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SFA chief executive Stewart Regan learns to live with highs and lows


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He was on the radio last night as well, and before I lunged for the 'off' switch he must have mentioned his 'lack of baggage' about three times. It's possible to protest too much.

 

Stu's brother is a Senior Lecturer at Durham University, his subject is Irish Republican History.

 

Reference Nolan Partners, Lord Reid's son, Kevin was previously outed in a newspaper sting, as selling questions for cash. He was caught on tape guaranteeing access to then First Minister, Jack McConnell(also a Sellik season ticket holder), if the journo posing as a company rep' placed their account with Kevin's then employer, Beattie Media.

 

Yep, no baggage to be seen here.

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What his brother finds interesting is hardly evidence against Regan; that lurches into the realms of the easily mocked and dismissed.

 

The ties with Lawwell however, which he carefully omitted from his c.v. on the radio, make for something rather more substantive and might explain why he's so keen to be Mr I'm first through the carousel at the airport.

 

But the bottom line is, as in all interviews I have heard or read with him, that the ills of Scottish football are always either the fault of, or related to the ills of, Rangers Football Club. It's an infantile reading of an industry in decline since the early 1980's, taking the easy way out and avoiding confronting the really difficult decisions - is it possible to prosper with teams drawing crowds of less than 1,000 at lower league level and less than 5,000 at elite? The answer is self evidently 'no' but rather than grasp this thistle Regan, like all CEO's before him, prefers to steer the well holed steamship of reconstruction up the Clyde one more time, a hulk which becomes more depressing every time it is hauled out of dry dock and thrashed up the watter in the hope that the foamy splashes will conceal the crappy effluent.

 

I've no doubt that the man's time at the SFA will be ending shortly, as his kind of managerial figure moves around in a five year cycle or so; anyone who looks, really looks, at Scottish football over his tenure and finds it improved, in any material way, is deluded enough to get a job at Radio Scotland.

 

Is the national team performing to a higher standard? Than a Levein team, yes, but I'm not sure its possible to be damned with fainter praise than that.

 

Are domestic teams performing better at European level? Emphatically not.

 

Are they playing a more progressive style of football? Outside of Rangers, not that I have seen. Some say Hearts play passing football, maybe. The brief highlights I've seen suggest no advance on the 'long ball into channels crap' which should have gone out with the ark.

 

Are attendances booming, improved or even just up a bit? As with the Levein comparison, those who find joy in an extra 1,000 or so fans over the course of a season are either creatures of rare optimism or just plain dense.

 

Surfaces? Youth teams? Outstanding individuals? European level coaches? Anything? Anything at all?

 

What a shambles our game is. Anyone over the age of 40 will be well aware that we've gone from a period of tens of thousands going to games to a dribble of thousands, with far better entertainment alternatives available. Cap'n Regan will be well paid for his time, but I can't see that anything of note will come from his time at the SFA. The game continues sinking, and the rats will desert the ship soon enough.

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I trhink the game was at a low in the early 80s except for the emergence of the New Firm - maybe related to the misfortunes of a certain club in blue at the time.

 

There came a boom in the 90s, however and if you take a team like Kilmarnock who had an average attendance of about 1500 in the early 80s going up to about 9500 in the 90s, down to about 7000 in the noughties and now about 4000.

 

We went from about 20k in the early 80s to 44k and 48k in the 90s which depended on the capacity of the stadium which was pretty much 97% full. The teens have seen as at about 44k for reasons we know, as well as a steady decline throughout Scotland.

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