Strachan: society in a poor state of play

If only Celtic's strikers were as clinical as their manager, the fourth league title would have long since been sewn-up. Gordon Strachan was in forthright mood yesterday, revisiting the long-standing bug-bear of Scotland's ned culture, the mythology attached to George Burley's short-lived stay at Hearts and, according to the new incumbent at Tynecastle, the dearth of good steakhouses in the capital.

In such instances, Strachan is fascinating and enlightening company. After sliding in the not inconsiderable imposition of facing Hearts without Georgios Samaras and probably Scott Brown and Darren O'Dea, to boot, he was quick to put the world to rights.

In a week of bitter, not to mention hamfisted, recrimination involving Barry Ferguson, Allan McGregor, Rangers and the Scottish FA, Strachan spoke only in oblique terms of the wider problems afflicting Scottish society.

He has previously lamented the lager swiggers with their "devil dogs" but the stance has invited accusations of hypocrisy. He suspended Aiden McGeady for a personal tirade but, on the face of it, has shown leniency to Artur Boruc, who punched McGeady twice at Lennoxtown, and Brown, who has been fortunate to escape punishment from the SFA for his part in an all-night escapades at Cameron House and was involved in incident on a train bound for McGeady's birthday bash in Newcastle.
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Strachan has already declared Glasgow city centre off-limits to his squad, for fear of their safety rather than to prevent any more tales of nightclub derring-do. At a time when multi-millionaire footballers are upbraided for setting the wrong example to an impressionable generation of youngsters who idolise them, Strachan pointed out that the decline in social values and behaviour was not exclusive to footballers.

"I was listening to Radio Five the other night about our schools and teachers and they were saying that one in four teachers get attacked now," he began. "So, that is the society we are in. One of the teachers disciplined a kid, and the kid's parents then gave him an egg to walk in and smack it over the teacher's head.

"So it's not a football problem we have, it is a society problem - and it has been going on for 25 or 30 years now. There are good kids out there, don't get me wrong, but that is what we have to deal with right now. I don't think it can all be blamed on football.

"Sometimes it seems everything is blamed on football. Someone has a drink - is it because they are a footballer? Well, it's not like that. We have a yob society - Britain heads the world in having a yob society.

"If you go to America, they've got guns over there. They will shoot you. Other places are even more dangerous, but we've got our yob culture. The yob society has encroached everywhere.

"It's encroached into your job journalism. You have yob reporters, yob newspapers, yob radio stations. It is everywhere in society. So please don't say that, because we have one or two, it is just football. I could talk for two hours about this if you want . . ."

He did acknowledge that the financial rewards in football have created a detachment between the elite exponents and, bluntly, real life. "Years ago when I played we weren't all that far away from the working man's wage - and the media accepted that we weren't all that far away from the working man's wage, so it wasn't a big deal," he said.

"Nowadays, a footballer's pay is far beyond the working man, which means their standards have to be a lot higher. We accept that - and if you step out of line, you have to accept that as well.

"Years ago in football things went on that reporters used to get involved in. I remember seeing international players sitting with reporters having a right good drink until all hours of the morning, but nothing would be said about it. But it doesn't work that way now. Today, if you are a player, you always have to be on your front foot in that regard."

As a consequence, the role of team manager has evolved from taking training and picking a team to taking on a job description akin to that of a social worker.

"Over the past 30 years I've had to pick up some bad apples," he said. " The problem for some players was the way they'd been brought up, and I'd try my best to change them. I believe that, if you are not a decent man, then you can't be a decent footballer.

"It's not just in football. It's in all areas and I could list you a bunch of guys - Gary Caldwell, Paul Hartley, Mark Wilson - who are smashing guys who would never give you a moment's bother.

But they are low profile, which helps. There are great guys at all clubs. If one or two go off the rails sometimes, fine, so long as they have not done anyone any harm."

With the imminent trip to Hearts on the agenda, and Burley entangled in the headlines, Strachan was asked if the Team of 2005 would have seriously challenged for the title if Burley had remained in charge. "No," he said, "we were better than them and we were getting better as the season went on."

He attributed the Gorgie revival to the outbreak of peace and tranquillity from the boardroom. "Csaba Laszlo this year has had continuity, which starts at the top, and allows the coach to continue," he said.

And what has he made of the eccentric Hungarian who is the popular choice to be manager of the year? "He's alright, yeah," said Strachan. "He doesn't like his steaks in Edinburgh. It was one of the first things he told me when I met him. He said: you can't get a good steak in Edinburgh'."

They will settle for a meaty encounter at Tynecastle today.

Taken from the Herald