Health has been the biggest political football of them all ever since the NHS was created and Stanley Matthews was in his prime.

The latest match took place on Wednesday with Labour lining up to fire in shots at the SNP.

It was, as sports writers would say a bruising encounter, not for the faint-hearted with meaty challenges and full of blood and thunder.

Tactically it makes sense.

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Think about the many elections it has been the core issue. Even at the Scottish and EU referendums it was a central argument.

Quite simply, the NHS wins votes or more accurately it can lose a party votes and an election if it is seen to be the one cutting services, slashing budgets and worst of all closing a hospital.

That is the tricky situation the SNP finds itself in now.

Five years after Nicola Sturgeon saved Lightburn from the axe it is up for closure again.

Unless Shona Robison saves it once more the SNP will be seen to be letting services close. It is the same with maternity services at the Vale of Leven and Inverclyde.

The SNP’s victory by one seat, in 2007, was in no small part helped by its opposition to closing A&E departments in Monklands and Ayr when Labour was in power.

Ms Sturgeon, as Health Secretary, made it one of her first acts to promptly overrule the health boards and stopped the closures thereby taking on the mantle of protector of health services.

So the SNP has been in a strong position on the NHS, having successfully portrayed Labour as weak on protecting services.

Now Labour, after almost ten years in opposition is attempting to turn the tables.

The health board in Glasgow has admitted it cannot balance its budget and that is with tens of millions of cuts, including the controversial plans at Lightburn, Centre for Integrated Care and the maternities outside the city.

Their cash comes directly from the Scottish Government. Obviously it doesn’t have a bottomless pit of cash to dish out but it is expecting the health board to do more in the face of a growing elderly population and at the same time make cuts to services to find savings.

Read more: Patients launch petition to save beds at city hospital unit

While the decisions are taken at a health board level the decision on whether something is a major service change rests with the health secretary and then she has the power to either accept or overturn.

If Shona Robison allows the closures to go ahead or allows them not to be deemed a major service change, then she will be in the unenviable position of justifying health cuts, exactly where Labour wants her.

If that turns out to be the case, in this game of political football the boot will then be on the other foot.