They had patronisingly called it
the Friendly Final, the People's Final and even the Family Final
because, in truth, they were worried it would not be much of a
football final. The anxiety proved well founded. When the Man of the
Match comes from the losing team and goes by the name of Andy Gray -
that one-cap nomad who has left burned-out campfires all over England
and the continent - then you know you are in trouble. When I heard
that Andy Gray had won the award, I honestly thought it
must have been
the guy from Sky. I had agonised and agonised and, having ascertained
that I could not vote for the groundsman, finally spoiled my ballot
paper on the basis that no one was worthy of election.
The pitch was brilliant, though,
flat, green and perfectly paced. It really deserved to be graced by
players more appropriate to the occasion. If Chelsea v Middlesbrough
had been the Forei gners' Final, Kilmarnock v Falkirk was the
foreigner's final. Only Kilmarnock goalkeeper Dragoje Lekovic of the
starting 22 at Ibrox could not produce a British passport on demand as
against the 13 imports at Wembley the previous weekend. If the FA Cup
Final
boasted a galaxy of stars such as Zola, Juninho, Ravanelli,
Vialli and Di Matteo, to mention merely some of those whose names
ended with a vowel, the Scottish Cup Final offered only a black hole
of anonymity.
For all that two clubs with
average home gates of considerably less than 10,000 managed somehow to
fill the stadium, you could tell this had been a hard sell. The fact
that one national broadsheet in Scotland on Saturday morning offered
its readers interviews with famous supporters and a comme ntator but
nothing on any player said more about the absence of even low-profile
personalities on the pitch rather then the presence of a player pool.
Another broadsheet produced the traditional pen pictures, though
bizarrely of Rangers and Celtic
players from 25 years and 30 years ago
respectively. The Old Firm filled an entire page, commanding almost as
many column inches as the finalists.
It would have been a delight to
report that without either Rangers or Celtic, without Hearts or Hibs,
without Dundee United or Aberdeen, without a single city club, two
unfashionable teams,
including one from outside the Premier League,
produced a memorable match. It would have been deliciously ironical to
report that a bunch of modestly-paid comparative nonenties served up
much better entertainment than the millionaires managed the previous
Saturday. It would have been a lie. As hard as the players of
Kilmarnock and Falkirk toiled - and as mediocre as the Wembley contest
had been - there was no concealing the lack of quality on view.
Kilmarnock displayed marginally the more technical skill but the only
goal of the game, scored
by Paul Wright in the 21st minute, seemed to
limit their desire to attack. Falkirk tried desperately hard,
especially in a second half which they dominated territorially, but
their sole form of assault was the long throw to the high head of
Kevin James. At 6ft 7in, he was probably the tallest player to appear
in either Cup Final.
He looked like Gordon McQueen on
stilts as, like a basket ball player, he trotted backwards and
forwards between the penalty areas. We waited in vain for the first
slam dunk in a football final.
This was just one of the curiosities of
a contest which was at least free from any of the nasty bigotry
associated with the Old Firm and others. How could it be other than a
friendly final when one manager insisted on calling the other 'boss' -
which is what Alex Totten, now of Falkirk, had been to Bobby
Williamson when he was in charge of Kilmarnock a few months ago.
Totten may also have been the first manager on such an occasion to
wear a skirt - well, all right, a full dress kilt. There were two
similarities between Ibrox and Wembley. The crowd in Glasgow gave SFA
official Jim Farry the same noisy bird that the FA's Graham Kelly had
received from Middlesbrough supporters in London. Farry, demonstrating
that Stalinism was still alive, issued a code of conduct which
basically said the winners could smile, a little, but that they must
contain their celebrations to within SFA guidelines. And, of course,
Blue was also the colour. It was always going to be with blue the
official colour of both clubs.
Monday, May 26 1997
Totten's hopes of victory are dashed by the team he built.
PITY poor Alex Totten all decked out in his Saturday best kilt
yesterday. Losing a Cup final must be hard enough to take at the best
of times without being beaten by a side one has fashioned. And if that
wasn't galling enough for the Falkirk manager sacked by Kilmarnock
shortly before Christmas, he was undone by a player he had signed not
once but twice.
An injury to Killie's leading goalscorer, Paul Wright, had at one
stage left him in some doubt for this game. In the build-up to a match
that has been all about omens, strange coincidences harking back to
the 1957 final between these
two clubs, Wright's declaration of
fitness was the one bit of luck Totten could have done without.
At least the club's record goalscorer could have been a bit more
clinical with the finish which was to extinguish Totten's dreams and
give Killie the Cup, but it was an untidy mis-hit which was in keeping
with so much of this match.
The welcome absence for once of an Old Firm club at a Scottish
showpiece was not rewarded with a particularly enthralling game,
unlike in in 1991, the last occasion on which this happened. Then
Motherwell beat Dundee United 4-3 after extra time in a blinding
match. This was a final more reminiscent of that eminently forgettable
1975 English FA Cup final when West Ham beat Fulham 2-0 in a London
derby.
What the game did manage to
emphasise was the importance of coming into such a prestigious event
with a clear conscience and a balanced state of mind. Like this
season's English FA Cup finalists, Middlesbrough, Kilmarnock had had
Premier Division survival playing on their minds in recent weeks, but
unlike Bryan Robson's sad lot, they had been able to secure their
future in the top flight two weeks before the final.
Thus they came into this game suitably buoyed, not least by a run of
one defeat in 11 games. They owed their first-half superiority to the
incisive running of their wingers, David Bagan and Alex Burke, which
so unhinged Falkirk's three-man central defence. That featured an
unlikely stopper in the former Tottenham and one-time England
international Andy Gray who, true to form, didn't allow this game to
pass by without a booking.
It would have been a whole lot
more satisfying and certainly less stressful for the Kilmarnock fans
if their team, from that first-half platform, had gone on to impose
themselves on their First Division rivals. But they chose instead, a
trifle cynically and much like Chelsea the previous week at Wembley,
to sit
upon their slender advantage.
But they never, for one moment, looked as comfortably in command as
Ruud Gullit's side had done. Falkirk accepted the opportunity to lay
siege to Dragoje Lekovic's goal almost throughout the second half. The
Bairns did their 21,000 supporters - one half of the town's population
- proud and for a split second raised their hopes to the Ibrox rooftop
before Neil Oliver's 85th minute 'goal' was disallowed by referee Hugh
Dallas for an offside infringement.
The problem was that Falkirk
lacked a finisher of Paul Wright's calibre - or more like pure
instinct - this day. A little unsound he may have been, but he fully
warranted the applause from the Kilmarnock fans when he was eventually
substituted with 13 minutes to go. Too much too often depended upon the 6ft 7in frame of centre-half
Kevin James at set-pieces but he did come desperately close on more
than one occasion to delivering.
At the final whistle Kilmarnock manager Bobby Williamson's first
thoughts were with the man he had replaced at Rugby Park, where he
stepped up from reserve team coach, rushing to commiserate with his
one-time mentor.
Totten was sporting in his praise of Williamson: "I said when I left,
it is going to be a lucky man taking over because there are a lot of
very good players there and I am delighted for Bobby because it is a
tremendous start in his managerial career. He's a good lad and he'll
learn from that and has done very well."
This was not a match to send any sort of shudder through the rest of
Europe and Kilmarnock's appearance in next season's European
Cup-Winners' Cup may be all too brief. That, however, will not matter
one bit to their supporters, who last saw Kilmarnock compete in a
European competition 27 years ago - if
they can remember as far back as that, or even further to
1929
when Killie had last won the cup!
proved well founded. When the Man of the
Match comes from the losing team and goes by the name of Andy Gray -
that one-cap nomad who has left burned-out campfires all over England
and the continent - then you know you are in trouble. When I heard
that Andy Gray had won the award, I honestly thought it
must have been
the guy from Sky. I had agonised and agonised and, having ascertained
that I could not vote for the groundsman, finally spoiled my ballot
paper on the basis that no one was worthy of election. 
Wembley the previous weekend. If the FA Cup
Final
boasted a galaxy of stars such as Zola, Juninho, Ravanelli,
Vialli and Di Matteo, to mention merely some of those whose names
ended with a vowel, the Scottish Cup Final offered only a black hole
of anonymity. 
players from 25 years and 30 years ago
respectively. The Old Firm filled an entire page,
commanding almost as
many column inches as the finalists.
including one from outside the Premier League,
produced a memorable match. It would have been deliciously ironical to
report that a bunch of modestly-paid comparative nonenties served up
much better entertainment than the millionaires managed the previous
Saturday. It would have been a lie. As hard as the players of
Kilmarnock and Falkirk toiled - and as mediocre as the Wembley contest
had been - there was no concealing the lack of quality on view.
Kilmarnock displayed marginally the more technical
skill but the only
goal of the game, scored
by Paul Wright in the 21st minute, seemed to
limit their desire to attack. Falkirk tried desperately hard,
especially in a second half which they dominated territorially, but
their sole form of assault was the long throw to the high head of
Kevin James. At 6ft 7in, he was probably the tallest player to appear
in either Cup Final.
This was just one of the curiosities of
a contest which was at least free from any of the nasty bigotry
associated with the Old Firm and others. How could it be other than a
friendly final when one manager insisted on calling the other 'boss' -
which is what Alex Totten, now of Falkirk, had been to Bobby
Williamson when he was in charge of Kilmarnock a few months ago.
Totten may also have been the first manager on such an occasion to
wear a skirt - well, all right, a full dress kilt. There were two
similarities between Ibrox and Wembley. The crowd in Glasgow gave SFA
official Jim Farry the same noisy bird that the FA's Graham Kelly had
received from Middlesbrough supporters in London. Farry, demonstrating
that Stalinism was still alive, issued a code of conduct which
basically said the winners could smile, a little, but that they must
contain their celebrations to within SFA guidelines. And, of course,
Blue was also the colour. It was always going to be with blue the
official colour of both clubs.
best
of times without being beaten by a side one has fashioned. And if that
wasn't galling enough for the Falkirk manager sacked by Kilmarnock
shortly before Christmas, he was undone by a player he had signed not
once but twice.
two clubs, Wright's declaration of
fitness was the one bit of luck Totten could have done without.
season's English FA Cup finalists, Middlesbrough, Kilmarnock had had
Premier Division survival playing on their minds in recent weeks, but
unlike Bryan Robson's sad lot, they had been able to secure their
future in the top flight two weeks before the final.
Division rivals. But they chose instead, a
trifle cynically and much like Chelsea the previous week at Wembley,
to sit
upon their slender advantage.
Too much too often depended upon the 6ft 7in frame of centre-half
Kevin James at set-pieces but he did come desperately close on more
than one occasion to delivering.
