Strachan - technology drove me out of football

Gordon Strachan felt the world was against him. Not the world of football he had lived in since his days at Dundee but the wide, wide world – the REAL world.

Not the non-PC internet land where the mouse wielding gangsters wage their war against all things real. This was the world Strachan thought existed for real men.

The ex-Celtic boss bristles at the thought of computers running the land. “When I started playing you had a ball, a pair of boots and a senior pro beating you on a daily basis. Now, you have the senior pro’s ordering boots on the internets. It’s not the world I grew up in”.

It’s easy to take yourself back to the world Strachan is talking about, where smoking in pubs and taking lager to the match was the norm. Old school? Strachan spent time behind the bike sheds with Queen Victoria.

“I remember when I was at Aberdeen, and the story went that Alex Ferguson threw tea cups in the dressing room. Wrong – he threw TEA at us, gallons of boiling hot tea. Did it do us any harm? Well I can show you a winner’s medal against Madrid.”

Strachan had grand plans for Middlesbrough, the side he too charge of after the random access memory reprobates drove him out of the club he loved. The experience turned sour after he learned that even Boro fans had access to the internet – or the devilnet as he calls it now.

“We were doing great down there me and Penders. I had players I could depend on like Calds, Robbo, Boydie and Mick. Then I discovered that in the North East technology was everywhere – even the team bus had a DVD player on it. It wasn’t the world I grew up in. It drove me out in the end”.

A spat with a female supporter was the last straw. Old school? Strachan played hopscotch with Anne of Cleaves.

“A supporter – a woman, or at least I think she was – questioned my style of football. I told her my wife had watched 5000 games and had never voiced an opinion so she should shut up and get a cleaning job or something. It’s dangerous out there, they give them jobs in offices and hospitals with computers and keyboards. You have to be careful. They are watching me, all day every day. With computers”.