Johann, Willie And The White Shark - A Scots Morality Tale

JOHANN LAMONT is one of a whole host of Scottish Labour politicians whose head is metaphorically hung up in the trophy room in Alex Salmond's house; a potential subject for a “Where are they now?” piece in a Scottish newspaper – if we still had newspapers worthy of the name up here. She is like most former politicians, seen as a failure – yesterday's woman.

But, perhaps Johann will have a legacy, because in the wake of this week's kailyard row which has seen John Jeffrey toddle off Rugby Union's world stage, maybe Johann was right and we Scots are just not equipped to run our own affairs.

Seymour Skinner, Principal of Springfield Elementary School also hit the nail on the head during one of his exchanges with Groundskeeper Willie, when he informed Willie: “You Scots are a fractious people”.

This observation naturally led to Willie informing his boss he had just mader an enemy for life – well, it's the Scottish way. Or maybe Willie, being an immigrant in Springfield, had had an underdone cat for lunch!!

But, I digress; to return to the Jeffrey Affair. It is fairly common knowledge in Scottish Rugby that the former White Shark has made a few enemies in The Junta, during his ascent to high office both within the Scottish Rugby Union and World Rugby. But, that's paret of political life, and once you get onto the SRU or World Rugby – you're up to your neck in Rugby Union Politics.

There is a quote, attributed to Winston Churchill, which goes: “Those benches over there are occupied by The Opposition – your Enemies are behind you”. Well, the enemies who sat around the same Murrayfield committee table as Jeffrey have had their revenge and scuppered his bid to succeed Sir Bill Beaumont as Head of World Rugby – bang goes the tap on the shoulder and the: “Arise Sir John”.

How typically Scottish. I don't know, I cannot say. Perhaps JJ was a total C*nt, but, to quote Steve Coogan: “Everybody's a bit of a c*nt sometimes”. The wise thing might have been to get him into a room at HQ, tell him to his face where you thought he had been a c*nt then, if he apologises and honestly promises to change back him to the hilt. And if this caused waves around Scotland, tell the complainers: “Yes, he's a c*nt, but, he's our c*nt and we're backing him”.

If he went full Donald Trump and insisted he had been right and had done nothing wrong – well tell him to his face: “We are not backing you – because”; then come out and tell the Scottish Rugby public why you are not backing him.

But, having one board backing him and another not – that is a terrible look for Scottish Rugby

By the way, you can bet your bottom dollar, in the home Unions of those would-be Heid Bummers of World Rugby who are still in the race to succeed Beaumont, there will be people bad-mouthing their man, but falling out among ourselves has always been a Scottish thing.

To again quote that great Caledonian philosopher, Groundskeeper Willie: “Brothers And Sisters Are Natural Enemies. Like Englishmen And Scots. Or Welshmen And Scots. Or Japanese And Scots. Or Scots And Other Scots. Damn Scots They Ruined Scotland!”

I don't know about ruining the SRU, but, some Damned Scots certainly ruined John Jeffrey's career in Rugby Union Politics.

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WHILE I AM venting my spleen – if the United Kingdom was a fully-function country of equals – which it clearly isn't, some of all those billions we have syphoned off into funding Olympic and Paralympic medals over the years would have been diverted into building a state of the art National Stadium, somewhere in the middle of the nation, just off the M62 corridor and with good road, rail and airport access.

But, of course, it has never happened, and it won't, all the power lies within the M25 corridor and, in London, every map has a big blank section, north of Watford Gap, which says simply: “Here Be Dragons”.

It's slightly different up here. If we ever regain our Independence in Scotland, and now I am closer to 80 than 70 I am resigned to never seeing that happy day. Once we have sorted-out the many problems the new government of an Independent Scotland will inherit from the 300-plus years of this unfair and lop-sided Union, we ought to get going on building a proper national stadium, with the good access I mentioned above, somewhere in the Stirling-Perth area.

Of course, the perennial squabbling between Edinburgh and Glasgow will ensure this never happens. The Weegie fitba lobby will want it there, and we all know the Edinburgh rugger buggers get a nose bleed if they cross the City By-Pass.

On a similar track, when reading the SRU Comms Team's press release on the new National Academy, I noticed it will be based at Oriam.

Indeed, to quote directly from that press release: “The Scottish Rugby high performance department will also now operate from office space within Oriam on a daily basis. As part of a long term agreement with the national performance centre there will also be closer collaboration with both Oriam and Heriot-Watt University, looking at facility development and mutually beneficial projects across sports science, research projects and sports management.”

Which begs the question, what are they going to do with all those now empty facilities at Murrayfield, now so-many apparatchiks are being decanted to the wilds of Riccarton?

I WAS BEING TOLD – my concerns over the ramifications of Scotstoun's synthetic pitch and the possible knock-on effects of making that stadium the centre-piece of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games 2026 was (in Glesca patois) “pish talk” - until a couple of my Facebook friends – guys who get their sporting kicks from Athletics – agreed with me.

If that synthetic pitch stays – there could well be no field events at the Glasgow Games. Now this will not be of much concern to the High Heid Yins in the four individual Commonwealth nations British Athletics, we don't have many medal contenders in the throwing disciplines: Discus, Hammer, Javelin and Shot.

Of the 24 field event medals won at the last games, in Birmingham in 2022, England, Canada and New Zealand each won 4, Australia won 3, Jamaica won 2 and Cyprus, Grenada, India, Kenya, Nigeria and Pakistan each won 1.

So, that's some pretty big nations you are going to piss off if you tell them they're not going to have a chance of medals in events they are rather good at. As one of my Athletics friends remarked when I raised the issue of the synthetic pitch with him: “As so often, the devil is in the detail”.