Week 30: Are we nearly there yet?
If hard work and honest application were all that mattered in football then the SPL would be unanimously held as the greatest league in the world. Sadly, the rest of the planet have these dangerous ideas about 'skill' and 'technique' which cloud the issue somewhat. Nevertheless, it was a vintage weekend for graft, where some of the country's best workers busied themselves to perfection, in a manner which would have made Stalin weep with pride.
Consider the quality of grinding in the SPL showpiece that was Rangers' 1-0 win over Celtic at Parkhead. "This had all the aesthetic and artistic merit of the Ultimate Fighting Championships," reckoned the Herald's Darryl Broadfoot, before watering down his shrewd observation with the ambiguous "but was equally engaging." The fact that, in his own words, the Herald's Grand Vizier Football Writer is 'engaged' by the Ultimate Fighting Championships is surely a cause for concern for everyone, not least Mrs Vizier, if the two are not mutually exclusive. "El Gran Classico it was not", added Darryl more sensibly, in reference to Barcelona's 3-3 draw with Real Madrid on Saturday, where I'm told there were reports of more than three successful passes in-a-row. Difficult to believe I know.
If the Old Firm derby was as uncultured as ever, then Motherwell's 1-1 draw with Dundee United at Tannadice harked back to a time when barking at the moon was a sign of refinement. "The closing 20 minutes was reminiscent of a city street at kicking-out time, all menace and compromised movements, punctuated with the odd threat of violence," said Richard Winton in the Herald, sounding a little scared. Ewan Smith in Scotland On Sunday agreed that "technique and class may have been missing" from the match, but then arrested his decent into common sense by admitting the dubious spectacle was "sheer, unadulterated entertainment". Later that night Ewan took his Xbox 360 over to Darryl's house where they watched a DVD featuring greased-up Americans sadomasochistically booting each other, before a couple of games of 'Call Of Duty 3'.
Unbelievable as it may seem, Dunfermline's 0-0 draw at home with St. Mirren didn't break ranks with the rest of the weekend's SPL programme. The Observer's Patrick Glenn noted there was "rarely any shortage of frantic endeavour" and witnessed "the kind of thumping 'skills' that recall the old line about the ball having to be rushed to hospital. At times at East End Park, the joke threatened to come true." Indeed, the game was so bereft of quality that Stewart Fisher in the Sunday Herald wagered that "among neutrals watching...it might have been a popular suggestion that both [teams] should be relegated." I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand.
Kilmarnock's 3-2 win over Inverness CT at Rugby Park, and Hibernian's 2-0 win over Falkirk, were notable to the extent that the press pack didn't spend their time trying to come up with novel ways of expressing indifference, a quality which aptly described their attitude to the greater part of Aberdeen's 1-0 win over Hearts at Pittodrie. Frank Gilfeather in the Herald, who appears to have been fated by the football gods to watch endless games of crap football, reckoned it "was a miserable 90 minutes where skill was replaced by determination and diligence". But then - and I'd sit down for this - "out of the darkness came a shining light in the shape of a magnificent opening goal," according to the Sunday Mail's Gordon Waddell, just to prove that miracles do happen. The Sunday Herald's Michael Grant saw it too: "There was just one, fleeting moment of beauty at Pittodrie and Aberdeen made so much of it it gave them the most delicious of victories. Steve Lovell's early winner was so well crafted it shone like a diamond on a slagheap." Thankfully, the moment passed without imitation.
Consider the quality of grinding in the SPL showpiece that was Rangers' 1-0 win over Celtic at Parkhead. "This had all the aesthetic and artistic merit of the Ultimate Fighting Championships," reckoned the Herald's Darryl Broadfoot, before watering down his shrewd observation with the ambiguous "but was equally engaging." The fact that, in his own words, the Herald's Grand Vizier Football Writer is 'engaged' by the Ultimate Fighting Championships is surely a cause for concern for everyone, not least Mrs Vizier, if the two are not mutually exclusive. "El Gran Classico it was not", added Darryl more sensibly, in reference to Barcelona's 3-3 draw with Real Madrid on Saturday, where I'm told there were reports of more than three successful passes in-a-row. Difficult to believe I know.
If the Old Firm derby was as uncultured as ever, then Motherwell's 1-1 draw with Dundee United at Tannadice harked back to a time when barking at the moon was a sign of refinement. "The closing 20 minutes was reminiscent of a city street at kicking-out time, all menace and compromised movements, punctuated with the odd threat of violence," said Richard Winton in the Herald, sounding a little scared. Ewan Smith in Scotland On Sunday agreed that "technique and class may have been missing" from the match, but then arrested his decent into common sense by admitting the dubious spectacle was "sheer, unadulterated entertainment". Later that night Ewan took his Xbox 360 over to Darryl's house where they watched a DVD featuring greased-up Americans sadomasochistically booting each other, before a couple of games of 'Call Of Duty 3'.
Unbelievable as it may seem, Dunfermline's 0-0 draw at home with St. Mirren didn't break ranks with the rest of the weekend's SPL programme. The Observer's Patrick Glenn noted there was "rarely any shortage of frantic endeavour" and witnessed "the kind of thumping 'skills' that recall the old line about the ball having to be rushed to hospital. At times at East End Park, the joke threatened to come true." Indeed, the game was so bereft of quality that Stewart Fisher in the Sunday Herald wagered that "among neutrals watching...it might have been a popular suggestion that both [teams] should be relegated." I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand.
Kilmarnock's 3-2 win over Inverness CT at Rugby Park, and Hibernian's 2-0 win over Falkirk, were notable to the extent that the press pack didn't spend their time trying to come up with novel ways of expressing indifference, a quality which aptly described their attitude to the greater part of Aberdeen's 1-0 win over Hearts at Pittodrie. Frank Gilfeather in the Herald, who appears to have been fated by the football gods to watch endless games of crap football, reckoned it "was a miserable 90 minutes where skill was replaced by determination and diligence". But then - and I'd sit down for this - "out of the darkness came a shining light in the shape of a magnificent opening goal," according to the Sunday Mail's Gordon Waddell, just to prove that miracles do happen. The Sunday Herald's Michael Grant saw it too: "There was just one, fleeting moment of beauty at Pittodrie and Aberdeen made so much of it it gave them the most delicious of victories. Steve Lovell's early winner was so well crafted it shone like a diamond on a slagheap." Thankfully, the moment passed without imitation.
posted by nothing.if.not @ 8:01 PM
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