to be as close to the top of the league as this at this stage. Especially given the way the team started the season.
The next game, away to a Morton side who have been on a superb run of form, will be tough. United have already lost at Cappielow in the League Cup, and a performance level vastly higher than the one we saw that night will be needed. It seems strange to think that this was United’s last defeat, as it feels like that game took place a lifetime ago.
Given the following league game is at home to Hibs, it’s another opportunity to really put the pressure on. What a game that one promises to be.
Poor Hibs. It was never meant to be like this. This was supposed to finally be their year.
It may very well still be their year. However, their budget dwarfs everyone else’s in this league. Even United’s. They have a manager who has Champions League experience. They don’t have Rangers or Hearts to worry about this time. And their main title rivals plummeted into the Championship last season, devoid of confidence and torn apart with recriminations between fans and club.
For United, this is a good position to be in. There are bound to be bumps in the road, and there are plenty of teams capable of taking points off us, but all we can ask as fans is for United to stick as closely to Hibs for as long as possible, and see what happens. How will they react?
Are you feeling the pressure yet, Hibs?
infamy, infamy
At least the international break is over.
To the untrained eye, the two Scotland performances may have looked pathetic, disorganised and shambolic, all spearheaded by a graceless, condescending and arrogant manager who really shouldn’t be in the job any longer. And that’s before we get into his bizarre preference for tall strikers over strikers who can score goals.
However, given that I am not a “proper football man”, I assume I must have been wrong about that, and I look forward to my trip to Russia to see Scotland play in the next World Cup.
As a recent Nobel prize winner once said, you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
But enough of that unpleasantness. Dundee United got two clean sheets in a row, which I am pretty sure means the apocalypse is on its way.
The win over St Mirren on Saturday was certainly impressive.
It was a win over the bottom team in the Championship, but there was more to it. St Mirren hadn’t won a game in the league all season, but had just come off an impressive win against Hibs in the Irn Bru Cup. Plus, of course, Jack Ross was in charge of the Buddies for the first time.
Up against a club needing a win? A new manager bounce? That’s not the sort of game Dundee United typically win.
It was a bit of a slog, but most games this season are probably going to be. United were resolute in defence against hardworking if limited opposition, and never looked in any real danger after Scott Fraser put them ahead just before half time.
The win was sealed by a defensive error, from which the ball broke to Tony Andreu who sent a wonderful chip from 20 yards over Jamie Langfield to score his seventh goal in seven games for United.
I don’t mind admitting I have a colossal man crush on Andreu. He is clearly far too good for this level, and whatever reasons he had for choosing United over the several Premiership teams who were chasing him, I am only thankful that he did. He’d massively improve many Premiership clubs, most notably our friends from across the road who seem determined to emulate what we did last season.
But he turned them down. Never mind.
St Mirren brought on a couple of additional strikers and threw the kitchen sink at United late on, but they stood firm even after the late red card for Mark Durnan.
It is unusual to see a Dundee United team being resolute at the back, and huge credit must go to the back four, plus of course the excellent Cammy Bell, making a borderline miraculous recovery from a groin operation two weeks ago. What surprises me more is that somehow United are the league’s top scorers. Given there is only one striker at the club, that seems faintly surreal.
In other good news, it turns out officials have got it in for Hibs.
This must be true, as Neil Lennon is not the sort of manager who would criticise match officials lightly. And he certainly wouldn’t do it to cover up his own failings.
In a world where it is accepted wisdom that officials generally favour the bigger clubs, it’s unfortunate that Lennon has spent his entire managerial career in a strange Bizarro World where the opposite is true.
Given his track record, there was always going to come a point where the Hibs manager would be asking for “clarification” from the SFA, but for it to come after nine league games was earlier than even I expected.
It’s the referee’s fault that they lost to Ayr, and failed to beat Queen of the South, and failed to beat Raith Rovers. I do sympathise, as United had a game recently where we went down to ten men and conceded three penalties and we…oh no, wait, we actually won that game rather than lapsing into self pity.
I can only imagine the meltdown the Hibs manager would have had if that had happened to his team.
It’s good to know that there is a conspiracy against our main title rivals. It makes me rather relaxed about the season ahead. The reason Hibs are not running away with the league like they should be is due to factors outwith their control.
Because, given the squad they have, they should be running away with this league. I do understand why their manager would be trying to blame some external factor for their failure to do this, even though they are actually top of the league. It’s understandable that he would be worried about the teams currently snapping at his heels. This was not supposed to happen. This is their third attempt at getting out of this league, and they don’t have the presence of Hearts or Rangers this year to worry about.
By comparison, there is relatively little pressure on United. If Hibs were not there it would be very different, but given how bad last season was we all accepted it was going to take a lot of time for United to become a coherent football team again. As Hibs found out in the last two seasons, having another big club in the Championship with you does make your fans more sanguine about a failure to be promoted. But there does come a time when the excuses have to stop.
United fans know we are currently in a rebuild process. To be within three points of the top of the league after the first quarter of the season is arguably ahead of schedule, and most of us would have taken that if offered at the start of the season. There is a long way to go, and the team are in such desperate need of a striker it’s almost painful, but the signs are there.
You do worry about where we would be if the magnificent Tony Andreu ever got injured, but live for the moment and all that.
It’s early days. There’s plenty of time for Hibs to click into gear. Perhaps they will finally catch a break one day. We can only pray in the interests of fairness that it happens. If we do end up somehow winning the league, I wouldn’t want us winning a tainted title.
mass hibsteria
This blog was originally published on the excellent DUFC Archive blog, which has many historical pieces written by far better writers than me. Go take a look, guys.
The histories of Dundee United and Hibernian are intertwined. It seems a good week to revisit this, give the two clubs are meeting outside the top division for only the third time this weekend.
Two of Dundee United’s biggest ever victories over Hibernian took place in the final week of September.
On the 30th of September 1961, United had a 4-0 victory over Hibs at Tannadice, which included two goals from Wattie Carlyle. 364 days later, incredibly, they surpassed the feat with a 5-0 win, which remains United’s biggest ever victory over Hibs. Again, Carlyle managed to hit the net twice.
Anniversaries aside, the obvious connection goes back to the club’s formation – Dundee United were Dundee Hibernian for the first 14 years of their existence.
Like their Edinburgh counterparts, the club was formed as a football club for the city’s Irish Catholic population. Dundee Hibernian were formed by bicycle shop owner Pat Reilly in 1909. At the time, there were around 40,000 people of Irish origin living in Dundee, which was around a quarter of the city’s population.
Hibernian themselves were formed in St Patrick’s Church on the Cowgate in Edinburgh in 1875, and an equivalent club in Glasgow was created in 1888, although they called themselves Celtic to avoid confusion with the earlier Edinburgh team.
Perhaps to get their intended target audience on board, Dundee Hibernian’s first game on Wednesday 18 August 1909 was against their Edinburgh counterparts. The game was a 1-1 draw in front of a crowd of around 7000 people with Dundee’s Lord Provost Sir James Urqhuart performing a ceremonial kick-off. The Edinburgh Hibs full back John O’Hara became the first player to score at what was now known as Tannadice Park, and was presented with a bicycle by Reilly for his troubles. The first Dundee Hibernian goal came in the second half from Jamie Docherty. He received a gold medal as commemoration, which was probably preferable to a bicycle, if slightly less practical.
However, by the time the teams met in a competitive game, it was 1924 and Dundee Hibernian had become Dundee United. Hibernian won a Scottish Cup game 1-0 at Easter Road.
Almost 50 players have played for both clubs, and Mixu Paatelainen has managed both, with limited degrees of success.
Having lived in Leith for many years, I have been well aware of another parallel. When Hibernian finally won the Scottish Cup earlier this year, it ended a run of 114 unsuccessful years in the competition. Even now, it feels faintly surreal.
When I heard Hibs fans speaking about the Scottish Cup, I was always reminded of the feelings I would get every year as I grew up, when the Scottish Cup third round came along. There was always a weird feeling of optimism (“I wonder if this will be the year we finally do it?”) mixed with fatalism (“we’ll probably mess it up somehow”). I recognised it, and empathised.
Our hoodoo ended in 1994. Hibs fans had to wait a bit longer.
It was a genuine privilege to be in Edinburgh that evening. Seeing the many buses coming along Princes Street, seeing delirious and disbelieving fans hugging bemused tourists, watching the open top bus on Leith Walk the following day, all brought it home how much it means, how much football itself can mean to so many people. It will be a day Hibs fans will remember forever, as the 21st of May 1994 is for us.
The clubs have had a few memorable games in my lifetime.
One interesting piece of history is that Dundee United and Hibs met at Easter Road in 1986 on the day Hearts lost the league in the final seven minutes of the season at Dens Park. United won a rather inconsequential game 2-1, but arguably the minds of the Hibs fans were elsewhere, judging by their reaction at full time as results came in from other grounds. There were apocryphal stories that a Hibs supporters club named Albert Kidd as their player of the year, but I’m sure they wouldn’t really be that mischievous…
In the first fixture of the 1994/95 season, in what was United’s first competitive fixture since that Scottish Cup won, they travelled to Easter Road. There was a real air of optimism among the United support that day, which evaporated pretty quickly after a shocking 5-0 defeat. The fact that three of the goals came from former United players, with two for Darren Jackson and one for Michael O’Neill, did not improve anyone’s mood.
It was United’s heaviest opening day defeat for almost 60 years, as well as being the heaviest defeat Dundee United have ever suffered against Hibernian, and set the tone for a challenging season.
Later that same season, there was a meeting on Hogmanay 1994. The scoreline was better, but not by much.
Edinburgh is normally a wonderful place to spend your Hogmanay. When you are sitting in an exposed temporary stand in the pouring rain wearing a flimsy yellow poncho while watching your team get stuffed 4-0, not so much.
It might be the coldest game I have ever attended. It was certainly one of the bleakest. Watching former Dundee player Keith Wright notch a hat trick is not an enjoyable experience by any means. In truth, it should have been a lot worse as Hibs had more than enough chances for a margin of victory even greater than their opening day win.
Ivan Golac lamented after the game, “If Hibs played us every week they would be champions”, although the scorelines were probably more of a reflection on Dundee United than they were on Hibs.
That season had a suitably inauspicious end as United were relegated.
One slightly more enjoyable experience came in 1998. Well, it was enjoyable for one set of fans.
The spectre of relegation hung over the meeting between the two sides in the penultimate week of the season at Easter Road. An appalling run of form had dragged United towards the bottom of the league. Hibs themselves, who were bottom, knew if they beat United they would have a great chance of avoiding relegation, given they had a game against Kilmarnock on the last day while United had to play a Rangers side who were still chasing their tenth league title in a row. As so often happens in these cases, the side at the bottom of the league were the ones with the momentum.
However, if United won it would confirm that Hibs would be relegated. Given United had won one league game in their previous 16, it was a tall order.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Hibs started the better side despite a bad mass from Lars Zetterlund, and a goal from future United player Grant Brebner gave them a deserved lead. United looked in severe trouble.
They did improve after half time, and it was inevitable that the home side would begin to get nervy for as long as it only remained 1-0. And the equaliser came on 72 minutes. Some good persistence from Zetterlund on the left led to the ball making its way via Gary McSwegan to Kjell Olofsson, who slotted the ball past Bryan Gunn.
Six minutes later, Olofsson scored again with a header which somehow squirmed past Gunn, consigning Hibs to the second tier. For Hibs fans, being relegated and seeing Hearts win the Scottish Cup in the same season must have been as low as it gets.
And you thought being relegated by your local rivals was bad.
The two clubs have never met in a national cup final, although they have met in two Scottish Cup semi finals in recent times.
The first was in 2005. Hibs had been fantastic all season, with an exciting young team managed by Tony Mowbray. United were struggling against relegation, and had just sacked Ian McCall after a dreadful run of results. His assistant, Gordon Chisholm, took charge for the semi final in only his third game in charge of the club. He had lost the preceding two, which included a 3-2 defeat at Easter Road due to a last minute winner from Gary Smith.
Hibs started the game the better side, and the only surprise was how long it took them to take the lead. It was from a penalty which in truth was rather soft, with Barry Robson adjudged to have fouled Dean Shiels. Derek Riordan scored the penalty.
In response, Chisholm brought on Jason Scotland and this change turned the game.
United equalised with a great move that saw Kerr play in Barry Robson whose shot cum cross was side footed home from 5 yards by Jim McIntyre. United had all the momentum at this stage, with Hibernian suddenly clinging on for dear life. McIntyre and Samuel both went close before they got the winner their endeavour deserved when Scotland drove the ball home from 25 yards.
A shellshocked Hibs had no response. Indeed, United nearly won the game by an even greater margin, with Robson hitting the bar from a corner kick. United progressed to their first Scottish Cup final in 11 years, which they lost 1-0 to Celtic. They only ensures Premier League safety on the final day of the season.
The recent Scottish Cup semi final which preceded Hibernian’s amazing final triumph was not a thing of beauty. The game was only noteworthy for an excellent display from the Hibs debutant goalkeeper Conrad Logan, and Jason Cummings having the most pathetic attempt at a Panenka I have ever seen. Given how Logan played during the game, it was probably inevitable he would be the hero in the penalty shoot out.
In a strange quirk, at the time of writing, of the 206 games between the sides in all competitions, both teams have won 73 games each. And here they are, in the second tier together, with the first meeting of the season on the horizon.
It’s an indication of how big the two clubs are that their first three league meetings will all be televised. Both clubs are in the second tier, due to off the pitch negligence combined with on the pitch incompetence. The two clubs have not met outside the top division on league business since 1932.
On the face of it, Hibs are Dundee United’s biggest obstacle to an immediate return to the Premiership, although they are by no means the only obstacle. They are the biggest club United will face in the league this season, and most of their players have experience of this level.
Easter Road is a formidable place to go at the best of times, evidenced by the 3-0 defeat United suffered on their last visit there, in last season’s League Cup. In truth, United were rather lucky the margin of defeat was not even greater.
The most recent meeting was the aforementioned Scottish Cup semi final, although to judge either side on the events of that day is slightly unfair given what a nervy occasion it was. The circumstances surrounding this week’s game are rather different.
Whatever else, the four meetings this season are likely to be crucial for both teams, and will no doubt write themselves into the rich histories of both clubs. For good or ill.
turning circles
Turns out I was wrong a couple of weeks ago. It seems that rumours of Dundee United’s resurrection have been greatly exaggerated.
I thought the win over Dunfermline was a turning point. Turns out it was a fortunate win over a side who failed to take the many chances which were gifted to them by a generous defence.
Harsh? Maybe, but this is a harsh business.
Following that win with two rather abject defeats made me think that my optimism was misplaced.
There are one or two mitigating circumstances to the defeat against Falkirk, it must be said.
United were forced to make three changes due to injury and illness, which meant that Ray McKinnon was unable to make any tactical changes later on in the game.
Two of the players United were forced to take off were Willo Flood and Tony Andreu, who arguably have been our two most influential players this season. So, that didn’t help matters either.
Charlie Telfer then also picked up an injury, and was left on the pitch to hobble around given that he could not be substituted, which hopefully did not exacerbate whatever his injury was.
Given that the central midfield at that stage was the injured Telfer and Scott Fraser who, whatever other qualities he may possess, is clearly not a holding midfielder. Given that, it probably was not surprising that Falkirk were the better side as the game went towards its ending.
Having said that, the three goals Falkirk scored were all down to crosses into the box, which cannot be explained away by bad luck with injuries. Allowing the minuscule John Baird to score with a header is negligent in the extreme.
All this came after Cammy Bell did his best to give away a penalty for a foul on Bob McHugh, but the referee wasn’t giving it. Perhaps Bell is so confident about saving penalties these days that he’s giving them away deliberately. Perhaps the referee felt we’d given away enough penalties in the previous game and took pity on us. No matter.
It is getting to the point that United actually look less likely to give away goals from penalties than from cross balls or corner kicks. I don’t think that’s entirely healthy.
The cup game at Cappielow had no mitigating circumstances, however. It was awful.
There is nothing quite as miserable as going to a midweek away game and being rewarded with a performance as atrocious as that.
United were never going to win the cup, but to go out as meekly as that was hugely disappointing. Morton should really have won more convincingly than they did, and to see Gavin Gunning play so well despite not being fully fit led to the suspicion that someone up there really doesn’t like us.
I am a pessimistic creature by nature, as anyone who has had the misfortune to read previous blogs will know. Given what has happened at Dundee United over the last two years, I find it hard to understand how anyone can be anything else.
The win over Morton in the league was vital, although it was a turgid game. You get no points for artistic merit, and if United have suddenly discovered the ability to grind out wins, then this can only be a good thing.
United certainly appeared to be rather more solid, although they did revert to type by scoring a brain fart own goal right at the end, just to keep everyone on their toes.
Having Tony Andreu on your side helps. He has now scored five goals in three and a half games for United, and already looks like a vital player for us. He was a huge miss in the cup game at Cappielow, although given how we played that night Lionel Messi might have struggled to save us.
The long awaited first meeting with Hibs in now coming up. They are the biggest club in this league, and their players have experience of this level. Although it does appear that Queen of the South are making it a bit harder for them than anyone expected.
Easter Road is a formidable place to go at the best of times, evidenced by the 3-0 defeat United suffered on their last visit there, in last season’s League Cup. In truth, United were rather lucky the margin of defeat was not even greater.
Hibs also beat United on penalties in last year’s Scottish Cup semi final, but that is maybe not a good example given that was the worst game of football which has ever been played.
It’ll be tough, that’s for sure. The hope is that hubris will take over, given that Hibs lost their last home game to Ayr United after a couple of their players declared that they were aiming to go through the season unbeaten. Oops. It’s unlikely that they will be so complacent on Sunday, unfortunately for us.
It’s on television as well. This seems odd given that you’ll be able to see the game live on Sky at Sunday lunchtime, but you probably won’t be able to see the highlights on the BBC on Sunday night.
Perhaps that will be just as well, although give how rotten some games from The Best League In The World can be, maybe there won’t be a noticeable drop off in quality.
I am not sure why Sky have picked up this game, but I’m not complaining. Perhaps they forgot we were both playing in the Championship.
The obvious downside is that the early kick off time may put some United fans off going. This would be a shame, but it’s a fact of life when kick offs are moved to inconvenient times to suit TV.
It’s got to be a better way of spending your Sunday than watching golf, though. Despite everything.
confetti
It’s never dull being a Dundee United fan.
I often think that, by comparison, supporting any other team is rather boring.
However, seeing a goalkeeper save three penalties in under half an hour, even for a Dundee United fan, is unprecedented.
Even the mere fact of seeing three penalties in a game is unusual, unless you support Hearts.
John Beaton’s policy of awarding penalties to Dunfermline until they actually scored one was interesting, although it had one major flaw. Cammy Bell.
Not only did he save three penalties in the first half, which is astonishing in itself, it was against three different penalty takers. A feat that, as far as anyone can work out, has never been done anywhere in the world until now.
It’s certainly the first time a goalkeeper has made off with the match ball, at any rate.
Luckily, if you watched Sportscene, you wouldn’t have seen any of this. Far better to watch the latest moribund 1-1 draw from the Premiership with two workmanlike teams playing in front of a crowd which could comfortably fit in Neil Doncaster’s front room.
No matter. We know where the priority lies, and it isn’t here.
The first penalty came early. William Edjenguele shoved Lee Ashcroft as the ball harmlessly sailed above them. Pretty clear cut.
Gavin Reilly’s penalty was well struck, but Bell got a hand to it.
At this stage, we thought this game would be relatively normal. Then Simon Murray profited from some poor defending to put United 1-0 up. So far, so mundane.
Then the fun began.
New signing Frank van der Strijk tripped Nicky Clark on the touchline, and another penalty was awarded. After a long delay to allow Bell to get treatment, he picked himself up, diced to his right and saved Clark’s penalty.
Then things got really interested. From a Dunfermline corner, the ball was blasted against the raised arms of Paul Dixon, and, almost unbelievably, a third penalty was awarded, with just over half an hour played. Cue lost plots on the pitch and in the stands.
Beaton ended up waving yellow cards around with the calm authority of a man being attacked by a swarm of bees. In the end, three United players were booked, along with several people in the crowd, a young couple who were outside the ground waiting on a bus, and a passing aircraft.
It was Paul McMullen’s turn to try his luck against the increasingly superhuman Cammy Bell, and he had no more success than his team mates. At the time, I was beginning to doubt my own senses.
During the game, I thought the second and third penalties were rather soft. If I’m honest, having seen footage of the game, they were not as soft as I thought. It’s very hard to not have a sense of injustice when you see your team concede three penalties in just over 20 minutes.
Thanks to Cammy Bell’s heroics, it didn’t matter.
The trouble is, now miracles are the least you expect. If he ever fails to save a penalty, it’s going to seem odd. The poor man.
United fans kept themselves amused by shouting for a penalty every time the ball came into the United box, although with hindsight we probably shouldn’t have been giving John Beaton any further ideas.
There was only one goal during the first half, even though there should have been four or five. Most of which should have been for the home side.
Tony Andreu scored as a result of some good play from Nick Van Der Velden and some bad goalkeeping early in the second half, and given that United lost a goal more or less immediately, it was just as well he did.
Dundee United have recently had an unhappy habit of switching off at 2-0 up, and when Dunfermline scored you’d have struggled to find a United fan who thought their team would end up winning the game.
Leaving the penalties to one side, in truth United did not play that well, even before the red card to Paul Dixon. A sending off was probably inevitable, given almost every player who has appeared for Dundee United in the last 15 years was booked during the first half.
Dunfermline’s players never let their heads go down despite their penalty failures, and caused United a lot of problems. The red card did not alter the balance of play a great deal, with the home side having most of the chances.
But United held out, more by luck than judgement perhaps, but the end result is the same.
There was even time for a late goal from Tony Andreu, giving United a margin of victory which maybe flattered them. The celebrations from both players and fans felt cathartic, almost as if a massive hurdle had been cleared.
This could prove to be a massive win, given the circumstances. Despite some spells of good football, United have struggled since coming into the Championship, and a win like this could be exactly the thing to kick start the season.
Fabulous entertainment was had by all. Well worth the cost of entry, and definitely one of those games which, many years in the future, you will tell your grandchildren about.
What’s more, no effigies needed to be hung, no toilets needed to be trashed, no songs about religion needed to be sung, no hypocritical statements needed to be issued.
Although once they find out about that steak bridie I demolished before the game, I’m sure the angry club statement is only a matter or time.
me me me
Nobody likes criticism.
It’s hard to hear things you don’t want to hear. I get that. I am no different to anyone else.
We’ve all been on the receiving end of criticism, some of which is fair, some of which is not. And if you do anything which is in the public domain, whether it’s writing a rather inconsequential blog on a newspaper’s website or if you are a professional athlete, criticism is going to come your way.
And obviously, there’s a point where it is unacceptable, if it spills over into outright abuse. There is a line.
In recent days, one or two people in Scottish football have received criticism which they clearly thought was unfair.
First, there was Craig Thomson’s wee huff after being called a bottler by Chris Sutton for his failure to sent off Harry Forrester in a recent game between Dundee and Rangers.
Now, I’m no expert, but I always assumed the best way to avoid being called a bottler is to not bottle out of making decisions. But what do I know?
It’s maybe just as well there were no TV cameras at Saturday’s game between Dundee United and Raith Rovers, given that Thomson’s performance was somewhere between a Brian Rix farce and a drunk man fighting his own shadow in a pub car park.
If he thinks being called a bottler was overly harsh, it’s lucky he didn’t do a straw poll at Tannadice asking how the fans in attendance thought he did. He might not have liked the results.
But he wasn’t happy about the criticism. It would have been nice for Thomson to acknowledge his error, but he appears to unable or unwilling to take part in that kind of self-analysis.
Then we have the strange case of the vanity searching footballers. A couple of Dundee United players, logging into Twitter after the disappointing 2-2 draw with Raith Rovers, didn’t like what they saw, and weren’t shy about saying so.
No contrition about the team’s performance. Nothing saying how they hoped to improve. Just complaints about the criticism they were getting. Keep it buttoned lads, you’ve never played the game so you couldn’t possibly know a damn thing about it, but if you could keep turning up at games and paying my wages, that would be lovely.
Again, I don’t doubt a fair chunk of the criticism was vitriolic or abusive, and there is no place for that. I also don’t think directly messaging players telling them how rotten you thought they were is particularly constructive, or helpful. But given the alacrity with which fans were blocked (if only they were so good at blocking on the park, eh kids?), it wasn’t just comments sent directly to them that got under their skin. Fans who hadn’t tweeted the players directly found themselves blocked.
I would suggest that if you are that easily riled, then maybe you should not be searching for your own name on a social network, especially after a run of games in which you have played rather poorly.
On the face of it, being a footballer, even at this level, is a great life. Young men doing a job most of us would do for free, and getting reasonably well paid for it.
But the life of a footballer is also this.
If you want the attention, the adulation, the hangers on who surround you to tell you on nights out how great you are in the VIP lounge of some provincial nightclub, then you have to accept the negative side of that. It’s not always pleasant, or even defensible, but in this day and age it’s something of a fact of life.
But if you cannot handle that, perhaps social media is not the place for you. I’d be worried if, given how the game went, you were expecting anything else. Did you log in expecting to see nothing but fulsome praise?
I daresay having random strangers commenting on your performance at work is odd, and not something most of us will ever have to experience. But if people were being charged £20 a time to watch me do my job, I might have a modicum of respect for the people who were paying.
Although it is important to remember that these players are people with lives, with their own struggles. It must be frustrating, and in a way I do understand the urge to answer back. It is possible to defend yourself without coming across as condescending, having said that.
No, we haven’t played football at any sort of level. But we’ve seen hundreds of matches, and hundreds of players. And we know a chancer when we see one.
Just because you are a footballer playing in the second tier of Scottish football, it doesn’t mean that hard work is over. You haven’t yet “made it”, and if any player at United thinks they have, they won’t go any further. Let’s be honest, Dundee United shouldn’t be the height of any young player’s ambitions. If this ends up being the high water mark for your career, something is far wrong.
And if, despite all evidence to the contrary, you do think your current performance levels are in any way good enough, then your long term career prospects are not healthy.
The imaginary line which will save Scottish football
Let’s start with a history lesson.
In 1959, Dundee United were the third worst team in Scottish senior football. Out of 37 league clubs, Dundee United finished 35th.
25 years later, Dundee United played a European Cup semi final in Rome’s Olympic Stadium.
Although this is an extreme example, and football is very different these days, it’s still an example of how things can change, if a system exists which allows clubs to grow and flourish. A meritocracy, in other words.
Ann Budge made me think of this.
Budge gave an interview last week in which she rehashed the old argument that Scottish football has too many clubs. It wasn’t big on specifics, or explanation, but a seed was planted.
“I’m not throwing anyone to the dogs”, she said, although how cutting 50% of Scottish league clubs out of a league system, by whatever means, could be described as anything else I am not altogether clear.
As they did when David Murray used to say this sort of thing back in the day when people thought he knew what he was doing, some people did say that, yes, there are too many clubs. No one was able to explain why there are too many, or what the problems Scottish football has that would be solved by having fewer clubs, but as recent political events have taught us, detail doesn’t tend to matter too much when presenting an argument.
What happens to the half of Scottish clubs that apparently aren’t worthy? Do we merge them? Scrap them? Send them off to some regional non-league purgatory, never to be seen again?
Budge was a little sketchy on the specifics here.
Aside from anything else, where do you draw the line?
Let’s say we draw the line below the Championship. OK, fine. Had we done this in the previous three seasons, Dunfermline would have been below the cut off point.
However you feel about that particular club, to suggest they wouldn’t “deserve” a place in this brave new world is utterly absurd. They are one of Scotland’s most successful clubs outwith the big cities.
Let’s no forget Rangers recently spent two years outwith the top two divisions, when for some reason nobody was making this argument.
Maybe we should just give up all pretence of sport and just cherry pick 20 clubs, and leave the rest of them to do what they can.
You can argue about “ambition” as much as you like.
Only two teams can ever win the Scottish league (although based on what I saw of Rangers on Saturday, perhaps I am being generous). Is that because 40 teams in Scotland lack ambition? Nonsense.
We have seen plenty of Scottish clubs almost kill themselves in the name of ambition over the years, where said ambition was only outweighed by the debts they ran up to pursue it.
Shall we let Rangers and Celtic play each other every week, given they are the only two clubs with the “ambition” to win the title?
If anyone from the SPFL is reading, that wasn’t a serious suggestion. Don’t get ideas.
But what would happen if we were only left with 20 league clubs? Would there magically be more money for these clubs? Would attendances go up?
Would Forfar fans, for example, suddenly start going to Dens Park or Tannadice? I doubt it. From what I have seen of their season ticket sales, persuading Dundee fans to go to Dens Park is hard enough.
If we are not leaving smaller clubs to get on with it outwith the current league structure, the alternative is allowing clubs to merge, so instead of having Dunfermline, Raith Rovers, Cowdenbeath and East Fife, we have the Fife All Stars or something else suitably daft.
Perhaps people add up the average attendance of these clubs and decide that a Fife team will get 8000 through the doors every week.
To be blunt, that’s bloody stupid. We’re getting into franchise territory here, which is not a world I want Scottish football to live in.
Mind you, people in charge of Hearts do have previous when it comes to trying to push through mergers in Scottish football. It’s been tried. Didn’t end well.
In general, clubs from smaller towns provide a community function the larger clubs cannot, or will not replicate. They are much more important to their towns than the bigger clubs are to theirs.
They certainly perform more important and helpful role within their communities, than, to use a purely hypothetical example, clubs that cost local businesses money they can ill afford to lose by running up millions of pounds worth of debt which they are unable to pay back.
For all that we hear that Scottish football cannot sustain this many clubs, the clubs which we would seemingly cut out are the ones who can actually sustain themselves. Without becoming reliant on external factors such as TV money.
It’s not the clubs in Leagues One and Two who have had insolvency events, after all. Any debt run up by clubs at that level is, by and large, sustainable.
The clubs exist at a natural level, which isn’t artificially inflated by the spending of money they don’t actually have.
Football is not a “normal” business, even though clubs do have to run themselves as such.
Football fans are not customers. There is a level of emotional attachment which does not exist in the wider world. If your favourite clothes shop goes out of business, you do not stop buying clothes.
If Dundee United suddenly did not exist, I’d stop going to games. I am fairly confident that the vast majority of fans, if their team ceased to be, would not immediately start watching another team.
Besides, given that 95% of the TV revenue in Scottish football goes to the top two divisions, I am not sure how this 5%, distributed as it would be between 22 clubs, would magically raise standards.
Maybe I am missing something. Maybe we all are.
To go back to my original point, if someone had decided in 1959 that Scottish football had too many clubs, Dundee United would have been below the line. Sorry lads, you’re out. Have fun in the regional leagues.
The result? No wins over Barcelona, Monaco, or Borussia Moenchengladbach, for starters. No Jim McLean. No league win. No European Cup semi finals. No UEFA Cup final. No cup wins.
Worth thinking about.
It’s getting better man
It’s fair to say that the last 18 months have been rather difficult for Dundee United.
One of the worst aspects of your club being in freefall is that you have no idea when it will ever end. Or even if it will ever end.
The four league cup games have shown that maybe, just maybe, the slide has been arrested.
Against Arbroath the team was sluggish, perhaps betraying their lack of match fitness and the sheer number of new players. But since then, performances were very good for games which could easily have been treated as glorified pre season friendlies. It was a tough group, so getting through it should be applauded.
The last 16 draw put United up against our old friends Partick Thistle, which is a difficult but winnable game. Although no doubt they will feel the same.
It could have been worse. We could have finished 3rd in a group containing four part time teams. That would have been embarrassing.
I have enjoyed the new league cup format, bringing as it has an element of interest to a competition which in previous years has been largely moribund, especially in the first few rounds.
The format has been imaginative, especially with the penalty shoot outs – although I am perhaps slightly biased, given how good United have suddenly become at penalties.
The constant changing of the picture on Saturday was exciting in itself, although it was a little bit hard to keep up with at times. Qualification came down to the final penalty in the game between Dumbarton and Peterhead.
As for United, although it’s early days, the signs are promising. In midfield, Stewart Murdoch and Willo Flood appear to be a significant upgrade on the John Rankin/Paul Paton tandem of the last few years.
Going forward, there is pace from Tope Obadeyi, augmented by the obvious class of Nick Van der Velden. Cammy Smith has been excellent in his couple of appearances so far and also looks a good addition.
The hope is that the younger players like Scott Fraser and Blair Spittal will flourish in the Championship. It’s a big season for both.
I’m still not convinced that Simon Murray is at his most effective as a lone striker. I think he’ll get a lot of goals this season, but he’ll also miss a lot of chances. Like a lot of strikers, he’s great at instinctive one-touch finishing, but less convincing given time to think.
I can relate to that.
A new striker is something I think United need, although unless Henri Anier leaves it’s unlikely anyone else will come in. I like Anier, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that his wages might be better spent elsewhere. Ray McKinnon appears to think that, at least.
Perhaps it’s a strange thing to say after a clean sheet, but the defence still needs major surgery. Although Dunfermline failed to score on Sunday, United’s defending at times was as unconvincing as Boris Johnson.
Jamie Robson was excellent at left back, and showed enough to suggest that Paul Dixon has real competition for his starting place. However, central defence is still a huge concern, especially at set pieces.
United still look like they will lose a goal from almost every corner kick. In truth, this has been the case for a while now.
Ray McKinnon said in an interview last week that the budget for this year was more or less spent.
Because of this, the assumption is that no players will come in until players leave, but a big ugly uncompromising centre half is a must. If the chairman could push the boat out a little bit, that would be fantastic. I can dream.
The squad United currently have appears to be one which can mount a championship challenge. Hibs are very strong, of course, so it won’t be easy, but they will not be the only threat.
Everyone in this league can cause United problems. The players cannot be allowed to assume that any game will be a gimme. Every single point will need to be earned.
The manager has certainly said the right things so far. He seems to understand where the weaknesses are, and is actually trying to solve them.
So far, there has been no panic signings or rushing into things. “Our manager actually scouts players! What a genius”. Compared with the previous two managers, it feels like genius. It shows how bad things were allowed to get.
McKinnon has spoken of the state of the club when he came in, and it really does not reflect well on either Jackie McNamara or Mixu Paatelainen. He talked about United being a lax and unprofessional club where standards had been allowed to slip. No longer.
Hearing him speak, you can tell he worked under Jim McLean and Brian Clough. There are certainly worse people to be influenced by.
Dundee United now appears to heading in the right direction at last, both on and off the park. The club has at least attempted to engage with its supporters, a lot of whom have been utterly alienated by the events of the last two years. McKinnon certainly seems to understand the importance of this.
This will be a long process, but as a wise man once said, even the longest journey must begin with a single step.
It’s hard to know exactly, but to me this feels like a much stronger squad than the one which started last season.
If only we had started last season with this squad, and this manager…if only.
New season, new danger
The close season is rubbish.
The lack of domestic football creates a void that not even Euro 2016 can fill. Although let’s be honest, the vast majority of games were rotten. A dull tournament got a suitably dull winner, although Portugal’s triumph did annoy an awful lot of people, so it wasn’t a total loss.
They did fully deserve to win the final. But the game will not live long in the memory. Nor will the tournament itself.
We have had to entertain ourselves with the phoney war in the papers between Scott Brown and Joey Barton. A real clash of intellectual heavyweights, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Given the level of discourse we were treated to was around the level of two teenagers who are too scared to admit that they really fancy each other, I am starting to think the first Old Firm game of the season will resemble the fireplace scene from Women In Love.
Leigh Griffiths also waded into the argument, perhaps excited that there is finally someone in Scottish football who has a longer rap sheet than he does.
One advantage of being relegated is being slightly divorced from all that nonsense. I am pleased that both clubs are happy now they can resume their symbiotic relationship.
Celtic were so hyped up that they managed to hold the mighty Lincoln Red Imps to a 1-0 defeat on Tuesday night. Well worth whatever they are paying Brendan Rodgers, I’m sure.
There was some doubt pre-match over which TV channel would be showing the game. Turned out it was Comedy Central.
But real football is back on Friday, and it doesn’t get more real than a trip to Arbroath.
The new format of the League Cup is an interesting one, although given the season starts so early the games may very well feel like glorified pre-season friendlies. However, it’s infinitely better than the omnishambles of the new Challenge Cup format.
I’m not against a cross border competition as such (I hear Bala is lovely at this time of year), but the idea of playing Premiership under 21 teams, which is presumably just to soften us up for introducing Old Firm “colt teams” into the league system? That’s an abysmal idea from an organisation not short of abysmal ideas.
My goodness, some of the Premiership teams are boring enough in themselves without asking us to pay good money to watch their under 21 teams. If some of these teams were playing in my back garden I’d shut my curtains. Before torching the house, just to be on the safe side.
Yet more proof, as it is was needed, that Scottish football is run for the benefit of two clubs.
In the Championship, Hibs are the obvious threat to United’s ambitions. The appointment of Neil Lennon was one hell of a statement of intent, although given his managerial success so far has been directly related to the size of the chequebook available to him, perhaps we shouldn’t be getting too defeatist.
They have a fantastic squad for this level, and have kept hold of almost all of their better players, at least so far.
One thing’s for sure – Hibs are under huge pressure to go up this year. This could work in United’s favour, if they somehow manage to get an early lead on them. United’s start to the season is relatively benign by comparison.
In a strange sort of way, Hibs being there helps United in the sense that it reduces the expectation a bit. They have a stronger squad and a bigger budget than United, but if they do not make a good start you can easily see the “Hibsing it” accusations appear again, despite last season’s magnificent and hilarious Scottish Cup win.
Whether due to last season’s experiences or not, I have not encountered any United fan who thinks this season will be easy. There are many good teams in the Championship, and no-one is disrespectful or delusional enough to think otherwise.
It’s a new experience for a large section of the United support, but we shouldn’t be snobbish or arrogant enough to think of this as a holiday, from which normal service will be resumed fairly quickly.
Promotion will have to be earned. It will be fascinating to see how the team reacts to the sense of expectation and the pressure that will undoubtedly be there.
Last season was a horrible experience, and how quickly the stench of failure washes off could be crucial to how this season goes. Better teams than last year’s United side have struggled after relegation, and very few teams come back up first time.
There have been some players in and many players out. At the risk of sounding harsh, no-one who left will be missed.
Ray McKinnon has certainly said the right things. He seems to understand where the weaknesses are, and is actually trying to solve them.
So far, there has been no panic signings or rushing into things. “Our manager actually scouts players! What a genius”. Compared with the previous two managers, it feels like genius. It shows how bad things were allowed to get.
United players have gone on record saying how much harder the training has been this year compared to what they have previously been used to. Players who have left have also spoken about how shocked they are at the increased workload at their new clubs. Rather telling. The implied insult to the previous two managers has not gone unnoticed.
We should both be glad this is happening now and angry that this didn’t happen earlier. We are where we are.
It’s a new start. I think we have the right manager in place, and I think we are finally heading in the right direction. Let’s hope my optimism is given a reason to last.
There’s still work to be done, but overhauling the club is not the work of a moment. The league season is still a month away.
Bring it on.
sarto mutiny 