James Lawton: Attack on Vogts only exposes Scotland's failed football culture

The bleakest aspect of the Faroe Islands disaster was what it said about the dearth of raw football material in the entire British Isles

Crucifying the coach is always the first device of a bankrupt football nation. In their occasional off years, the Brazilians, for example, first try to lynch the players, then attempt to burn down the stadium. Generally, hounding the coach is something of a last resort. However, in the case of Berti Vogts – who six years ago won the European Championship with a distinctly ordinary German team – and Scotland, the whole idea seems particularly futile.

Scotland's problem is not so much a failing coach as a collapsed culture. Certainly the dismal news from the Faroe Islands at the weekend provoked here not so much surprise as a poignant memory. It was of Bill Shankly inviting a few football writers to take a tour around Liverpool's latest installation.

"Take your time, boys," said Shanks, "remember you're looking at a colossus." It was Ron Yeats, the big centre-half who was said by one biographer to have made "an epic journey from the abattoirs of Aberdeen to the arc lights of Anfield." What he was of course was not a bold adventurer but a routine Scottish export. Scotland was a football bazaar and showroom. Whatever you wanted, you just drove up there. The standard model was small and aggressive and generally highly creative, though quite often heavy on fuel, particularly in the evening, but the overall range was inexhaustible.

The top English teams did not augment their strength with Scots. They built around them. At Double-winning Spurs, Bill Nicholson had the iron and the silk of Dave Mackay and the rapier of John White. Sir Matt Busby had Denis Law and Pat Crerand at Manchester United, Don Revie had first Bobby Collins, then Billy Bremner – with Peter Lorimer and Eddie Gray thrown in for power and subtlety. We could go on and on.

The bleakest aspect of the Faroes disaster was what it said about the dearth of raw football material not just in Scotland but the entire British Isles. Wales, despite the flare of hope in Finland over the weekend, and Northern Ireland are in similarly desperation condition. England is cushioned by a relatively huge population, but in the World Cup in Japan, when David Beckham and Michael Owen were so inhibited by injury, and Steve Gerrard was missing, we saw quite how slender was the base of authentic world-class talent. Some bang on about the foreign players clogging up the Premiership, but, when you get right down to it, what came first: the foreign invasion or the decline in the local product?

Even the most cursory review of the last 40-odd years tells a devastating story. Consider some of the names who carried Wales and Northern Ireland to the 1958 World Cup finals in Sweden. Ireland had Harry Gregg in goal, Danny Blanchflower stroking it about in the midfield, Jimmy McIlroy bringing a wonderfully adroit touch at inside forward, and on the left wing there was the fast and powerful Peter McParland. Wales had the fine keeper Jack Kelsey, and the world-class ability of Ivor Allchurch and Cliff Jones, an inside-forward and winger who worked a terrifying combination of skill and speed. They also had arguably, with Pele just emerging, the best player in the world in big John Charles. The Scots weren't there but that was a familiar story. The Scots have always been great producers of great talent, but that is is not the same as being a great football nation.

Such semantics apart, though, consider the poverty of today. It is encapsulated in one easy question? Which players of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would the man in the street readily recognise? There is just one: Ryan Giggs. What we have is a dustbowl of British football talent.

There is no cure, no instant irrigation scheme, this side of the resources which went into the Tennessee Valley Authority. This probably will not dull the knives being directed at Vogts, but maybe it should cause a moment's reflection in the worst of his critics. The problem flies beyond football. A few years ago the Welsh rugby captain Ieuan Evans reflected on his country's lost place in the world. "When I was a kid," said Evans, "I dreamed of being Barry John. Today the average kid does not dream of being Ieuan Evans. He says 'bugger that' and plays his video game or goes to see his girlfriend. Rugby practice? It just isn't a priority any more."

Johnny Giles, whose football was shaped along the Dublin quays when he played until nightfall chasing a raggedy tennis ball – "we were like so many dogs fighting for the bone" – takes the Evans view. "The talk of improved coaching and academies is really beside the point. Look at every great footballer of the past and I'll show you almost without exception a working-class kid who played in the streets. Bobby Charlton played in the streets up in the North-East, Georgie Best did in Belfast. Today, what parent would let his kid go out in the street, if one still exists? Why is so much talent still coming out of South America and Africa? My guess is it that it is because they still have streets with kids in them."

When Shankly was not conducting guiding tours around Yeats, even back then he would fret about the health of the game's lifeblood. "You want hungry players but the country is getting richer and that's already bad for boxing. I can also see it harming football," he said. Even though players of the genius of Best and the beauty of Charlton were still around, and indeed Anfield would have one last wave of brilliant Scots like Graeme Souness, Alan Hansen and Kenny Dalglish, it was as if Shankly had a premonition of leaner days.

Once he was asked to compare the talents of a current star, Tony Currie of Sheffield and England, with those of his former colleague Tom Finney. Famously, Shankly replied: "I'd compare them quite favourably – mind you Tommy Finney is 60 years old."

Heaven knows what he would have made of the 2002 result from the Faroes. The troubling thought, though, is that he might not have been entirely surprised.

Kennedy misses the point

Michael Kennedy, the overworked lawyer of Roy Keane, has introduced a magnificent red herring with his plan to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights on the grounds that his client has been denied free speech.

The understanding here is that Alf Inge Haaland is suing Keane, and the Football Association is bringing disciplinary charges, for what Keane did rather than what he said. Surely no prosecuting agency in the world would deny the right of someone to confess to an act of criminal violence.

Indeed, some have encouraged the process by use of sleep deprivation, water torture, and rubber truncheons. Keane sang for none of these reasons. He did it because he received a huge amount of money. It would be nice to think the august courtroom could be put to better use.