One For The Road

The aftermath of the drinking session in the Scotland camp continues to rumble on. Of course, all club managers face the same sort of situation regularly as they will have young men looking to relax and with time on their hands. The SFA are drawing up a code of conduct to help prevent a repeat of the late night drinking session involving key players in the squad. This could well be used as a model for clubs to adopt if they face a similar situation. A number of SPL managers recognise that players have to relax but also remember where to draw the line.

Aberdeen manager Jimmy Calderwood said: "I am amazed and disappointed. I was at the Holland game and I thought the players gave everything. If George allows them to have a drink then fair enough but there is drinking and then there is 'drinking'. If you go for an hour before you go to bed then fair enough but it starts getting a wee bit out of order at that time of the night when really they should be resting. The fans must be disappointed. I played for Scotland at under-18 and under-23 level and I was very proud pulling on the jersey, listening to the national anthem and playing for my country. You can definitely understand the annoyance of the supporters."

Hamilton counterpart Billy Reid believes everyone involved needs to look at themselves. He said: "The whole incident's been really unfortunate. It's something that happens when the manager allows the players to have a bit of freedom and it's maybe gone a bit further than it should have. Who's at fault? Well, I think everybody's got to look at themselves and say, in the national team, it probably shouldn't have happened - and it's probably been an embarrassment to Scotland. Things have worked out okay but it shouldn't have gone as far as that. Everybody within the Scotland camp, management and players, will have known that."

Hearts boss Csaba Laszlo said: "You are human and if you drink one or two beers, this is okay. The question is how long you stay out and how long you need to get back to normal? For example, at Ferencvaros and with Hungary, we were always in the hotels before every game and in the evening I told the players after dinner they can have a beer and a glass of wine. I think as a professional, you must have self-responsibility. You know your body, you know your habits and you know what is important to you. You know what is okay and what is not okay. What is most important is what happens on the field, the field does not lie. On the field before 60,000, 40,000 or 10,000 (people), you cannot lie or run away. It is important you learn from your mistakes. This is important in professional football - this is not amateur football."

Understandably, Inverness manager Terry Butcher - who is Burley's assistant with Scotland - refused to offer his views but I would think he will feed into the code of conduct being developed in Hampden.