'ONE BARRY Robson, there's only one Barry Robson". Actually, there are two. There must be. How else can we explain the comments of Gordon Strachan and George Burley last week?
This character they both spoke of; crocked in the Cameron House hotel one minute and galloping around Celtic's training ground at Lennoxtown like a man possessed the next. Can't have been the same person, can it?
Strachan says Robson was good to g
o for Wednesday night's friendly against Croatia; Burley says he wasn't. Burley talked about a knee injury that Robson picked up playing against Gretna last weekend, a blow diagnosed by his medical team, Professor Stewart Hillis and Dr John MacLean, and deemed sufficiently severe to have him sent home to nurse his wound. No 'we'll monitor it over the next 24 hours' and no 'we'll give him every chance to prove his fitness'. No, it was cut and dried. Robson hadn't a prayer of making a recovery in time.
Strachan said he knew nothing about any wound, any injury. His player was "100% fit" he said. The Celtic manager was confused. He scrunched up his face in that way of his and seemed to be wondering, "Robbo? A knee? When? And if he's injured, who's that guy out there sprinting around like a lunatic? Barry, is that really you?"
In the mid-1960s, Muhammad Ali hit Sonny Liston with a punch that nobody saw. Knocked the Big Ugly Bear clean out. He called it the Phantom Punch. Everybody believed that Liston took a dive but Ali fought that talk with everything he had. "I hit so fast I switch off the light and I'm in bed before it's dark," he said. "Wanna see how fast the Phantom Punch is? (Ali stands still and doesn't move a muscle for five seconds) Wanna see it again?"
When did Robson's phantom blow land? Right under Strachan's nose apparently. Right there while he was looking on at Almondvale last Sunday afternoon. Happened after about 10 minutes apparently. Strachan missed it. Fancy that. He'd only 11 men to keep an eye on and he couldn't spot that one of them was struggling with a dodgy knee. This problem was contagious, clearly. The medical staff alongside Strachan in the dugout also didn't see anything untoward about Robson's movement. Neither, it has to be said, did Robson himself. How extraordinary it must have been for him to turn up at the Scotland camp only to be told that not only was he not fit but that he wouldn't be fit in three days' time either.
"What's the problem, doc?"
"It's your knee, son. Look at the state of it."
"Feels okay to me."
"It's like a balloon, man. You cannae play with that."
"Er, really?"This is a curious business. We read about the controversy of the Old Firm Five last week but, really, there were only four of them. The cases of Barry Ferguson, Lee McCulloch, Christian Dailly and Allan McGregor were altogether different to Robson's. This is surely one of the first instances in the history of friendly international matches where a club offers the services of a player and the country rejects him on the grounds of an alleged dubious injury. This is so back to front it's hard to fathom.
The theories on this are obvious ones. Scotland sent a Celtic man home so as to dilute the effect of all those Rangers guys withdrawing. Hence, it could be billed as the Old Firm Five pulling out and not the Rangers Four. We don't know if that's true or not but it's a hair-raising take on things and not an unreasonable one. Strachan has done nothing to downplay his suspicions in all of this and the SFA have done nothing to quash those suspicions. They say they're waiting for an official complaint from Celtic on the matter. Then they'll investigate.
The Record broke this story on Friday. They sold it as "Celts fury at Robson SFA Riddle". The Celtic hierarchy were said to be furious and demanding an explanation as to why Robson exited the Scotland squad "against his will". We will see just how furious Celtic are. My guess is that they are angry but that they won't make a huge deal of this. Life's too short and all that. And the season's at too critical a point to be sidetracked by issues such as this.
Maybe they will go to war, but I doubt it. If they don't, that shouldn't be the end of it. The SFA ought to be asking a few discreet questions in the background after this. Burley, for one, may be wondering what the hell is going on. He has his medical staff telling him Robson is unfit and Strachan telling the country the opposite. He has the ludicrous spectacle of a player with much to offer being shunted while supposedly pleading to be left to stay in camp and prove that he is ready to play.
A small point here: if Celtic were happy for Robson to stay and Robson was happy to stay, what harm was there in allowing him to stay? Where was the downside? Wasn't Monday a little premature to be making definite calls on his fitness if Celtic were in no mad rush to have him back?
Scottish football is the subject of more storms and furies and outrages than you can shake a stick at and most of them are overblown pieces of nonsense. This is an intriguing one, though. The conflict in opinion on Robson's state of health needs resolving. Somebody is out of line here. And if Celtic don't take the lead in this matter the SFA shouldn't see that as their cue to bury it.
Bias is in the eye of beholderWHAT'S THE collective noun for Old Firm fans? How about a cyclops. This is never more obvious than when Artur Boruc hits the news, as he did again last week, albeit in a small way.
Even the most one-eyed Celtic fan can no longer view Boruc's attachment to Celtic as devotion. The Pole has talked about leaving so often he must be trying the patience of the fans. At least, you think he would be. He's fluttered his eye-lashes at so many European clubs you have to wonder how long he has left at Parkhead. If he has anything to do with it, apparently not that long.
Football writers are bracing themselves for a buffeting today. Old Firm fans are wizards at finding slights where none are intended and they'll be on forums and e-mails, lobbing accusations of bias. As far as Celtic fans are concerned, though, Boruc is beyond reproach. He's been a fine keeper and he's going to bring in a lot of money in the transfer market. But it's funny how they can interpret a neutral match report as a raging injustice while averting their one eye when Boruc does his come-hither act to AC Milan, Bayern Munich and all the other clubs he'd be "honoured" to join.
The full article contains 1192 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
