It's Too Quiet I Tell You

THE late, great and much-lamented Ian "Dan" Archer was more than simply the finest Scottish football writer of his generation. A product of Rugby School, Dan was unique among the bevvy of Scottish football writers of his era in naming as his favourite sportsman, not Denis Law, nor Jim Baxter nor any of the usual suspects of the time, but Denis Amiss, the Warwickshire and England opening batsman.

Aye, Dan was different. He also knew that what we did for a living, filling what he termed "the comic pages" of a newspaper mattered little, and since this was the case, he might as well enjoy himself along the way - one of life's boulevardiers was Dan.

He used to worry when things were going swimmingly for Scotland. No concerns about star players with niggling groin strains or tight hamstrings and Dan was a worried man; but, what really got him on edge was a lack of tittle-tattle about the off-field recreational habits of the national team.

Dan, after all, had had to pen pieces abhoring events such as Jimmy Johnstone's abortive trans-Atlantic row, he was an active participant in Jinky's and Billy Bremner's "cocktail evening" in Norway and he would readily admit his small part in Jim Baxter's slide into self-destruction.

In short, Dan liked a dram and a laugh and he always felt that if a Scottish squad wasn't engaged in pursuing these essential outlets for Scottishness, then we were doomed.

He'd have loved "Boozegate" for instance. Unfortunately, the knock-on effects of that little bit of schoolboy misbehaviour now mean, it will be well-nigh impossible for any future Scotland cap to have a wee swally while on national duty.

Once upon a time: "what happens on tour stays on tour" was a culture we all signed up to. The players and the press on foreign assignments with Scotland worked hard, but played harder - safe in the knowledge that their misdeeds would go unreported.

Today, the tabloid managers insist that any misbehaviour is reported, a turn of events which has destroyed forever the trust between players and press - to the latter trade's loss.

So, the fact that we have not heard a bad word about Craig Levein's squad, currently preparing to take on Leichtenstein at Hampden, doing anything other than training, eating and sleeping football concerns me.

The Highland Division of the Salvation Army are hardly winning the battle against Godlessness in Caledonia - some of the finest VCs in British Army history were won by Scots while under the influence of copious amounts of alcohol.

If I was Levein, I'd give each of the boys a couple of cans of Tennent's Lager for the bus trip from the team hotel to Hampden on Tuesday; couple of choruses of 500 miles to finish with and then watch us make these Leichtensteiners wish they'd stuck to giant slaloms and downhill racing.