THE great and the good were focused on formations and strategies at Hampden Park. This was not a Berti Vogts seminar but a Scottish ExecutiveLearning and Teaching Scotland conference on curriculum flexibility.
The lads from the north-east were duly impressed and Dons fan Doug Marr, Aberdeenshire’s school management and curriculum co-ordinator, thanked the organisers for reminding him what the national stadium looked like.
Gordon Mackenzie, past president of the secondary heads association and another Dons fan, was similarly impressed.
An open goal, then, for Jim McVittie, heidie at St Ninian’s High in East Renfrewshire. “Unlike two previous speakers, I have had occasion to visit this stadium regularly,” crowed the Celtic Park season ticket-holder.
McVittie went on to explain why his school ditched Standard grade, referring to the incoherence of S1-S2 and S3-S4 and the single-year arrangements of S5 and S6.
“Since we are at Hampden we can talk about 4-3-3 or 3-5-3 or whatever. John Barnes (the former Celtic manager) had 2-2-1-1 and we know what happened to him,” McVittie ventured.
Quite.
