Happy Birthday to Craigie and Sir Alex

In the wake of Phil O’Donnell’s death, which has rightly dominated my Scotland Offside blog, I thought we could all use something a bit lighter, a bit about birth and celebration as we go into the new year. Happy New Year to everyone, and may next year be free of the sorts of tragedy we saw in the game in 2007.

On this day, the final day of the year, Scotland was gifted two of its great recent names. On December 31, 1941, Sir Alex Ferguson, certainly the highest-profile Scot in the game today, was born in Glasgow. Aside from his short stint as Scotland manager after Jock Stein’s death, he did his best managing work in Scotland with Aberdeen. In eight seasons with Dons, Sir Alex led them to three league titles, four Scottish Cups, and a Cup Winners Cup, in what is probably the most successful time for any club outside of the Old Firm in Scottish football history. He went on, of course, to Manchester United and to become probably the most famous football coach on the planet, but he maintains strong roots in Scotland, and is often consulted by the SFA during days like these, when a new Scotland manager is being sought.

41 years later, we got another New Year’s Eve gift in the form of one Craig Gordon, the current starting keeper for both Scotland and Sunderland. With 29 caps for Scotland and no sign of being challenged for the number one jersey, Craigie has played a pivotal role in this year’s resurrection in Scottish football. It may be goalscorer James McFadden who gets the glory for the historic victory over France, but it was Gordon’s strong handling of the French strikers that put us in contention at all. He has a had a bit of a rough time at Sunderland, with a leaky defense ahead of him a midfield that often relinquishes huge amounts of possession to opposing sides, but remains firmly in the starting position there as well.

Happy birthday to Sir Alex and Craig, and good luck in the coming year. And a quick note to SAF - if you start to tire of cleaning up after all the parties and arrests at Manchester United, there’s always a nice semi-retirement position available up north. SAF for SFA - the headlines write themselves. Happy New Year everyone. Alba Gu Brath.