Broadcast on March 4 2010
Trouble seems to make a habit of following football. It could be the bad behaviour of fans. It could the incompetent decisions of referees. Or it could be the indiscretions of the players themselves. In recent times there have been plenty examples of this – down in England we’ve had the infidelities of Ashley Cole and John Terry and the latter was stripped of the England captaincy for last night’s International.
And up here Craig Levein has begun his reign as new Scotland manager and there’s been the issue of what to do with the four controversial exiles: Kris Boyd, Lee McCulloch, Allan McGregor and Barry Ferguson. Levein’s response has been to hand out the olive branch and suggest that they are all free to come back into the fold.
Only Kris Boyd featured last night for Scotland beginning on the bench although he came on later in the game.
I was at the match (it wasn’t great – but at least we won) … but that aside I was aware that there were many different reactions around me to this offer of forgiveness as Boyd trotted onto the pitch.
Even within my own head there were conflicting thoughts. You see although Boyd is a great goal-scorer, its hard for me to warm to him because I support St Mirren and he has scored too many goals against us! And I must say that his attitude of desertion after the Norway game seemed to suggest to me that he believed he was bigger than the national team.
On the other hand, doesn’t everyone deserve a second chance? And as Levein pointed out it was brave of him to turn around knowing that he’s going to get stick and to say “yes, I’ll put myself in that position because I want to play for my country”.
Jesus said that we should always be prepared to forgive and offer another chance. He didn’t say it would be easy.
In fact it’s much easier to nurse a grudge and hold on to resentment. Contrary to what some believe, much of Jesus’ teaching is hard, radical stuff. But it remains true.
Sooner or later we all need the opportunity to be given another chance – to start again. I know that’s been very important for me. That’s why I can’t deny that Craig Levein has done the right thing.
And if Kris Boyd scores the goals that take us to the finals of EUR0 2012, well, that will simply be a bonus.