A list of every stupid thing said on Monday’s Sportsound

I try, when possible, to be of a sunny disposition. But sometimes there are things that send you doolally.

Monday’s episode of Sportsound is one of them. The BBC Radio Scotland coverage, once excellent, feels diminished this season. Too many ill-informed pundits, no consistency in programming, a complete denial of the existence of football in Scotland below the top half of the Championship, it’s amazing for a programme that runs for an hour each night during the week can say so little about our national game.

In their defence, there are some excellent features. So far this season the interviews with Garry O’Connor, Stevie Paterson and John Lambie & Chic Charnley have been sensational. Some of the pundits, such as Stevie Thompson have been good. And both Richard Wilson and Tom English cast much needed light when so many others bring heat.

It’s perhaps telling that neither the last two featured on Monday’s edition, dealing with the fallout of Scotland’s surrender to England at Wembley three nights previous. Never before on my commute to work has my flabber been gasted as I was listening to this edition. So much so, dear reader, I’ve listened to it again and I present to you, a list of every stupid thing said on Monday’s Sportsound:

1:30

Chic Young: “And he (Strachan) is currently in the Iberian Peninsula where I think it’s raining, so you know, he must have broken a mirror or something”

I’m no meteorologist, but I’m not sure there’s a correlation between cracked mirrors and sunshine.

1:48

Kenny Macintyre: “You’ve been banging the phones today…”

Chic Young: “I’m not you…”

Much of the criticism I’ve heard recently from peers is that Sportsound is a bit of an old pals act. This sort of entertaining back-and-forth is emblematic of the problem. Literally no one cares.

2:14

Chic Young: “We can still qualify, arithmetically”

…

2:35

Chic Young: “There was a lot of good about Scotland on Friday night. The team surprised us, there was some successes”

“How was the play Mrs Lincoln?”

3:27

Barry Ferguson: “I thought Scotland were good”

3:39

Barry Ferguson: “Who do you get in? That’s my argument.”

Literally hundreds of more capable football coaches Barry.

3:51

Barry Ferguson: “I thought the team played well.”

4:11

Chic Young: “We just don’t have a centre-half in that team. I don’t know why Charlie Mulgrew didn’t play.”

This Charlie Mulgrew?

8:34

Chic Young: “We might end up with Donald Trump as head of the SFA”

Nope…me neither

8:50

Chic Young: “Snodgrass had a face like Hillary Clinton when he didn’t get that pass”

This is actually me listening to Chic Young in 2016

9:34

Chic Young: “I fret over the continuing snubbing of John McGinn…this lad is international class and will be at a big English club very shortly”

Here’s a picture of John McGinn being snubbed by Gordon Strachan

10:00

Only ten minutes gone so far. Shout out to Stephen McGowan from the Scottish Daily Mail for being the only rational individual in the studio.

11:18

Stephen McGowan: “…and there’s another issue about unelected Presidents and Vice Presidents…”

Chic Young: “House of Lords, that’s what that is”

Really Chic? The SFA is like the upper house of the Parliament of the UK that scrutinises bills that have been approved by the House of Commons? Or are you just saying stuff?

12:03

Barry Ferguson: “I must have been watching a different game. I thought we had the best chance of the first half apart from Sturridge scoring that goal.”

12:30

Chic Young: “He (Strachan) doesn’t get an easy ride from the press.”

Aye, pal.

14:00

Chic Young: “Why do people always shout at televisions?”

Another golden non sequitur.

15:15

(A long monologue from Chic Young which involved the phrases ‘one for the road’ ‘rugby club’ ‘emotion’ and a reference to the Kardashians of Lanarkshire but amounted to very little)

20:01

Someone emails in suggesting Scotland’s defensive problems could be solved by playing Scott Brown and Darren Fletcher at centre half. Taking the suggestion seriously:

Chic Young: “Who’s going to win the ball in the air?”

21:11

Barry Ferguson: “International football is completely different from club football.”

A level of insight that no one other than a former-internationalist could have provided.

21:41

Kenny Macintyre suggests “throwing in” Scotland u21 players into the full squad

Chic Young (loudly): “But John McGinn is not a kid…I’d have put him right into the team.”

27:12

Chic Young: “But there is no magic wand that someone, whether it’s Pep Guardiola or Jim Duffy that comes in, it’s not going to have a magic wand over it and change it.”

If the option is Pep Guardiola or Jim Duffy for Scotland boss and Chic Young is in charge, I’ve got a sneaky suspicion that our next manager is from Maryhill.

28:29

Barry Ferguson: “But you just have to look at Northern Ireland’s centre halves, they’re playing Premier League. Macaulay and Evans…they are playing at the highest level in a good team.”

Must have missed the memo that declared West Bromwich Albion to be the mecca of football.

28:36

A caller suggested that Andy Considine should be playing for Scotland. A reminder that however bad a situation is in the world, there will always be an Aberdonian alongside you complaining about one of their players not being called up by Scotland.

29:00

Chic Young: “We’re not going to throw a name at Gordon Strachan that he’s going to go who’s that?”

No, but Strachan hasn’t gone to watch Barry Douglas once (nor scouted him) during his stints in Poland and Turkey.

29:20

Chic Young: “He’s gone and found players, like Oliver Burke, that few of us had heard of.”

29:32

Barry Ferguson: “But it’s going to be hard, you know the young ones, 18, 19, it’s far too young to coming into international level…”

Chic Young: “What age were you when you got your first cap?”

Barry Ferguson: “19”

Hard to see why Clyde have been bodied out the Scottish Cup in recent years by Spartans and Formartine United…

30:00

Chic Young: “Could we not get Colin Calderwood back up the road?”

36:10

Chic Young: “I know people will shout and scream, but all things being equal, I want a Scotsman in charge of Scotland. It does bemuse me that we have international rules and regulations about players that have to be Scottish but managers can be from anywhere, why is that? International football should be international football.”

Great to see that Yer Da’s opinions are getting a wider platform

36:40

Chic Young: “I’d like to know, what someone, you name to me the coach of Slovenia, what does he give us than say Jim Duffy does not. Someone like Jim Duffy, who’s old and wise, who’s coached in England, who’s been over the course, whose produced a miracle with Morton, does he not…Willie Ormond, they brought Willie Ormond with St Johnstone back in the 70s…people talk about lateral thinking, let’s look at what we’ve got here in Scotland.”

He literally said this.

39:52

Barry Ferguson: “If they played the way they did against England on Friday night against Lithuania at Hampden, we would have beat them easily.”

And if my aunt had baws etc etc

45:40

Listener contributions which include suggestions of a John Hughes/Jim Duffy job share; Steven Fletcher to play centre back; and Maurice Malpas to join to the coaching team.

Maybe we get the Sportsound we all deserve?

46:37

Chic Young: “Could be Big Sam?”

He says in jest, when in fact it’s already a Terrace campaign.

47:45

Barry Ferguson: “I think if you want to appoint a manager, he’s got to be Scottish?”

Kenny Macintyre: “Why?”

Chic Young: “I think if Pep Guardiola says…”

Barry Ferguson: “Well we’re not going to get anyone like that…”

Chic Young: “Well exactly…what we’re saying if two guys of more or less equal attributes then I’ll go for the Scottish guy.”

Glad that’s cleared up. Pep Guardiola is unlikely to be the next manager of Scotland.

49:51

Chic Young: “I’m saying to you, Jim Duffy might not be foreign and exotic but it might be exactly what the doctor ordered.”

IS JIM DUFFY FOR SCOTLAND MANAGER ACTUALLY BECOMING A THING?

50:40

Chic Young: “Iceland is almost inexplicable in what they’ve done there…you can turn to me to me and say why have Iceland done it? And I’d say I don’t know”

This might be the stupidest thing said during the entirety of the show. They literally planned for improvement, built infrastructure, hired coaches. There were literally hundreds of articles about how they did it in the build up to Euro 2016. What an absolutely riddy.

51:30

Barry Ferguson: “I seen an interview with Judy Murray regarding kids nowadays, they’re mollycoddled, that’s the problem now.”

That’s the problem is it? Specifically, just Scottish kids, not Welsh kids, not English kids, not German kids, it’s just Scottish kids that are being mollycoddled aye?

Wow, that was grim.

Written by Duncan McKay