Today the Scottish Football League voted itself into history. (I originally typed “committee suicide.”) It is ane end of ane auld sang. For 123 years the SFL has been the mainstay of professional football in Scotland – albeit recently of mainly semi-professional teams.

Quite why this has been allowed to happen escapes me. The 30 SFL clubs have now shackled themselves to – effectively been taken over by – an organisation, the Scottish Premier League, which has been nothing short of a disaster. During its short existence many of its clubs have found themselves in deep financial difficulties. The demise of the largest of these, Rangers, gave the SFL an opportunity to lever much more advantage from that situation than it has been able to achieve. Not the least of the undesirable aspects of the new body – to be called the Scottish Professional Football League – is that the top division clubs (the old SPL) have a stranglehold on any further developments in that the voting structure of the new body means any two of them can veto a proposal as an 11-1 majority among the top division clubs will be required for a change.

The SPL was originally set up on the apparent belief that the clubs at that time in the highest positions in Scottish Football’s structure were somehow or other better than the rest and could more or less cast them adrift. (The Rangers debacle showed how misguided that idea was. Without an SFL as a safety net there may not have been a continuity Rangers.) But what gave those particular clubs the right to decide that? To lift up the drawbridge after themselves, which is what they did by having only one promotion/relegation position.

Despite all the evidence to the contrary the 11-1 voting arrangements suggest the present top 12 still are of the belief that they are the best; or at any rate the most competent. The provision of an additional possible promotion place from tier 2 via a play-off is welcome but for how long will it last? Moreover the new body’s overall voting structure is heavily weighted in favour of clubs who happen temporarily to be in the first or second tier. I fully expect a few years down the line that access to the top two divisions of the SPFL will become restricted in the way it once was to the SPL – or even for the top two tiers to vote the lower two away.

The SPL was (is) far too money grubbing and venal. I have not been in the slightest interested in watching its “product” either live or on television. I don’t expect my interest in those “top” 12 clubs to change now that the others have been drawn into their web. The true soul of Scottish football, its beating heart, lies in those other clubs; the ones who provide a focus for their community, cut their coats according to their cloth and do not seek to overreach themselves. I welcome the inception of a Lowland League by the way, a much needed intermediate for the establishment of a route to the (now) SPFL for clubs traditionally outwith the main leagues and for those who may find themselves falling out of them. I only hope my beloved Dumbarton FC won’t end up there one day.

Dumbarton are due to play at East End Park, home of Dunfermline Athletic Football Club, on the 23^rd, a week today. We last played there on Jan 5^th when I took these photos.

The Pars, as they are known, are in financial trouble; so take a good look at these as they may become historical curios.

Yes, there’s a cemetery over the wall from the ground. This is a stitch of two photos to get the whole ground in.

From Halbeath Road.

East Stand. Not used, except for big matches. (Celtic and Rangers, then, or when the Pars play a decider against Raith Rovers. So not often.)

Norrie McCathie Stand (West Stand; at far end.) Named for a former player. Home support.

North Stand. Home support here too. (The cemetery is behind it.)

Main Stand. Away support in foreground, home support in bulk of stand.

On Saturday, in the Scottish Cup, Rangers (the new Rangers) have been drawn to play Dundee United in Dundee.

Rangers chief executive has refused to accept their ticket allocation for the game, apparently agreeing with fans that Dundee United as a club was more involved than others in denying Rangers a continuing place in the SPL over the summer.

Set aside the fact that the only club to blame for the new club’s predicament is actually the old Rangers, but isn’t this the sort of throwing its weight about that so many associate with the old Rangers, the seignorial attitude to other clubs which in no small part led to them being cut little, if any, slack when they went belly up? (It is also a kind of cutting off your nose to spite your face as surely Rangers will find it more difficult to get a result in the game if their fans are absent.)

Reading between the lines it seems there are other clubs whom Rangers fans similarly blame for their present plight, so is this stance to be repeated on every away game if – when – Rangers gain promotion to the top flight?

If it is, perhaps the words of the “traditional” and now controversial Rangers supporters’ song ought to be changed to, “Hello! Hello! We are the bully boys.”

Rangers attitude to Scottish football reconstruction has hardened. Their chief executive has suggested they should leave Scottish football if the plans go through.

It looks like they at least don’t believe the plans are designed to elevate them prematurely.

But where could they go? UEFA and FIFA against clubs playing outside their own country’s borders (special dispensation applies to Welsh clubs who historically plied their trade in England and Monaco is also a special case. I’m not sure where FC Vaduz – a Liechtenstein team in the Swiss league – comes in this regard.) England is a non-starter; even given UEFA blessing they would hardly be able to jump straight into the Football League nor even the Conference. (Sorry, the Blue Square Premier League.)

This is a blowing of hot air, perhaps as a reflection of relative impotence. Their absence from the highest echelon is obviously getting to them. (For the next Cup weekend I had planned a post – as yet unwritten – relating to this.)

I do agree the proposals are a dog’s breakfast. The solution to Scottish football’s financial problems is for the top clubs to take a tumble to their real status* and cut their cloth accordingly. Stop spending money they don’t have and don’t budget for TV deals; take them as a bonus.

*Piss-poor league in a piss-poor country on Europe’s periphery. Deal with it.

SP Hell.

I see the proposals for a reconstruction of the Scottish football leagues have advanced to the point they are now to be voted on.

I haven’t commented up to now as I’ve been resigned to gloom all season. The 4-3 at Falkirk and 3-0 at Morton did cheer me up, though.

The proposals would see a merger of the SPL and SFL with a top league of 12 clubs (as now; so no change at all!) The second tier will also have 12 clubs (an enlargement of 2.) The third tier will have 18 clubs (effectively a merger of Divs 2 and 3 of the SFL minus 2 clubs.) The fourth tier disappears (but there is a mooting of introducing relegation to/promotion from a pyramid below it.)

There is in addition to be a “split” after the top two Divs have played 22 games (home and away against each other) with the 24 clubs divided into three sections of 8,8 and 8 where again there will be home and away games against each member.

There is an air of indecent haste about this as it seems to be envisaged that this will start in season 2013-2014. That would mean changing the finishing post halfway through this season (and also effectively kybosh the play-offs for this year.)

As far as the top two “new” Divisions is concerned how is this different in essence from the SPL 2 which was shot down in flames about a year ago?

And I wonder how many promotion/relegation places will there be between the third and the second. Not enough I would suggest.

It all sounds to me remarkably like a way to hike Rangers up to tier 2 a year early. They will undoubtedly win Div 3 this season and I can see the argument running that they won their league; so deserve to be promoted. The Div 2 winners (Queen of the South?) would be going up to the second tier anyway.

In this regard it would be nice to have Rangers saying that if their promotion to the second tier in one go was advocated they would refuse to accept it – but I can’t see them making that refusal: even if they have described the plans as an abomination.

By all means have a merged league – provided there are equal voting rights across the Divisions. (Otherwise how long will it be before the top two Divisions vote away the lower completely?)

Very few fans, however, want to keep the present system where clubs play each other 4 times a season. The proposals do not really address this point. Under them 20 clubs will still be doing exactly that.*

The main trouble is that Rangers and Celtic are too dominant within the Scottish game. I have frequently said that unless and until the gate income is once again shared between the two competing clubs, along with more equal division of TV monies, no other club will have a hope in hell of challenging the big two.

I do know one thing though. Whatever and whenever league reconstruction happens Dumbarton will be demoted. That’s what always happens.

1922: third bottom Div 1. Three clubs relegated to adjust division sizes. Previously only two clubs had been relegated. It took us 50 years to get back up.

1975 : fifth bottom Div 1. Only the top 10 clubs stayed in the first tier. It only took us 8 years to get up to that level (for a brief one season visit.)

1994 : fifth bottom Div 1. Three Divisions rearranged to four, bottom five in Div 1 demoted to new Div 2. Promotion the next year saw us then have our worst season in living memory (and beyond) before tumbling down the leagues. 16 long years later we finally got back to Div 1.

Demoted
Under
Materiallly
Biased
Arbitrary
Regulation
Thrice
Over
Now

*Edited to add. The 24 “top” clubs will all play four times against at least three teams.

I noticed from my blog stats that I had had a spike in visitors a few days ago. The main search term was Glebe Park, Brechin.

Now why would people be searching for that?

It took me no time at all to realise, of course. And this link explains it further.

I suppose all these bemused punters were searching for information because they’d never been to Brechin before. Welcome to the lower leagues!

At the time of writing Rangers Newco are set to play in Div 3 of the SFL this coming season. (A welcome aspect of the SFL decision for me was that Dumbarton voted for that outcome.)

Whether that will be the situation by the end of tomorrow’s meeting of the SPL is another matter.

There has been talk of financial meltdown in the SPL with St Mirren, Motherwell, Inverness Caledonian Thistle, Dundee United and Kilmarnock said to be in danger of going into administration should “Rangers” be absent for the SPL for more than one year.

If the fact of Rangers (note, there, the lack of inverted commas) being liquidated were not enough to show the SPL business model as being a busted flush then surely this would be. Not one of those clubs’ finances ought to have been dependent on the presence in their league of another club – nor on the uncertain largesse of any television company. Yet that is what appears to be the situation. As I have said before I have no wish too see any club go to the wall but if they do they have only themselves to blame.

They also seem to have the outright gall to put the blame for this on the SFL clubs’ decision on Friday. If they could not survive without the presence of a phantom club (for that is what “Rangers” now are) why on Earth did they vote to expel that club from their league?

That league was set up in the belief that the so-called big clubs did not need those lower down – that the smaller clubs were in fact a drag on them.

It now turns out that the opposite is the case. By and large SFL clubs have cut their coat according to their cloth; some have even thrived! Indeed, the SFL may well be the refuge for those in trouble higher up.

A time of crisis now no doubt faces the whole of Scottish football. That it will emerge from it leaner and fitter is only to be hoped. If it does so it might be in the absence of some of those who thought themselves above the rest. Some might say, “Hell mend them.”

Rangers Football Club no longer exists.

The company comprising it has been liquidated, the club along with it. So why are the Scottish football authorities scrabbling around trying to accommodate a new club apparently still claiming to be Rangers?

The sleight of hand which has seemingly transferred the assets to a new company – but miraculously without also transferring its debts! – cannot carry the history with it.
It is a new company – and a new club. As such they merit no special consideration – certainly not elevation to Div 1 of the SFL when any other new club would have to start in Div 3 (and moreover would have to provide three years’ worth of audited accounts for the privilege.)

In the same way, Airdrie United are not a continuation of Airdrieonians. (They are arguably Clydebank; except Clydebank fans do not consider them so.)

Whichever title the new “Rangers” takes (I append a few suggestions below*) the club is not and never will be Rangers. The SPL, SFA and Sky may wish them to be but they simply aren’t. As I understand it they also have not much of a squad of players. That many of last season’s Rangers players are taking themselves elsewhere shows they do not think the new company is a continuation of the old.

The threats, distortions and scare stories of the SPL (and apparently, to its shame, the SFA) with regard to the potential financial apocalypse they claim will happen should the new “Rangers” not be admitted to Div 1 are a form of blackmail. What they imply is that they intend to break a contract (the annual payments the SPL makes to the SFL) or incite others to break theirs (the two years’ notice requirement for clubs to leave the SFL.) This stuff is beyond sordid. I do not believe any of the administrators, chairmen etc who put forward such arguments give a stuff for Scottish football – only for the feathering of their own nests. The hidden agenda is of course to cast adrift (via the formation of SPL 2) the smaller clubs, in other words that portion of Scottish football where its true soul actually resides.

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for the true good of Scottish football to be asserted, to break the stranglehold that the Old Firm had/has on the neck of the Scottish game, to make the playing field more level again.

I fear it will be thrown away.

*Not the Real Rangers, (Dis)continuity Rangers, I-Don’t-Believe-It-Is-Rangers, All-Too-Real-Rangers.

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.