Shaping Things to Come

[calscot 0]

Summer football wouldn't transform our game but it would give a boost.

 

I know I much prefer watching football in a sunny afternoon or warm evening - and if it rains, it's not freezing rain. I'm not sure how many more it would attract but there would be less finding an excuse not to go than in the middle of winter.

 

Exclusive TV coverage could at least attract a lot of Scots to the telly or the game when denied their English fix.

 

Less postponed games means less needless money lost for clubs and fans.

 

Less money spent on heating, lighting, under soil heating and replacement turf for what can become plowed fields. It's makes a groundsman's job easier and cheaper. Even the cleaning bill should come down.

 

Summer holidays are usually difficult time to fill for the kids and so the attraction of going to the game is increased.

 

Increased chance of qualification through to the proper stages of the European tournaments.

 

Less injuries and more enjoyable conditions makes it easier to attract players from abroad and gives our own players a more enjoyable time where they can start thinking about playing decent football rather than slugging it out in freezing weather on a hard or muddy pitch. It also means less medical bills.

 

That's just off the top of my head.

 

It may not transform our game but it would definitely bring a ton of benefits, and I can't think of many reasons for not doing it. We can work something round the WC and EC finals as it's only two weeks and not many of our players are usually involved.

 

Even 6 weeks of swapping to summer football with two games a week is a quarter to a third of our season played in what will undoubtedly be better temperatures and therefore conditions than the winter alternative.

 

We're just too stubborn about tradition to do it.

[Zappa 0]

"Nothing to play for" is nor only not a myth it's a proven reality. Why do you think we changed it the first time round? Attendances were falling, people were bored and the game was dying a not-so-slow death.

 

Your argument completely false apart on this "nothing to play for" point PapaBear because you're claiming it to be a "proven reality" when it's nothing of the sort.

 

You're insinuating that falling attendances and the ebb in the game in those years was due to the larger leagues' mythical "nothing to play for" aspect, but there's no proof of a direct link and even if there WAS a direct link it's highly doubtful to have been the only contributing factor.

 

It also seems to me that it's just stubborn and maybe even shortsighted to say that larger leagues simply didn't work back then and that the structure was changed because it was killing the game. It was just a bit stale and was changed because it was decided it was time for a change, time to get the old turd polish out.

 

We're also talking about almost 40 years ago (mid 70's) that the larger leagues were dropped and you haven't taken into account the influence of factors external to football which were affecting the economy and the Scottish peoples' lives.

 

De-industrialisation factors including major changes, steady decline & even closure of certain Scottish industries were playing a bigger part in peoples' lives than any "nothing to play for" issues with larger leagues.

[The Real PapaBear 0]

I'm not for a moment suggesting that football lives in a bubble, isolated from other social developments, not in the least. And it is those very social changes that I will refer to to further strengthen my case - not just strengthen, mind you, but *further* strengthen.

 

The biggest social developments which affected football goers, imho in the 1970s were a general rise in living standards (until Maggie's hatchet began to swing towards the end, but still post Premier League), the universal adoption of colour television (except for my granny), the advent of the video recorder and the rise in the concept of 'Home entertainment' - something almost unheard of prior to then. This went a long, long way to changing social behaviour patterns. The pub and the match were no longer the only options.

These factors were almost certainly conrtributory to the decline in attendance, but not crucial. The decline had been ongoing for many, many years prior to the advent of the smaller Premier Division, (or as some call it The-Something-to-Play-For-League). The increase in living standards and the change in social behaviour simply helped accelerate that decline.

 

The 70s turned into the 80s, home entertainment grew and grew, as did income levels, and the range of things on which to spend this increased disposable income. One would expect the decline in attendances at football matches, which had been on going for decades to continue. Right? Especially in the face of increased competition from the entertainment industry.

 

And yet a funny thing happened on the way to the ball park. After reconstruction, attendences began to rise. And rise. And rise again. Despite the fact that the economic woes of the late 70s and early 80s followed the introduction of the Premier League, more people started coming to games.

 

"But how can that be?", I hear you ask in bewilderment, "what is this sourcery"?

 

No magic, no trickery - just the removal of a whole raft of meaningless games against vastly inferior opposition and the introduction of....wait for it...something to play for.

 

Average attendances per club over the period 1961-1975; pre-reconstruction

30009 Rangers

26968 Celtic

12480 Hibernian

12279 Hearts

11054 Aberdeen

9278 Dundee

7736 Dundee United

7665 Kilmarnock

7526 Partick Thistle

7142 Dunfermline

7032 St Mirren

5927 Motherwell

5688 St Johnstone

5255 Falkirk

3132 Hamilton

 

Average attendances per club over the period 1975-1998 after reconstruction

32637 Rangers

27729 Celtic

13604 Aberdeen

12750 Hearts

9842 Hibernian

9523 Dundee United

8574 Dunfermline

8039 Dundee

7516 Kilmarnock

7471 St Mirren

7097 Motherwell

6661 Partick Thistle

6411 Falkirk

5968 St Johnstone

4577 Hamilton

 

Not only did reconstruction halt the decline of attendances, it actually seems to have reversed the trend despite increased competition from outwith football.

So what was the cause of this rise in attendance in the face of falling incomes and increased competition for the entertainment Pound if it was not the fact that the football was more competitive with more meaningful games?

[Gribz 919]

Im all for summer football, its a no brainer for me. I don't see how it could possibly make Scottish football be compared to LOI. LOI have very little history and always been a low level league. The Scottish game was once as strong as any in Europe and Rangers, Celtic, Aberdeen and Dundee Utd have all held their own. So I don't see summer football declining the Scottish game at all. The game is already in free fall due to the incompetent people running it. Since the SPL broke away it got worse. 'The takeover' this year should be a mass opportunity to revitalise the game but the powers that be have no desire to give the fans what they want.

 

Calscot has posted a good few reasons for the change, while I have always said better weather means better pitches which means a better standard of play....therefore players could improve. I could definitely see the potential for Edinburgh derbies on a hot June night attracting a) a full house at Tynecastle or Easter Road and b) a decent viewing figure in England and abroad. Not to mention how big an Old Firm derby would be in the middle of summer!!

 

A larger top flight and summer season is worth a try.

[calscot 0]

As much as I agree with the sentiment, unless something dramatic changes then I can't see any non-OF game being of interest outside Scotland - or even in this case having that much interest to non Edinburgh club fans in Scotland.

 

The Sheffield Derby is much larger but you don't see us snapping up the rights to it.

 

The trouble is that we have two huge clubs that could compete at the top of the English Premiership and the rest of our top league are comparative minnows to many English teams that the top half of them would be struggling to stay in the Championship and the bottom half would be struggling to stay out of the Conference.

 

You can't even expect outside interest in an Edinburgh derby unless the game has significance in the league title race. As I've said before, if Edinburgh want the outside world to take their football seriously, they need to merge and try to form a club with 30k fans that can somewhat compete with the top two. It'll never happen and Dundee are another city that should do this, but it's what kills the outside interest in Scottish football, and is why the TV companies are not interested and we're becoming a provincial league with no money.

 

And thinking about that, it's kind of what OF fans want, another bigger club to make a better competition, but not as big as their own club. Imagine an Edinburgh super club that filled Murrayfield every other week and could outspend us? We'd hate it.

 

But then, we hate it now when the likes of Crystal Palace have more than three times more money from TV than we have altogether.

 

We're between a rock and a crazy place.