Politically, I’m soft left. This may be utterly irrelevant but I’m putting it out there as a marker, probably to establish clearish reddish water between me and the suspicion that I may be some Victorian authoritarian loony. I’m not; I’m really not.

To further this erm clarification, I’ll do my best not to drop garish giveaways like ‘behaviours’ or ‘morality’ into the upcoming diatribe. Or at least I’ll clothe them in sassy, sexed-up references to Taylor Swift’s jet(s), to rubber-stamp my down-wiv-da Street-wise Kids-ness. Coz I’m cool wiv all diss.

So anyways football. And Scotland. And ‘being clever’ – ‘using your body well’.

Scotland deservedly went out of the Euro’s last night because they been poor. Shambolic against a good Germany, ordinary but strangely spiritless against whoever-it-was, then bit more composed but still almost completely lacking in threat last night, against Hungary. Understandably (but also bit feebly, I thought) the gaffer blamed *that penalty incident*. (Come on Clarkey, your lads, despite sensational, impassioned support, barely threw a punch throughout the tournament. That’s why they’re out).

But yeh the pen. I keep finding myself writing ‘things are complex’… and they are. That penalty was all of the following, arguably, or certainly, or something:

stone dead.

Not given.

Reviewed (by a system that has put the Premier League’s notably to shame) and not given.

All about the defender’s clumsiness.

All about the Armstrong’s intention to draw the foul.

Complicated by the referee’s (and the review team’s) likely view that the attacking player did indeed set out to draw a penalty and therefore deliberately shifted his body across the defender, to draw contact.

Insert your own.

I reckon all those things are in play. So here’s my view.

I have no significant sympathy with the attacker. In fact I think it’s laughable and even embarrassing that anyone should, *as their first option*, look to draw a penalty there rather than let the ball run on and smash the fekker into the net. It’s all of cynical, feeble and fabulously emblematic of the modern game. Armstrong’s not shielding that ball – he doesn’t need to! – he’s on a greyer, less worthy mission, in a new, slick-but-twisted universe.

Strikers unworthy of the name have cultivated – and yes that does mean practising as well as drowning themselves in the mental-theoretical slurry – the anti-sport anti-art of defaulting towards fouls and pens, even when actual goal-scoring is not just the right option, but the easier option. Most fans I know think this is shit: and it is.

But it’s de rigeur, it’s everywhere – they’re all doing it. And the pundits are saying ‘it’s clever use of the body’, or ‘brilliant’. Shame on all of them for not calling it out for what it is. It’s ugly; it’s soulless; it de-values the game. These are crap, unedifying behaviours. Let’s go the whole Victorian hog – it brings football (or that sense or essence of sport) into disrepute. Football that zillions of us love. Football that those Scottish fans charged across the continent to see. And when their hearts stop raging many of them – despite the macho cobblers exchanged in the pub – will wonder out loud why their fella didnie just stick it the fuchan neyt and make the spot-kick outrage irrelevant.

Instead their sub instantaneously went for the body-shift. Instead of allowing the ball to roll across him just a wee bit. And in doing that, with the officials taking mental notes, and neutrals all screaming ‘what the feck is he doing(?!?)’, the player offered the referee and the review team the opportunity to act against him.

They may also have thought ‘WTF?’ They may have Victorian morals, who knows, and sought to strike a blow for honesty and truth. Or they may have looked hard and decided that because the attacking player obviously seeks contact and obviously moves across the defender – unnecessarily – then the defender cannot avoid the coming-together. And therefore it’s a football accident; a collision in which any guilt is more rightly apportioned to the Scotland player, not the desperate Hungarian.

Whether this is the same as calling this event the Scotland player’s fault, is a teaser, eh? (He deliberately opted for contact; he chose not to score. The ref is and isn’t penalising him, I suppose). That call is beyond the referees pay-grade, in any case; I’m just offering the thought that the officials may have judged the incident the way they did because the attacker’s cynicism(?) struck them as meaningful.

But where do the rules take us on this philosophical stuff (around striking, around decision-making, around faking)… and if it is unsatisfactory what do we do?

There’s no chance of going back to the days when strikers instinctively struck, sadly. No way that these #football #legends are going to stop exaggerating every single head contact, or slough away the modern awareness of conveniently encroaching bodies coincidental to the penalty-box. ‘Being clever’ (or cheating, your call) is with us ad infinitum and ad nauseum, surely? There is simply no appetite to clean it up or call it out. Except wiv me and my wee blog. Where I repeat: no sympathy for anyone – anyone – who transgresses against what sport is.