Alex McLeish takes over when Walter Smith walks out. Neil Forsyth is worried
It takes a special kind of team to suffer an apparent plummet in stature and expectations without the players taking to the field. Scotland may be the unlikely leaders of a Euro 2008 qualifying group that includes Italy and France, but recent events have made this situation appear more like a temporary aberration soon to be rectified rather than a possible springboard to qualification.
Ten years ago Terry Christie led a club with a century of underachievement behind them to a perfect day in Perth, beating Dundee United to delight Scott Harvie
“Remember, remember the fifth of November, Armstrong, Haddow and Sprott.” While this version of the traditional rhyme may not have much meaning outside Ochilview Park, many Stenhousemuir fans would want to rewind repeat Guy Fawkes Day 1995 as their version of Groundhog Day. Until then Stenny had recorded 111 years of footballing existence without a national trophy to their name. Given their decline so far in the 21st century, you can safely speculate that even the youngest babe in arms at Ochilview won’t be around to celebrate their next such success.
The eternally controversial former Rangers goalkeeper took the high road to Elgin in the autumn – but, as Dan Brennan relates, the low road would have led, amazingly, to Brazil
For all its merits, Elgin is not Rio. Ask Andy Goram. This summer, the 39-year-old former Rangers goalkeeper appeared close to an improbable move to Brazilian top-flight side Botafogo, after a chance encounter with the club’s representatives in Selkirk, where he was organising a six-a-side tournament.
Archie MacGregor believes Berti Vogts’ forward thinking is the one thing going for the German, but Scotland’s topsy-turvy play-off defeat to Holland was a dismal throwback
Ah, the roller-coaster ride that is the lot of the Scotland supporter. From exultant, wide-eyed optimism to the pits of despair in four days. Wasn’t this sort of thing supposed to have been banished once and for all after Argentina 78?
After playing in front of thousands, having a first date watched by millions didn’t seem too strange to Celtic’s former Portugal star, as Dan Brennan reports
Jorge Cadete is remembered at Celtic as one of the Three Amigos, the forward line that bedazzled and delighted the Parkhead public during 1996-97. He and his two compadres – Paolo Di Canio and Pierre van Hooijdonk – also had manager Tommy Burns and chairman Fergus McCann reaching for the valium. It was McCann who first coined the epithet – more a sour reference to their fanciful wage demands and antics off the pitch than their buccaneering exploits on it.