Aidan Smith: McCoist opted for wrong talent pool

FADS come and go in football. Currently, the collective isn’t known as a team or even a squad but a “group”. As of right now, half-time talks are being composed on handsome clipboards. And – this is incredibly hot and you’re no one if you don’t do it, at least for this week – managers and No.2s must converse during games with their hands cupped over their mouths, like they’re dodgy geezers in an Ealing Comedy planning an audacious heist.

FADS come and go in football. Currently, the collective isn’t known as a team or even a squad but a “group”. As of right now, half-time talks are being composed on handsome clipboards. And – this is incredibly hot and you’re no one if you don’t do it, at least for this week – managers and No.2s must converse during games with their hands cupped over their mouths, like they’re dodgy geezers in an Ealing Comedy planning an audacious heist.

But one thing always remains constant, and a solid reminder of, well, solidness – Cowdenbeath will make a man of you.

If you want it to. The warnings from fellow hacks of the technical challenges of reporting from Central Park have been sufficient for me to ask for a day off every time any of the Championship’s fallen giants are due there. It should have been Hearts’ turn yesterday but the icy Fife weather intervened and I know Hibernian fans who’re still shivering at the memory of the Biblical drookitness they suffered a few weeks back.

Central Park makes a man of the fan. On a Hibs fansite, the faithful were quickly outdoing each other for the length of time spent queueing at the burger van for a hot drink, and how many times they witnessed the solitary, standard-issue kettle being refilled.

Central Park makes a man of the player – just ask Robbie Neilson. The other day, there were warm tributes from the Tynecastle head coach for what an eight-game loan spell with the Blue Brazil had done for his development as a full-back – well, warmer than the Bovril at the Hibs game. “My first taste of men’s football,” enthused Neilson.

But here’s a funny thing – two funny things, in fact. Scottish football used to have a couple of other constants. One was that, if you were a Rangers player, you were, as the club motto had it, “Ready”. Ready for any eventuality, for any kind of crunching tackle. Indeed, you might have got your retaliation in first. The second constant was that Rangers nicked other clubs’ brightest youngsters. But suddenly, thanks to Charlie Telfer, right, both of these truths are looking decidedly shaky.

Just about Ally McCoist’s last act as Rangers manager before apparently offering his resignation was to respond to criticism from Dundee United, where Telfer is now flourishing, that he’d stifled the teenager’s talent. The boy had needed protecting from the lower leagues, said McCoist, and this was why he’d only managed one substitute’s appearance before his move to Tannadice, which then sparked a row over the fee.

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