Another trip to Nairn County shows what football's about

The Centenary Stand and the dugout at Station Park

Jonny reports on the professionalism and dedication of Nairn County - and how pyramid-style promotion to the Scottish Leagues is actually a threat - rather than something to strive for.

When they said, "Haste ye back" my many friends at Nairn County meant it, so I couldn't wait to return to Station Park with my pal, Iain Ramage. 

It was another taste of the Highland League as the Wee County faced Lossiemouth.

Getting the warmest of welcomes from manager Les Fridge just seconds to kickoff, I felt like the away boss coming out of the tunnel for a prematch hug!

A football trip to the Highlands is literally and metaphorically a breath of fresh air. From the turnstiles, walking over the NCFC paving into the stand, this is a club aiming to be the very best it can be.

The newly refurbished stand marking County's centenary with plush new home changing room, gives everyone a pride to play for the shirt.

I've got the wrong boots on! 

The day after the game, volunteers spend five hours forking the pitch back to top condition.

Any molly-cuddled "professional" who complains that 50 grand a week's not enough should come to Station Park and see the dedication of everyone here.

Nairn County came into being in 1914 staying unbeaten for their first five years. Quite an achievement? The Great War broke out within days of the club's formation - the Wee County didn't play their first game until 1919!

And as it was the day before Remembrance Sunday, the minute's silence in this 100th anniversary year had extra poignancy.

To the action and County's players had to bounce back from the bitter disappointment of Scottish Cup exit at Arbroath, "smoked out" by the ref in a narrow 2-1 defeat.

And despite superior possession and play, Lossie took the lead from the spot. Post-Arbroath, it knocked confidence. What we needed was a goal - and we got a cracker!

Martin 'Bobo' MacDonald levelled it jumping way higher than Lossie's defence to glance in a header from a corner. 

Later we had a couple of collectors items; the normally clinical Conor Gethins had a spot-kick saved, but if County faithful fret over too many goals from one source, they need worry no longer.

Sam Urquhart struck FOUR and with that, Wee fans have a new hero. He's left and right footed, fleet of movement, full of running and knows where the goal is.

Gethins was later substituted. A sharp reminder that the boss now has choices.

Not sure what formation that is but what a picture!

The Northern Irishman's not getting younger and he's asked for a transfer. He works for the Brora Rangers owners. Will he even be at Station Park next season?

The times they are a-changing!

And on Ladies Day, where the main stand had some unusually noisy support, these lads must've caught the eye!

Kyle Wilkie likes to play and Mike Morrison distributed the ball well. In goal, Calum Antell, a Hibs youth player and still wearing green is a commanding presence.

The Main Stand lasses enthusiasm, cheering a goal even after it was flagged offside, helped create a rather unique atmosphere!

But Sam's goals settled nerves and as the game wore on, County just got "better and better" as Andy Gray might say. Nairn were 5-2 winners.

After an on-pitch chat with the boss, he proudly showed me around the new changing room, complete with hallmarked badge. They really are the pride of the division.

Recalling his early days at Chelsea, Les told me he'd played with a young Paul Lambert on his return north to St Mirren. There's a fine line between success and failure. At Motherwell, Lambert couldn't attract a £100,000 bid from Dundee United but moving onto Dortmund, the rest is history. He came back to Scottish football a one-and-a-half-million-pound player with Celtic -  and a European champion.

I'm cuptied and not matchfit but terms were a formality!

Nairn County could be a Scottish League club one day. The SPFL now has a pyramid system of promotion and relegation which extends to the Highland League.

But the Wee County is firmly rooted in its community. When you go and support the team, there's a real feeling of connection; something you don't get sitting next to a South Korean tourist at Stamford Bridge!

Walking down the High Street, I got into a discussion with Paul MacLeod's mum as she served me at the newsagent. That's how Nairn is.

Les: "Did I tell you that last time, Jonny?"

Promotion would spell real upheaval. Volunteers who keep the club going on so many levels couldn't leave full-time jobs to make a midweek trip to Berwick Rangers. They'd have to quit the club - but who'd take their place?

So let's say all the best to Brora Rangers and may I wish the Wee County many happy years near the top of the Highland League!

Thanks as always to Iain Ramage and Donald Matheson, to Les Fridge and the Gurn from Nurn for the memorable time.

My first trip to Station Park was also against Lossiemouth. Click for the story.

Time for an English Anthem or God Save The Queen across the Kingdom

No curveball from Becks. He'd have sung!

What did you think of the Welsh contingent not singing the National Anthem? There wasn't a squeak before kick-off. Craig Bellamy and Ryan Giggs remained purse-lipped as God Save The Queen came trumpeting from the PA system. It provided another headline to the one-all draw with Senegal at Old Trafford.  
Though irritating to the Unionists among us, it's easy to understand why they didn't join in. The over-aged big names were merely confirming the blur, nay fudge between what's English and British.

He's a miserable git anyway

While Flower of Scotland is Hampden's hymn and Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau's definitely Welsh, (Old Land of my Fathers to thee and me), God Save The Queen's the choice for both England and Northern Ireland games. But in reality, it's the UK's anthem.

The solution's simple: we either all sing God Save The Queen before each Home Nation game (distinctly unlikely in this age of devolution, other parliaments and all) - or England and Northern Ireland find regional solutions, so pokerfaced Bellamy would feel more compelled to have a Great British sing-song.

Goal! But no complaints over his commitment.

Jerusalem, Land of Hope and Glory, One Step Beyond: they've all been suggested for England while Londonderry Air would cause all sorts of new sectarian argument in Northern Ireland to make one think God Save The Queen was the best choice in the first place!

And there was nothing wrong with any of the player's commitment to the cause. Giggs, Bellamy and Joe Allen, the Welshman pictured above next to Bellamy, all played their part in a game that we should've really won. A couple of bars of our anthem wouldn't have hurt either of them, really.

But whatever the song, we've uncovered another fault-line in a football project that only a minority believes is meaningful. A Great Britain Olympic football team is at best a flash mob and at worst, a political pawn which FIFA can bully us with in the future.

God Save The Queen!

The message behind the merchandise

listen to ‘The message behind the merchandise: what your kit is saying for you’ on Audioboo

When you bedeck yourself in a replica, spending 40 quid in the process, ponder this: are the brains behind it conditioning you into a thought system that perhaps you'd not considered?

When England was Britain in '82 

Have you looked more closely at the new England kit for Euro 2012? If you have, I reckon you're helping reclaim English nationalism.

The England badge is suddenly red; blue's been removed. If you think that's just a fashion issue, think again. England's identity is now red and white - not red, white and blue. Is this preparation for Scotland's devolution? To create an English identity lost in the fog of a British one for generations?

There's moves in the media to superimpose the idea of Englishness on top of Britishness. Programmes about the Church of England and other institutions which are intrinsically different from those north of the border. The Scots have a more a stark tradition in both imagery and belief.

Heaven knows what the devolutionists thought of the Diamond Jubilee, but it definitely included Scotland, Mr. Salmond!

1986: English nationalism expressed as British

In football, defining England's been going on for years. Matchday flags with the pub or football club on the red horizontal banner are on St. George's, 20 years ago, it was ALWAYS the Union Jack.

What'll happen to design if the Scots reject devolution? I suppose nothing: the tectonic plates of our Britishness are moving permanently.

And if you tell me, "There's no difference between being English and British!", I say to you, if you've a thick foreign accent, but have the desire to embrace our lifestyle in Leicester, Newcastle or Ipswich, you can be British on day one in a way that truly you could never be English. For me, the English should have a say in the devolution poll. It could have as big an impact south of the border as it would north of it, especially on immigrants.

Cardiff City are the Bluebirds no more. From next season, they're red with a new nickname of "The Red Dragons". Research concluded the colour rebrand was essential if they wanted to extend appeal beyond their current fanbase. All this in the year the blues of Chelsea won the Champions League and the FA Cup. Blue is the colour? not anymore in the Welsh capital!

And in London, the Arsenal shirt is definitely different from that of Tottenham's.

I'm not imagining this, but all over North London, boys from nice homes are wearing Arsenal shirts as an extension of their own aspirations and brand values (with tacit permission of their parents). Arsenal play in a beautiful stadium, they are managed in a continental fashion and have been for a generation and put simply, a Spurs shirt doesn't convey those values at all.

2010: England is now England

Is it to do with Redknapp, their substandard matchbox stadium or even the Tottenham riots? It's a combination of those things that not even a banner of straplines around White Hart Lane's midriff proclaiming To Dare Is To Do and Glory Glory Hallelujah will make a jot of difference to change.

Liverpool FC is brilliant at legendising their brand. Telling the story of Hillsborough and five European Cups is a tip of the hat to the Munich story at Manchester United. Most might say after sacking icon Kenny Dalglish, the sum of their legend is greater than the individual parts. But what can't be denied is that far-flung fans who've never even been to Merseyside eulogise a legend which in reality is little different to that at Aston Villa or Leeds United, just perhaps better narrated to an international audience.

Baked in Red tradition: Shankly would've approved

I picked up a Manchester United replica in a discount sports shop the other day - and it doesn't half look and feel miles away from the fans who buy it. Literally and geographically.

In the seventies, when I wore my Villa shirt, the fabric was made from something I recognised from clothes that mum bought me. These days, not only does the United badge have a trade mark petroleum fuzz, but you get the feeling if you burned it, it'd dissolve into fossil fuel.

Next time you look at a shirt, take a closer inspection beyond the tangible: ask yourself, "do I really want to wear all that this represents"?

Burley confidence trick does Scotland no favours

By KEVIN HATCHARD. My colleague from Sportsmedia. A superb radio and text journalist. Kev explains why George Burley should've walked as Scotland boss.

The superb illusionist Derren Brown has set tongues wagging this month with his prediction of the National Lottery numbers, but I would argue there’s been an even slicker piece of misdirection recently.

Somehow George Burley has hypnotised the Scottish Football Association, and convinced them he’s the man to spearhead Scotland’s bid to qualify for Euro 2012. He’s conjured images of pride, passion, and a narrow failure to make the World Cup qualification playoffs.

Time to shatter some illusions. This failure was not as agonisingly heroic as Burley would have everyone believe. Even if Scotland had won their final qualifier against Holland, there’s no guarantee it would have been enough to make the playoffs. Indeed, Norway finished second with a meagre return of ten points, and look set to miss out on the playoffs as the runner-up with the worst record.

Scotland’s results in arguably the weakest qualification group were frankly pitiful. The campaign started with defeat in Skopje to a pedestrian Macedonia side ranked more than twenty places below them, and it says a lot that the laboured 2-0 win over the same opponents at Hampden was seen as one of Scotland’s best performances of the campaign. James McFadden’s superb solo goal was the tasty icing on a somewhat bland, crumbling cake.

Burley’s men took just one point from two games against a Norway side that are outside the world’s top forty and haven’t qualified for a major tournament since Euro 2000. The furore surrounding Chris Iwelumo’s astonishing close-range miss in the home match diverted attention away from a dire performance, a game in which keeper Craig Gordon rescued his country on several occasions.

Burley’s team selection for the 4-0 defeat in Oslo baffled most observers, and the subsequent performance was alarmingly poor. The sending off of defender Gary Caldwell was unfortunate, but the resultant collapse was inexcusable.

The two victories over Iceland were the least that could be expected against a team that finished bottom of the group with just one win.

Despite a litany of errors and tactical misjudgements, Scotland could still have given themselves a chance with victory at home to the Dutch. It seems appropriately depressing that a misdirected header from David Weir, parachuted back into the international set-up by Burley at the age of 39, should lead to the late Dutch goal that ended Scotland’s World Cup dream. Another Burley gamble had backfired, and the qualification campaign lay in ruins.

Burley was quick to praise his defeated troops, using words like pride and passion. I would have thought that pride in playing for your country and passion for the game are surely the minimum requirements, not qualities to be given high praise.

The SFA used the same language of losers when justifying the decision to retain Burley’s services. They too spoke of passion and commitment, describing Burley as a man who deeply cares about his country. No mention of tactical nous, no reference to levels of performance. There is talk of heading in the right direction, but no evidence to back that up.

Normally I would be the first to advocate managerial stability, but in this case I would make an exception. I fear the SFA and Burley are using sleight of hand to sell the loyal Tartan Army a qualification dream that cannot come true, and the rabbit’s set to stay rooted to the bottom of the Euro 2012 hat.

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Tevez's mum visits United's training ground!

Even with all the pre-match tension of Argentina's square-up to Scotland this week, there was still some R&R time for Manchester United's Argentine striker, Carlos Tevez. His mum popped into United's training HQ at Carrington to see if Carlito was eating his greens!

Tevez's mum now has an unassailable 100% record as an international manager, so on the basis that the only way is down, maybe it's time to quit and concentrate on cooking young Carlos some parrilla and asado in the keeetcheen!