Bloody Football!

[robertlouis]

I've actually seen Everton play at Goodison and it wasn't against Liverpool.
Sadly many years ago my uncle was due a trial for Everton as a potential goalkeeper,but he was killed.

My uncle played for Liverpool in the 60s. Small world.

[robertlouis]

Everton fluctuate, it seems to me -they might have done well in Europe had the ban on English clubs after Heysel not been (unfairly in my opinion) imposed- there have been some great games with Liverpool but I don't think anyone doubts where the power lies in the North-West, with or without your uncle, which is a sad story. One of the more interesting historical aspects of the rivalry between the Reds is the prior economic dominance of Liverpool before the construction of the Manchester Ship Canal which may or may not have contributed to the gradual decline of Liverpool, not least because Manchester also had the cotton trade. Having said that, the journalist Hugh MacIlvanney some years ago made a documentary about the three most influential managers of the English game and all three came from a small area in Scotland -Jock Stein, Bill Shankly and Matt Busby, so the irony of the Red Rivalry is that it was shaped in its most intense years by managers as it were, cut from the same cloth, as indeed is true of Alex Ferguson whose origins are not that from from the Lanarkshire of the great trio. And both clubs used to recruit the best young players from Ireland and Scotland, whereas these days neither Ireland nor Scotland produces young stars like it once did.

Those three were certainly among my boyhood heroes, and Jock Stein imho was the greatest of them all for his achievements with Celtic, especially that glorious Lisbon night in 1967 when his team of Glasgow-born journeymen became the first British club to lift the European Cup. Had he crossed the border in his prime there's no doubt in my mind that he would have outshone both of his illustrious counterparts.

And he began his managerial career at Dunfermline, my team.

[Stavros]

The curious thing is how Scots seem to do well when they leave Scotland -the Scots who were fundamental to the growth of Canada when the French left; the Scots like Andrew Carnegie who became industrial entrepreneurs in the USA, the Scots who have enriched English football....makes you wonder why they would want independence...it seems to be the reserve of poets and pundits....even if two of the poets (Surly Mac and Grievous Mac) were world class -and no irony there.

[robertlouis]

The curious thing is how Scots seem to do well when they leave Scotland -the Scots who were fundamental to the growth of Canada when the French left; the Scots like Andrew Carnegie who became industrial entrepreneurs in the USA, the Scots who have enriched English football....makes you wonder why they would want independence...it seems to be the reserve of poets and pundits....even if two of the poets (Surly Mac and Grievous Mac) were world class -and no irony there.

You could add Norman McCaig, Edwin Morgan, Liz Lochhead, Edwin Muir and of course Carol Anne Duffy. And that's without mentioning the "B" word.

And in football, all of those tiny Scots wingers mazily scribing indelible football poetry across the field - Jimmy Johnstone, Willie Henderson, Archie Gemmill, Willie Morgan.... it's a very long list.

[Stavros]

Yes, but a long list from yesteryear -how many Scots these days dribble their way past/through Celtic to titles in Scotland? On balance I think the majority have succeeded outside Scotland rather than inside it (Lewis Grassic Gibbon wrote A Scots Quair in Welwyn Garden City) notwithstanding your B list scribblers.

[SammiValentine]

Mesdames et Messieurs s'il vous plait se lever

my intellectual contribution to that clip...is...

what a jammy knobhead

[robertlouis]

Yes, but a long list from yesteryear -how many Scots these days dribble their way past/through Celtic to titles in Scotland? On balance I think the majority have succeeded outside Scotland rather than inside it (Lewis Grassic Gibbon wrote A Scots Quair in Welwyn Garden City) notwithstanding your B list scribblers.

"B list scribblers?" Your endless putting down of artists in various genres becomes extremely tiresome at times.

Have you read contemporary Scots poetry beyond the admittedly marvellous MacLean and the occasionally wilfully obscure MacDiarmid? I confess to some bias, having been tutored by Edwin Morgan (a perfectly lovely man) who in turn introduced me to the lugubriously hilarious Norman McCaig, and as for Liz, she was in the same tutorial group as a mature student. Perhaps the fact that all three prefer the cadences of demotic Scots means that their work fails to meet the tawdry standards demanded by your metropolitan snobbery.

Paxman's arrogant and ignorant dismissal of Burns sounds depressingly familiar.

[robertlouis]

my intellectual contribution to that clip...is...

what a jammy knobhead

You forgot "French"

[beaufont]

my intellectual contribution to that clip...is...

what a jammy knobhead

And you forgot arrogant

[Stavros]

"B list scribblers?" Your endless putting down of artists in various genres becomes extremely tiresome at times.

Have you read contemporary Scots poetry beyond the admittedly marvellous MacLean and the occasionally wilfully obscure MacDiarmid? I confess to some bias, having been tutored by Edwin Morgan (a perfectly lovely man) who in turn introduced me to the lugubriously hilarious Norman McCaig, and as for Liz, she was in the same tutorial group as a mature student. Perhaps the fact that all three prefer the cadences of demotic Scots means that their work fails to meet the tawdry standards demanded by your metropolitan snobbery.

Paxman's arrogant and ignorant dismissal of Burns sounds depressingly familiar.

Their poetry does not give me pause, it does not encourage repeated reading, though I can see why some admire them. I don't have tawdry standards, they are most exacting.