Search: ' George Burley'

The US college system is offering an increasingly popular way into the professional game for British footballers. Gavin Willacy examines the latest phenomenon in Major League Soccer

With Five no longer airing MLS games during the milkmen’s breakfast slot, even fewer British viewers will have seen the impact Darren Huckerby, Ade Akinbiyi and Danny Dichio have had on the American top flight than saw David Beckham try to inspire the hapless LA Galaxy last summer. While a string of English thirtysomethings understandably use MLS as a preferable last stop to Brentford or Brighton, there is another growing group of British footballers emerging in America.

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Neil Forsyth assesses the fallout from the Ferguson/McGregor incident and the somewhat muddled response of their superiors

The Scottish national team has a long, celebrated history of alcohol-fuelled moments of madness and it was about time another one came stumbling into view. After all, it’s been more than 30 years since the glory days of the 1970s – when a drunk Jimmy Johnstone stole a rowing boat during a Scotland camp and was rescued by the coastguard, then the Scotland career of Billy Bremner and two others ended after an altercation in a Copenhagen nightclub following a European Championship game.

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Kris Boyd has walked away from George Burley’s Scotland set-up. Gordon Cairns asks why many have sided with the sulking player

Former secretary of state for Scotland David Cairns seems an unlikely mentor for Rangers striker Kris Boyd, but one wonders if the only minister to resign in the short-lived rebellion against Gordon Brown had been whispering in the ear of the disaffected reserve Scotland striker. How else might the bizarre retirement of Boyd in the wake of the draw with Norway be explained? The catalyst seems to have been Burley’s decision to bring on two strikers, Chris Iwelumo and Stephen Fletcher, with one cap between them rather than Boyd, which was obviously too much for his fragile ego.

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Thaksin needs to learn that only stability will bring long-term success

With the news as we went to press that Sven-Göran Eriksson was set to be sacked after his new club’s best top-flight season since 1992, Thaksin Shinawatra appears to have confirmed his ambition of turning Manchester City into the English equivalent of Hearts. That story started quite well, too, back in 2005. The club’s new Lithuanian owner, Vladimir Romanov, loudly proclaimed his determination to challenge Rangers and Celtic, and the team led the SPL for just over three months. But even with the team topping the table, manager George Burley was manoeuvred out. Half a dozen less successful men, whose names even Hearts fans would struggle to keep track of, have followed.

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George Burley is the new manager of Scotland. Neil Forsyth reports on a four-way battle for the job and the challenges facing the former Southampon boss

If Scotland are to continue the renaissance of their national team following the despair of Berti Vogts’ reign, then it is George Burley who will now be leading them onwards. The Southampton manager was the selection of the SFA after a lengthy search that culminated in a shortlist of Burley, Mark McGhee, Graeme Souness and Tommy Burns. It was a quartet that failed to produce a clear favourite among fans and media, with each having decent credentials for the task without standing out.

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