[Book Review] Flower of Scotland

During the past ten years, football literature has been enriched by some truly great books about Dutch football (Ajax, the Dutch and the War; Brilliant Orange), Spanish football (Morbo; Barca; White Storm); Brazilian football (Futebol; God is Brazilian) and German football (Tor) yet, surprisingly, there hasn’t been a truly memorable book about the Scottish game.

It is this thought that struck me when I came across Flower of Scotland, a book that promises and analysis of the past forty years of the Scottish game.

The author, Archie Macpherson, is actually a voice from my past. Living abroad, Eurosport was effectively my only conduit to live football and Macpherson always seemed to be the one doing the commentating.

At the time I wasn’t really aware of his vast experience, that this was something he had been doing for most of his life. So it is to be expected that he uses this book to catalogue the history of the game as he has seen it develop.

The problem, however, is that Macpherson writes in the same manner with which he would commentate a game. Impartiality and objectivity are of primary importance whilst passion or personal opinions are to be avoided.

This seems to stifle the book which, whilst interesting is never truly engaging. Those instances where he does allow his passion to guide him turn out to be the best parts of the book. Other passages are slightly more laboured particularly if they involve either Celtic or Rangers where he seems to pay attention to stick to facts rather than give his opinion which, in a book of this kind and with someone of his knowledge, would have offered the reader further insight.

The end result is a book that covers every major event of Scottish football since Celtic’s triumph in Lisbon very well, as you would expect from someone who has been so involved.

Yet, sadly, it can’t be classified as the first true classic on Scottish football: Flower of Scotland is a good read rather than a truly memorable one.

This review was originally featured on squarefootball.net on the 29th December 2005.