It's going to be him isn’t it. You know who I’m talking about. The “bounce on her falsies” guy.
Pretty much no-one under 55 is campaigning for him to get the Scotland job, with many vocally opposed to it, but there’s nothing you or I can do about it.
As Alex ‘We started bright’ McLeish left on Thursday, an opinionated, controversial and widely ridiculed Scotsman began trending on Twitter. I’m referring of course to George Galloway. Thankfully the embarrassing outfit that he’s aligning himself with is Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party not the Scottish national team.
Elsewhere in Twitter’s trending charts, Kazakhstan ranked directly above Malky Mackay. The most embarrassing moment in the Scottish national team’s history and Kaza… you can finish the punchline yourself.
If he does get the job all we can do is focus on the positives. Just give me a minute to think of some positives.
Right, I’ve got one. No one is more adept at exemplifying the difference between Scottish football fans on Twitter and Scottish football fans on Facebook. Twitter may be a dilapidated playground for insecure teenagers, snarky 20-somethings, jaded 30-somethings and 40-somethings who aren’t sure if they’re still in a band.
But at its most stupid and ignorant it can only ever muster a hundredth
of the stupidity and ignorance that Facebook deals in.
Post a statement about the SFA’s performance director, specifically relating to the sexist, racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic texts, and you’ll see widespread condemnation of him on Twitter. Post the exact same statement on Facebook and you’ll be greeted with a barrage of ‘I’d like to see the messages on YOUR phone’ and ‘It must be great being so perfect’.
I’m speaking from experience here.
You can see the messages on my phone if you like but you’ll quickly tire of wading through David Brent quotes and clips of John Bercow shouting “AwwDUUUUH”.
What you won’t find is me referring to a “gay snake” or a “F***** c****y”. If he’s awarded the job it’s what Alex Rae would refer to as ‘a gold star in the feather’ of Facebook’s ignorati and those who consider nothing more important in Scottish football than the opinion of Proper Scottish Football Men.
The Proper Scottish Football Men have been out in force recently. First there was Gordon Strachan equating racism suffered by black footballers with the chants of ‘You know what you are’ that convicted sex offender Adam Johnson might receive if he resumes his playing career.
“You know we’re talking vile abuse and things like that. Say he goes on to the pitch and people start calling him names, have we got to do the same as it is with the racist situation?”
Then there was Gordon ‘Dimoxinil’ Smith, responding to Kilmarnock’s decision to prioritise patter over profits and reduce Rangers’ ticket allocation with “Rangers might even say ‘We won’t come and play at Rugby Park any more’. Cynics might argue Joe Worrall already made that decision when Rangers were leading 1-0 against Killie in January.
They might also wonder who exactly is clamouring to hear the thoughts of Gordon Smith, a man as relevant to modern football fans as Paul Heckingbottom is to the Coachella music festival. Now it’s Charlie ‘sitting there thinking’ Nicholas, who last month said: “We need to start getting proper football people in. I would like to see Malky Mackay taking over with some of the younger coaches behind the scenes. That could be the way forward.”
I’ve heard Mackay described as many things but “the way forward” is a new one on me.
Nicholas doubled down this week, saying “Malky would be the right one for me. They don’t have to pay him, he’s in-house, and let him bring in other young coaches who are progressive”. At least he’s acknowledged Mackay wouldn’t be the progressive one in this scenario.
The SFA, McLeish, Strachan, Smith, Nicholas and their ilk inject our game with all the youthful vigour of an Only Fools and Horses meme shared on a Facebook page called ‘Stop PC Snowflakes Ruining Comedy’. They’re the embarrassing uncles replying: ‘How is this news? Zzzz’ under fashion articles.
Scottish football needs to leave the Proper Football Men behind. Let’s push things forward.
