SPFL Tier 2, St Mirren Park, 20/2/16.

Looking at the team sheet it’s not surprising we lost this. Not a striker to be seen in the starting line-up.

It’s still disappointing as we could have done with drawing this but at least the two teams below us lost too.

Seems the best we can hope for now is eighth. (I’d take that right now, though.)

The Cup game at Dundee is something of a freebie. The attraction of playing Rangers at Ibrox should we get through lies only in the share of gate money we’d receive, though. Our record against them is dire. A bit like against Gretna.

With over five SPL clubs now having said they’ll vote against a team bearing the word Rangers at least somewhere in its new name being in their division next season it now seems that the Newco will have to apply to the SFL for a place.

The thought that they might be in Division 1 next season fills me with foreboding. If Dundee take their place in the SPL it would mean that Dumbarton’s first league game in Div 1 for 16 years will not then be at Dens Park (thus incidentally depriving me of the opportunity to walk to the game from my son’s flat) and may be at Ibrox – in which case I’ll not be going.

Any precedent here is surely Gretna, who when they were relegated from the SPL while in administration were immediately demoted to Div 3. But the Newco will not quite have been relegated, they will have been expelled.

Moreover they are a NEW club and ought to apply for the vacancy which will (due to shuffling within the leagues as before – Airdrie Utd you win again!) be in Div 3, not Div 1.

I fear though that some SFL clubs may vote for short term financial gain over sporting integrity despite the fact that the original Rangers were part of the process of shafting the rest of Scottish football (probably hoping it would wither on the vine) when the SPL was set up. The SFL clubs, though, have not withered but rather have managed to keep themselves alive and financially viable – certainly in Divs 2 and 3 – unlike their supposed betters.

This open letter to the SFL was written by a Raith Rovers fan and puts the case very well.

My feeling is that the misdemeanours of Rangers have been so grievous that a mere one division demotion is no sanction at all: any other club could then play fast and loose financially and expect to get away with it with as little to pay. I am even coming round to the notion that Newco Rangers ought not to be admitted even to Div 3 (they do not meet the entry criterion of having three years’ accounts for a start.) Scottish football will find its level without them – and become steadily more competitive as Celtic will not have a partner with which to bully the rest. If this means fans of Rangers are lost to the Scottish game so be it. The smaller clubs don’t depend on them anyway.

I heard Gordon Strachan on the news the other day referring to the Rangers situation. He said something along the lines of, “How can you let a club which all those players and managers have put so much into, with so much proud history, go to the wall? It wouldn’t be right.”

Well, Gordon. Airdrieonians were a club that players and managers had put a lot into and had a proud history – four Scottish Cup finals among that. They went to the wall.

The third Clydebank FC died as a result of Airdrieonians demise as they were taken over and moved to Airdrie to become Airdrie United. Lots of players and managers and maybe not so proud a history, but they did make it into the Premier Division and reached a Scottish Cup semi as a second tier team. Their fans were powerless to prevent the takeover but did set up a junior team.

Third Lanark were a club that players and managers had put a lot into and had an undeniably proud history – including a League Championship and two Scottish Cup wins. No one acted to save them.

Going further back St Bernard’s have a Scottish Cup win to their credit and ultimately went out of business due only to the untimely death of their main benefactor. No one helped them.

Was it right that these clubs were allowed to die, Gordon? Just because they were smaller clubs doesn’t mean their fans were any less passionate about them. Just because Rangers have a large following does not mean they should be extended concessions those clubs were not.

Gretna FC’s story is more akin to that of Rangers. Grossly overspending and over-reachinbg themselves they had to be bailed out to the end of their only SPL season and were then punted. They had a Scottish Cup final along the way, though, if that was something they could be proud of considering how they achieved it.

And as for Sandy Jardine’s vainglorious statement about Rangers fans taking action against other clubs this reminded me of the playground bully and is exactly the sort of thing we real football fans (as opposed to glory hunters) have come to expect from the institution that he is trying to defend. Sandy; you’ve done the crime, now do the time. Take your punishment like a man. At the least, this should mean expulsion from the SPL.

To those real fans of Rangers who recognise their club is in the wrong here and that its behaviour cannot be condoned nor encouraged in the future by any holding back of sanctions now, I offer my condolences and my apologies for the intemperate nature of the previous paragraph.