SPL Vote Defeated!!

[BlueMazza 0]

Ross County have always been well run (unlike ICT in fact). They were my local team when I was younger and spent many a Saturday at games there (which cost about £4 )

 

County aren't desperate for cash as such and getting a second year in the SPL will do them wonders.

 

I heard mention of 'all the clubs should refuse their County ticket allocation'. Yet another case of it's fine when others suggest it but when we do it AND give gate to charity we're mauled.

[chilledbear 16]

Auld Archies take on matters.......

 

 

 

Big Bang triggered this. It's now time for some new theories

 

 

 

 

 

The tail wagging the dog is one of those convenient phrases used by people who are not getting what they want in any democratic system where, inconveniently for them, the little man can stand up and be counted legitimately.

 

Stewart Milne's use of the idea of frustration being a motivation for change is historically inaccurate

By resisting pressure, which you would not need to have a lurid mind to interpret as bullying, two clubs, perhaps inadvertently, have reminded us that any changes in Scottish football should be the outcome of rational thinking and at least some understanding of what the customer at the gates would like to see.

 

The proponents of change brought neither to the debating chamber. The facts are obvious. Scottish football is a mess. Queuing outside grounds is as rare a phenomenon as seeing peever played on pavements. Nobody, whatever system is to be adopted, can predict the course of the next few years. But was there any need to represent this as a brink over which two small clubs would push us?

 

It amounts to nothing other than hysteria to put people in front of a firing squad and that is what two personalities achieved in the lead up to the vote. First, there was Stewart Milne, the hugely successful businessman who owns Aberdeen, and from whom we have heard precious little on the national stage in recent times, suddenly coming up with that most devastating of predictions calculated to make the blood run cold: that there could be job losses if the new structure were not to be accepted. There were no specific areas delineated to illustrate and validate such a claim, it was just held up there like a sandwich board with an 'End of the World is Nigh' warning.

 

Of course there would have been job losses, for sure, if people weren't going to buy season tickets for a system which they shrewdly deduced redefined the word 'season'. In any case, the economy being what it is, job losses are almost guaranteed whatever system is put into play. It is an important issue but one which needs closer examination rather than being left to declamatory statements to induce panic.

 

Milne's use of the idea of frustration being a motivation for change since, as he claimed, it has taken three years to reach this stage, is historically inaccurate. It has taken almost 40 years. It was when the Premier League was established. Since then our top league has had more face lifts than Zsa Zsa Gabor. And you can be assured that, if they had decided to go down this new mazy path, the Botox would have been called on in the future.

 

Enter Henry McLeish. Playing on his role as a Scottish Football Association consultant and his former posting as first minister, he is somebody who has to be listened to, and he knows it. He timed his entrance to be seen as a young Lochinvar riding to rescue reconstruction from the clutches of destroyers like Stewart Gilmour, Roy MacGregor, thousands of punters and me. But what emerged from his statement was establishment flim-flam. There was no substance; no evidence provided to back up his 'we must do something' warning. What intellectual rigour is contained in the perspective that change for its own sake makes for a prosperous future?

 

So here is an effort at evidence. In the mid-1970s, when Henry was first entering political life in Fife, something profound was happening to Scottish football. The Big Bang. Overnight, 18 became 10. This was supposed to reinvigorate the sport. The catchphrase was that all games would be meaningful. They were. But on the basis of the survival of the fittest. All these years later we have raised a generation of dissenters who bemoan the product they see and the disappearance of style and creativity among the home-bred player. I would not solely attribute the erosion of our once-proud culture to the Big Bang. But facts are 'chiels that winna ding'. It has been no coincidence.

 

They miniaturised too far and sucked invention out of the game. Those top two divisions being subdivided into three leagues of eight, as proposed, would have replicated that negative culture. Watching a young Falkirk side take Hibernian to the wire at Hampden is another reminder that the system needs to be widened for proper development. I still maintain the 16-club league revenue problems could be addressed inventively in association with television.

 

So, at the end of the day, are we now like Monty Python's deceased parrot, perched on a shoogly twig and merely pretending to be alive just to be sold to an unsuspecting public? Some initial and angry comments on the steps of Hampden might suggest so.

 

If you seek initial reassurance, just think of the Millennium Bug scare when computers were supposed to cease to function, that planes would fall out of the sky and we would be reduced to Flintstones. We're still here. We have grumbles, we have problems, but life goes on. The men who so desperately tried to scare us into change, now owe us the product of some creative thinking, not recrimination.

[Super_Ally 0]

What intellectual rigour is contained in the perspective that change for its own sake makes for a prosperous future?

 

So few in media have tackled this. The loudmouths of Aberdeen and Celtic etc touting this as some last roll of the dice. But was there anything to back up their words that this new system would in fact be any more succesful than what we currently have? No.

 

In fact I and most believe it would be a lot worse.

[calscot 0]

It seems to me if you want change you need to do it one agenda item at a time rather than wrap everything up in a package that contains massive chunks of objectionable stuff.

 

Before you can change the league format surely you need to first put a vote to having one league body and then let THAT body propose, second and vote on the league structure?

 

If nothing else you have one poll rather than two - especially as the current one was doomed to failure at the SFL vote in any case. Although I think that could have been the excuse they needed to start the SPL2 and remain in full control.

[Steve1872 4]

Chris McLaughlin‏@BBCchrismclaug58mHamilton Accies have invited all Div 1 clubs to a meeting on Monday. BBC Scotland understands SPL2 will be on the agenda.

[Zappa 0]

Chris McLaughlin‏@BBCchrismclaug58mHamilton Accies have invited all Div 1 clubs to a meeting on Monday. BBC Scotland understands SPL2 will be on the agenda.

 

Doncaster should phone him up and tell him there can't be an SPL2, so there's nothing to discuss because it was all or nothing with the 12-12-18 proposals.

[aweebluesoandso 290]

Chris McLaughlin‏@BBCchrismclaug58mHamilton Accies have invited all Div 1 clubs to a meeting on Monday. BBC Scotland understands SPL2 will be on the agenda.

 

I don't believe this SPL2 will happen any time soon, there's very extra little money too pass around, if we are to believe the SPL premier league is in financial trouble, where can they find the extra to finance an SPL2? Of course all this talk is even before they could get permission from the SFL to leave their ranks.

[bigy 0]

The SPL 2 would only work with Rangers in it to boost the TV deal. Hopefully we'd tell them where to go.

[Blue Moon 1,291]

I hope these chairmen will be consulting their boards, shareholders and fans.

[bluebear54 0]

The SPL 2 would only work with Rangers in it to boost the TV deal. Hopefully we'd tell them where to go.

 

This is becoming a farce.

Has nobody the decency to tell the SFL1 clubs that the money is off the table? Or that in actual fact they would be better off financially staying where they are?

I also believe they have invited Dundee along. What about Airdrie, or QoS? Talk about dog eat dog and desperation.

It's laughable.