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Crimes against Scottish Football

crafty cokcney

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Lads, I know it's long winded, but it is worth the read.

Cheers






Date: 13th June 1986, the date Alex Ferguson refused to play wing wizard
Davie Cooper against the Butchers of Uruguay
Crime Scene: Vast empty spaces everywhere, tundras once known as "flanks" or "wings"

Accused: Disciplinarians, bureaucrats, fitness fanatics and dullards

Charge: Death of the winger

Presiding: Judge Stuart Cosgrove Esq

Case for the Prosecution

"There are only two things in this world whose sole reason for being is pure pleasure. One of them is the Winger. He was the belle of the ball, the black sheep of the family, the Clint Eastwood, Salvador Dali and Lenny Bruce. Sadly, he’s gone from our game. Who is responsible for this heinous crime? Outside Right and Outside Left may be concepts consigned to the dustbin of history along with Betamax videos, the Sinclair C5 and Advocaat’s Head and Shoulders. But long after we stopped playing five up front, there was still room for one of these wide-boy renegades. Scottish Premier managers, pundits and defensive tacticians stand accused of ignoring this princely position and dragging the game into disrepute
But, I hear you fair-minded jurors saying, "Is the recent revival of the winger in football not a welcome reminder of yesteryear? " Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, Martin O’Neill may have brought us Bobby Petta and McLeish may have offered up De La Cruz, but these players are not wingers. They are "Wing-Backs", a bastardisation of the true No 11 role. True wingers wouldn’t track back. They couldn’t be arsed. They wouldn’t be seen dead in their own half in case they got their boots flecked with mud.
Since the 1950s Scotland has produced and witnessed some truly fab Winged Wonders. Willie(s) Ormond and Waddell got Rangers and Hibs fans' hearts fluttering in the days of cloths caps and tackety boots. Whilst across at Parkhead a certain Giles Heron from Jamaica (known as ‘The Black Arrow’) flew down the wing. Yes, not only can Scotland lay claim to be home of some tantalising wingers, but by inspiring Gil-Scott Heron’s dad to father a child, we inadvertently created modern rap music. You’d never thought Eminem and Willie Ormond had much in common, did you?
In the '60s one man stood head and shoulder below all others: Jimmy Johnstone. From 1965 to 1974 Celtic won nine consecutive Scottish titles, and Jinky played in every season. Johnstone scored more than 100 goals for Celtic, and after leaving in 1975, went on to play for everyone from the San Jose Earthquakes to Dundee Shelbourne. Immortalised as the "oarsman of the apocalypse", Jinky managed only 23 caps for his country but is arguably the greatest winger ever to have played in Scotland.
The '70s threw up a host of contenders who would argue the case. Arthur Duncan, Davie Cooper, John Robertson and Willie Johnston for starters. The 1980s saw showboating from Pat Nevin and Ted McMinn, while the '90s brought us Neil McCann and Tony Rougier. From Jimmy Johnstone to Tony Rougier, in 30 years? I ask you. Rangers fans would rightly put forward the late Davie Cooper. Motherwell fans would no doubt do the same. The mercurial Willie Johnstone might well have a case, the "Reactivan" incident in 1978 possibly edging him into the top five. In more recent years, Thistle’s Brian McLaughlin has had the Jags’ jumping, whilst ex-Raith Rovers’ Didier Agathe and Rangers Brian Laudrup have been singeing the bye-lines.
You might think that Laudrup’s 45 goals for Rangers would strengthen his case, but this is to miss the point. True wingers have no place scoring goals. Their role is to tease the full-backs until they lamp them and get sent off. Goals, or indeed passing the ball at all, should be a mere afterthought to the true wing-man. As the late great Jim Baxter said, the idea is to "extract the urine". For this reason, and for his laughable good behaviour, Laudrup doesn’t even make the grade.
If the title of "Greatest ever winger to have played in Scotland" is under debate from those who would quibble with Jinky, few names can compete. One thing fans can agree on about the verdict is, it’s: NOT PROVAN. But we are not here to wrestle with such issues as who had more tricks up his sleeve, Nevin or the Tin Man? Who had a more deceptive gait, Robertson or Agathe? Or indeed, who was truly the baddest of baddies between the Johnston(e) boys?
On trial are the functionaries, prawn sandwich-eaters, board members and holistic health experts who have crumpled the life out of football and banned the wildmen from the game. We are here to pass judgement on the beaks, the pen-pushers, and the pusillanimous puritans who have created the "utility player", the team-man, the generous and overly-reasonable midfield machine. These are the people who killed the winger, a truly horrible offence against Scottish Football.
The prosecution rests, Big Man.

Case for the Defence

"Your Honour, with the greatest respect, seldom have I heard such guff spoken in a court of law. For the prosecution to blame the death of the winger on disciplinarians, bureaucrats, fitness fanatics and dullards is John Hartson-sized nonsense. What's more, to mourn the loss of these parasitic creatures is the delusional behaviour of a dilettante character pampered with Johnstone and Johnston. I ask that the court considers the likes of Jimmy and Willie, and Hughie Gallacher, Bobby Lennox, Willie Henderson, Ian Scanlon, Peter Weir, John Hewitt, Pat Nevin and Neil McCann. If what we have just heard is the prosecution, the mealy-mouthed opposition espousing the talents of the winger, then consider me the full back, for I am the defence.
Lord Cosgrove, to have recited the names of these lily-livered braggadocios has rendered the air in this courtroom as fetid as Stevie Fulton’s jockstrap. The winger does not entertain; he dupes his audience into expecting skill, poise and grace, but offers little to the overall team. This sub-breed are cases all of flim-flammery, puff-poofery and bee-baw babbity. These capricious, disgraceful men lack substance. Their so-called skills have been foisted upon the football public by twits concocting notions of majestic tanner ba’ play, when in fact they deserve their baws tanned. If the modern team were to be compared to a tin of assorted biscuits, wingers would be those pink fluffy wafers that no-one wants, the ones that disintegrate when dunked into a cup of tea. They might not be able to face the brew, but the Buroo is indeed where these chancers should be.
Being a follower of St Johnstone FC, Your Honour, you will be acutely aware that your team has survived in the top league thanks to the tactical nous of its managers. And may I further proffer that the Saintees’ formation makes no use of wing play, that the flanks, in Perthshire parlance, remains a term for farmers and butchers. My argument, then, is that if modern football thinking can have penetrated the hamlet of Perth, then we should not seek to prosecute the alleged slayers of the winger; rather we should rejoice in our national game’s evolution.
On the Continent we’ve seen Helenio Herrera’s catenaccio at Inter and the Total-Football ethos of the Dutch. Thankfully, coaches in Scotland have moved on too, and no longer do we see that boil on the anus of our game, the winger. The pot-bellied John Robertson and the gallus Joe Miller are no more than apes left swinging in the trees, while the modern footballers, Ferguson of Rangers excepted, are the proud and erect products of our footballing fathers’ foresight.
Let it be known to the court that a winger would sell his mother faster than he’d sell a dummy. Oh, yes indeed. He’s a waster, a lame apology for the modern player, a lazy pluke who will stand at the halfway line warming his hands upon his cobblers, engaging in some honking banter with the fans, while his team-mates run and harry like proper players should. A winger is the equivalent of paying to enter a public convenience, then passing nothing but an air biscuit. He is Arctic roll…minus the ice cream, and there’s little worse than that.

Your Honour, let’s not fall for the prosecution’s romantic guff about the days of Jimmy Johnstone and Willie Waddell. Jinky Johnstone was nowt but a scrotum in football boots. There was nothing brave or commendable or awe-inspiring about watching Auld and McNeill pass the ball to Jinky to go and do his stuff. All he did was time-waste, and he’d be kicked black and blue for doing so…and quite right too. No man of sound mind likes a ginger whipper-snapper giving them a riddy. And puh-lease, for the sake of our justice system, let us strike from the record all that hot air about the versatility of the wingers. It wasn’t that they could play left back and outside right; it was just that they were so bone idle they wouldn’t even bother changing ends at half time.
Now, at the risk of incurring your wrath, Your Honour, I urge you to welcome the winger to your profession - keep him on the bench for ever more, and let’s not go sending down astute tacticians who have saved our national game from wing-wizard demonic sorcery!"
The defence rest it's case M'lud.

Verdict
I find in favour of the prosecution. The winger was killed by order of the defensive manager and his psychotic henchman, the rugged full-back. Some have tried to revitalise the tradition - Pat Nevin, Jose Quitongo, and Paul Hartley. But alas it was too late.

Sentence

The defendants will be forced to witness one Scottish match per week for the balance of their natural lives. For any defendant who can prove he was born and has maintained residency throughout his lifetime in Scotland, leniency will be shown by the court and the sentence reduced to time already served, with the condition attached that he take up some worthy community pursuit like golf or knitting.
 

Rangerforever

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I sense a possible 'Extraction of Urine'

Crafty:

I have to admit for a Sassanach, you're all right. :D

Where, the fcuk, did you get that from?

Jinky Jimmy Johnstone and Super Duper Davie Cooper are long gone unfortunately.
Who knows if we'll ever get back those glory days as a Country....

Still a big fan of the SPL and SFA, always will be, ;)

RF
 

Jinky

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It's from Cosgrove's Court on the BBC Scotland Off The Ball website.


Sir Alf Ramsey killed the winger.

Scottish winger Johnny Kelly (the Barnsley Barnstormer) made Spurs defender Ramsey look like a right dumpling whenever he played against him. He vowed to rid football of wingplay by winning the World Cup without them thus influencing future generations to use England's boring defensive style.
 

crafty cokcney

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Jinky said:
It's from Cosgrove's Court on the BBC Scotland Off The Ball website.


Sir Alf Ramsey killed the winger.

Scottish winger Johnny Kelly (the Barnsley Barnstormer) made Spurs defender Ramsey look like a right dumpling whenever he played against him. He vowed to rid football of wingplay by winning the World Cup without them thus influencing future generations to use England's boring defensive style.

Really.. :confused: Please explain to me what positions Hunt and Ball played on that glorious day at Wembley..?

Cheers


For the record, I thought Jinky was a very talented winger, but he truly was there for the piss take factor. Not satisfied with skinning players once... oh no...he had to do it two or three times before getting rid of the ball or getting pummled.
 

deleted-dope

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being born in scotland i follow their football all the time. got into an argument the other night at the bar about the spl. now im a ranger fan (billy boy)lets just get that out right away. talking with a guy and he was saying that scotland teams are all shite, now as much as i dont like them the celtic would finish top 6 in england easy i think and rangers with the way their playing the last few weeks my be relagated(joking) may finish top 12 i think. this guy was saying celtic would not be able to beat 1 england team now i know that bs but does anyone think that celtic are not good enough to finish top 6....if your a hoop fan im not patting you on the back at all........

follow follow we will follow rangers

Crafty Cokcney said:
Really.. :confused: Please explain to me what positions Hunt and Ball played on that glorious day at Wembley..?

Cheers


For the record, I thought Jinky was a very talented winger, but he truly was there for the piss take factor. Not satisfied with skinning players once... oh no...he had to do it two or three times before getting rid of the ball or getting pummled.
 

Jinky

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Crafty Cokcney said:
Really.. :confused: Please explain to me what positions Hunt and Ball played on that glorious day at Wembley..?

Roger Hunt played alongside Hurst in the front of a 4-3-3.

At least that's how it looks on paper. England actually used a 4-1-3-2 with Stiles playing as a sweeper in front of the back four. With Martin Peters operating on the left of the midfield and converted winger Bobby Charlton running the show in the middle, Alan Ball was forced to play a withdrawn role, more a right sided midfielder than a forward.

Ramsey's forwards were encouraged to move sideways, not up and down wings. The England wingplay was handled by the fullbacks, George Cohen and Ray Wilson.

Ramsey did not use wingers.
 

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