SPL: A season when football has come a poor second place

IT IS common to look forward to retirement, or to spend the last weeks of a job longing for release, and in one sense Walter Smith is no different. But, whereas many employees simply want to turn their backs on the key duties of their profession, the Rangers manager's feelings are quite distinct. He has had enough, but not with football itself.

As he approaches his last four games in the post, Smith continues to be inspired and enthused by the sport. He has never grown tired of working with players, and has special praise for his current squad, who against the odds are still in contention for the title. None of that is a problem at all for the 63-year-old, who is at least as ready for the challenge of the coming weeks as he has been at any stage of his career.

But if you are a football manager, your job is about a lot more than just football - all the more so if you are an Old Firm manager, and all the more so this season, when a series of controversies which have nothing to do with the sport itself have dominated the headlines. It is those controversies which have wearied Smith, and which have done more than anything else to persuade him that the time is right to bow out.

What is more, he has not merely reacted that way for his own sake. He knows that if he is being turned off the sport he loves by all the unsavoury trimmings, many thousands of others must be feeling the same way.

To use an appropriate analogy, Smith feels that Scottish football in general has taken its eye off the ball, and that the political disputes which have punctuated this season have detracted from what should be the main issues - how to improve the game, and how to reverse declining attendances.

"When you look at this season, football has been secondary to everything that's happened," Smith said yesterday. "That's a sad state of affairs, to be quite honest.

"If you sit down at a press conference as a manager, you hope to talk about football. This season we've only had numerous aspects outside football: that's all I've been asked to comment on. You get fed up with the whole thing, all of the circumstances surrounding it all, whether it's sectarian singing or clubs arguing about this, that and the next thing. You get fed up with all of it. But maybe that's just the stage I'm at. If I was a bit younger, maybe I would be willing to take on that challenge."

Yet Smith's disillusionment is not only a function of age. The image of Scottish football has been damaged not just in the eyes of the over-60s, but of all age groups. The more the agenda has become dominated by disputes, the more ordinary supporters have become alienated.

"There have been innumerable things - the referees' strike, everything," Smith continued. "I don't think it has been good for the game. What everybody should be thinking about is how to get better players into all of the teams in the country, so we are raising standards. Now, as we're coming near the end of this season, we're still talking about things out with the football side - and I think that's a bit of a sad state of affairs.

"People are getting disillusioned this year. All this stuff is going on around the game, and nobody is facing the fact that the crowds are dropping.

"Scottish football, like every business, is having a tough time in a tough environment. We've got to work hard to make it better, make it more appealing to everybody. This season we obviously haven't done that, because all we've had are moans and groans, complaints, strikes and sectarian singing. Everything other than football."

The ironic thing about that situation, Smith believes, is that the quality of the football has been good. Not as good as it might have been had the energies of everyone in the game been focused on improving it, but good enough to deserve more praise. In particular, he believes that the matches between his own club and Celtic - an unprecedented seven figures this season, four in the SPL, one in the CIS Cup and the original tie and the replay in the Scottish Cup - have been of a standard which has merited more positive attention.

Instead, they have become the focus for rows about the behaviour of supporters both at the ground and away from the stadiums, and of the players and members of the coaching teams. While not asserting that there had been no outside issues to detract from the play, Smith did suggest that at times undue attention had been paid to minor disagreements which in other countries might have passed almost without comment. "When the focus gets put on football - well, let's take the Old Firm games. I had a quick look back at them in the house the other night. There is only one where I felt - and Celtic fans will say this is because we lost - which wasn't very good. When we lost 1-0 in the Scottish Cup replay, that was the poorest of the seven games we've had this season. From our point of view, the 3-0 loss at Ibrox was a poor performance from our perspective - but Celtic played very well on the day.

"Take the other five games, and they've been good games, you know? We've supplied everybody with good games. What do we talk about? We talk about clashes.

"Look at Real Madrid and Barcelona the other night. For Rangers and Celtic, that's ten days of newspapers, headlines - and a summit meeting. That's the point I'm making about Scottish football. That's what we are.

"We had five good Old Firm games this year, games where we could see teams played well and entertained. Now we're going into a period of the season where, with four games to go, we should all be talking about football - because we're getting a decent finish to the season."

How decent the football will be remains to be seen. What is already abundantly clear, however, is that in too many respects, the behaviour of too many people on too many occasions has been anything but decent.

Alan Pattullo: 2010-11 will be remembered for S-words: strikes, summits and soul-sapping

It DOESN'T take the countdown to a royal wedding to make you understand the meaning of world-wearying ennui. Try a season in hell. Or, as it's otherwise known, a season in the Scottish Premier League.

We can't even console ourselves with the thought that it just over a fortnight away from ending, since it will begin again just seven weeks later. At least Prince Harry is still a few more bottle blondes away from popping the question.

Perhaps in time to come, when STV's the Football Years looks back on season 2010-11, we will remember it differently, and want to learn more of the background to clips of Neil Lennon cupping his ears as a crowd bayed for his blood. But surely only a thirst for nostalgia will make one want to re-live the bleak months which have unfolded since last August, when the opening fixture between Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Celtic was given an obscure slot on Sky Sports 4.

It's easy to wish coverage had remained so hidden away, rather than being projected onto the world news agenda as "viable" letter bomb parcels began turning up in sorting offices. Some might take a twisted pride from this but for most it is another reason why now is the time for tears. "You get fed up with it all," said Walter Smith at his pre-match press briefing yesterday, an assignment even the Rangers manager has begun to cross off each week. Just three more to go now and then he is a free man.

But what is left for the rest of us? On 23 July we go again and after this season, can anyone possibly have the stomach for it? Lennon, too, might have walked away by then, and who can blame him? The football has been generally pretty awful, but the off-field goings-on have been a greater turn-off. But then interest has been on the wane for some time. Friends who were once keen supporters of clubs can now barely tell me the name of manager of the side they once followed.

They throw you looks of pity when you tell them what your plans for the weekend, which, given the nature of the job, usually involves watching one, possibly two, SPL matches. Once it was possible to notice traces of envy on them. Not now. Not after a season which truly deserves to be called a campaign. We have trudged on through it and lost men on the way, from referees' chief Hugh Dallas, who ill-advisedly sent on an offensive email about the Pope, to Dougie McDonald, whose muddled attempts to explain away an overturned penalty decision also saw an assistant referee, Steven Craven, bail out. All helped create a depressing climate which saw Celtic seize a chance to launch a sustained attack on Scottish football authorities, whose own attempt to fight back was hampered by a hopelessly flawed rule book.

The feeling that it cannot end soon enough is a powerful one, and coincides with more disappointing comments yesterday from Lennon. Having humourlessly demanded that the Press did not write about his 'humorous' antics at Ibrox last week, he yesterday described these actions, which included him taunting the Rangers support, as "exemplary".

But then they do fit perfectly with a season that has been all about conflict and outrage.

While we all like a bit of controversy, it is less appealing when it is whipped up out of the same two ingredients – Rangers and Celtic – day after day, week after week. Tit for tat exchanges appeared to continue yesterday when the admirable Rangers charity foundation announced a donation of 25,000 to Prostate Cancer Scotland, just 24 hours after the equally noble Celtic charity fund revealed details of a 10,000 gift to Oxfam Japan Appeal. Such has been the tone set by this season, it's hard not to be cynical.

If 2010/11 is to get the Football Years treatment in future, then it can be summed up with a lot of S-words - strikes, summits and soul-sapping. And, sadly, TV cameras were everywhere, beaming out the likes of Hibs v St Mirren and St Johnstone v Inverness and causing viewers to recoil from the action as though they had just flicked over to The Spa of Embarrassing Illnesses by mistake.

But it's not just the football that is turning people away from the football. It's the other stuff. It's the bigotry and the hate. It's the paranoia which makes Celtic think they are long-time victims of biased refereeing decisions. It's the paranoia which makes Rangers think they are only in trouble with Uefa because of enemies of the club who are out to 'get' them.

It's the never-ending takeover saga concerning one of our biggest clubs, and it's the civil war which erupts every time reconstruction gets mentioned, which is far, far too many times anyway. Despite all the meetings we are no nearer a new format.

Alarmingly, the only cheering thought is knowing we can likely look forward to more of the same. This is the 'up' side of avoiding a top tier of ten clubs, something which would surely have plunged us deeper into depression. So that's the happy note on which to end. More of the same.

There really needs to be a root and branch investigation into the state of Scottish football. Hang on, there's already been one of those this season. Hasn't there?