Brute force, but no ignorance State of the game worries Colquhoun

JAMES TRAYNOR

25 Sep 1989

Hearts 1, Dundee United 1

JOHN Colquhoun does not like it.

The direction in which his sport is heading dismays him, as it does all football players who rely on more than merely brute force and aggression.

Colquhoun, a few bruises forming on his legs, left Tynecastle wondering what can be done.

More and more of the workers are passing comment about the standard of play in the premier division.

It is declining, and people like Paul McStay, Eamonn Bannon, and Ray Wilkins are beginning to furrow their brows.

Colquhoun is one of a diminishing breed, a player capable of subtlety in an unfriendly environment in which the weak are barged aside.

When these performers go, and the speed of the game is in danger of leaving them behind, only some form of 11-a-side grappling will remain.

Pretty soon we won't need a ball.

Indeed some who are given jerseys every Saturday don't know what to do with one anyway.

It's just something else to be kicked.

Still, the fact that a small, but growing number of players are beginning to ponder the way their game is being played is a shaft of sunlight, and there is every likelihood they will discuss their worries at the Scottish Professional Footballers' Association's annual meeting next Sunday.

If the state of the game is not on the agenda already, it ought to be accommodated.

Under "any other incompetent business" sounds a reasonable place for it.

Answers to the problem will not come easily.

Colquhoun, chairman of the SPFA, has thought long and hard about the ways of the premier-division world and he was in pensive mood again after Saturday's game against Dundee United.

"It's something we will have to face up to," he said.

"But it's hard to see a solution.

"Better people than me, top managers I would think, have thought about it and still there is no answer.

It's not easy because people are voting for the premier division by turning up in numbers and there are no businessmen who would change a winning formula."

The Hearts striker believes the pressure on chairmen, managers, and players in the modern game is the underlying reason for the premier division's frantic pace and he suggests thought should be given to everyone's position before criticism is levelled.

"Is it wise to attack and lose 3-0? A run of defeats, only three or four, in this league could leave a team stranded at the bottom," he said.

His own team, however, are unlikely to find themselves so severely punished for having the courage to push forward.

Hearts continue to play with three up front, and against United, Colquhoun, Scott Crabbe, and John Robertson led the line with a gusto which suggested that one of football's new rules -- the forwards are the first line of defence -- has not reached them yet.

Hearts deserved much more than a draw for their endeavours -- "it's probably the closest I've come to a game of football this year," Colquhoun observed -- and had they enjoyed a fair share of luck, they surely would have won.

Colquhoun turned away in frustration when a long-range shot in the first half clipped the crossbar; Craig Levein's header was clubbed of the line by Maurice Malpas; and in the second period, Gary Mackay's 25-yard free kick smacked a post.

However, United were given exactly what they deserved after 59 minutes when Davie McPherson strode forward and headed Levein's chip into the net.

Most of the 14,008 spectators believed that was the beginning of the end for a depressing United outfit.

Yet five minutes later they equalised.

Freddy van der Hoorn tackled Colquhoun, and everyone apart from the referee thought the challenge illegal.

Play continued and when a right-wing cross from Peter Hinds arrived at the far post, Jim McInally dashed in and bundled the ball over the line.

There is no justice.

HEARTS -- Smith, McLaren, McKinlay, Levein, Kirkwood, McPherson, Colquhoun, Mackay, Robertson, Crabbe, McCreery.

Substitutes -- Musemic, Bannon.

DUNDEE UNITED -- Thomson, Cleland, Malpas, van der Hoorn, Hegarty, Narey, Gallacher, Bowman, Hinds, McInally, Paatelainen.

Substitutes -- Clark, French.

Referee -- D Miller (Garrowhill).