HE reckoned it was within a few injury-time minutes of being the greatest result in his illustrious 40-year career in professional football but still it was not enough to shake off some of Gordon Strachan’s critics.
If in doubt sack the manager continues to be football’s mantra and a match that came within moments of being won, but also within minutes of being lost, got those knees a-twitching once more.
There have, of course, been a number of performance and results during this manager’s time in charge that have been worse than they might have, but drawing with an England team that boasts superior quality in every department was the definition of the management/coaching idyll that sees the collective effort allow the whole to be greater than the sum of its individual parts.
Read more: Scotland and Celtic goalkeeper Craig Gordon on the sting in the tail to his dream season
To someone who has had a fondness for Strachan since he began his professional career at Dundee in the seventies, the antipathy towards him has often been perplexing. It has been tempting at times to wonder whether height, hair colouring or past footballing connections have been the main source of offence such has been the almost personalised unwillingness in some quarters to offer him the slightest credit, albeit the sharpness with which he has been known to deploy his sarcastic wit at the media’s expense seems a likelier explanation.
It is also perhaps something of a commentary on the sort of society we have increasingly lived in since Strachan and I were growing up, with the damage done by the Gekko/Thatcherite ‘greed is good’ philosophy, a symptom of which is the sadistic streak to the build ‘em up, knock ‘em down approach to those occupying high profile posts.
Looking at how Strachan goes about his business as a whole and trying to set aside ancient affections from his days in dark blue at Dens Park, I was hugely impressed with the way he spoke at the SFA convention a couple of years ago, outlining an outward-looking understanding of the narrow focus on domestic football that has crippled Scotland’s sporting development.
Read more: Scotland and Celtic goalkeeper Craig Gordon on the sting in the tail to his dream season
In some ways it was reminiscent of Scotland and Lions rugby coach Ian McGeechan in his heyday, back when he was probably the brightest young coach in rugby and was evangelistic about the benefits of a multi-sport approach in terms of transforming our national competitiveness.
At that time with Scotland routinely qualifying for major competitions and Scottish clubs still capable of making an impact in Europe, there was a complacency if not arrogance towards such propositions from football’s hierarchy.
After having been invited recently to visit St Ninian’s High School in Kirkintilloch and examine how its links with Celtic’s academy are thriving, then, it was no great surprise to work out that the initial proposal had been initiated while Strachan was still the Celtic manager eight years ago.
The system is visionary, providing both sporting and educational benefits and there was something deeply refreshing about the way the school’s head teacher, Paul McLaughlin, indicated willingness to share his experience with any other schools willing to learn from it elsewhere around the country.
Another moment which offered encouragement during that visit to St Ninian’s was, meanwhile, a brief exchange with Martin Miller, one of Celtic’s coaches overseeing the schools programme. He was explaining the importance of expecting high standards of the youngsters, right down to the way they maintained the facilities they were using and I was just about to tell him where I first encountered that when he beat me to it in pointing out that they were following the ‘sweeping the sheds’ example set by what is statistically reckoned to be the world’s most successful sports team.
Read more: Scotland and Celtic goalkeeper Craig Gordon on the sting in the tail to his dream season
When I first switched from covering football on a regular basis to covering rugby 30 years ago, the majority of coaches in our national game would barely have known what the All Blacks were, let alone been prepared to cite the excellence of their culture as something towards which they should aspire.
Miller’s view, then, spoke to a willingness to look outwardly and overcome old prejudices that can only serve Scottish football well and, with apologies for the terminology so close to mentioning the All Blacks, have knock on benefits for the whole of Scottish sport.
Strachan has already seen a return on the investment that Celtic began making in their future and that of so many youngsters eight years ago with the arrival on the international scene of the exceptional Kieran Tierney and whether or not he manages to revive the World Cup campaign as he maintains he can and/or is driven from office, the national coach has an understanding of Scottish sport’s ills that the football community in particular would do well to keep learning from.
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