Last Friday’s conference of drillies organised by the Scottish Physical Education Association at Edinburgh University’s Cramond campus may have given us an unintentional insight into the travails of the national football team. There was a time when PE teachers attending such gatherings were only too keen to bring their trainers and track suit to take part in practical sessions, but not this year.
Only 13 of the 160 applicants had expressed an interest in signing up for a workshop on football skills and techniques, whereas an amazing 54 had ticked the box for a spell of “guidance on marking analysis and performance in Higher PE”. Worse was to follow when the person taking the football had to call off and no replacement was found. Craig Brown, the national coach freshly returned from his side’s less than sparkling display in Estonia, was presumably not seen as the automatic choice.
