It is hard to describe my feeling right now with regards to the Old Firm clubs. What is quite clear is that the Old Firm see Scottish Football as nothing more than a vehicle to a higher standing. Following today’s news that the Old Firm will not back down on the voting issue, the ten other SPL clubs will, by Friday midnight, tender there resignation from the SPL. This could set in motion, perhaps, some of the fiercest infighting the Scottish game has seen. For those who don’t know what is going on here goes…
The 10 clubs outwith the Old Firm put forward a resolution before an extraordinary general meeting at Hampden Park on Wednesday to ask for a change in the voting structure. The structure that was in place needed an 11-1 majority to implement any major changes in the SPL but the 10 wanted that altered to 8-4. But after Wednesday's meeting it appears that this proposal was unacceptable to both Old Firm clubs. The 10 rebel clubs will now carry through with their threat to resign from the SPL. They must tender their resignation by midnight on Friday, before the new season kicks off on Saturday, in order to fulfil the two-year resignation notice required by the SPL.
So what does this mean to club like ours? No doubt the gloom and doom merchants will have a field day but if the ten clubs stick to their guns and are willing to reassess Scottish football it could turn out to be a godsend. Lets fast forward to two years from now and there are no Old Firm in our league (by then restructured to a more sensible 12 team league per chance?). The first and most obvious change would have to be selling it back to the public, for most, games against Rangers and Celtic not being there in itself does not mean much but the whole cost of watching football has been sold to the punters on the basis that we need to try and compete with the Old firm. This would no longer be a justifiable reason. If we are left with 10 or 12 clubs who all have a fairly realistic chance of winning the league so be it. You will get the true fans coming to see their team in greater numbers than before – but in order to get all the lapsed fans back and also to get more people coming to watch football, a decrease in cost would have to be implemented. Quite frankly football is not particularly good value just now (This is across the board, I was staggered to find that a season ticket for Gayfield costs only a tenner less than one for Tannadice) and a reduction in the cost of watching it seems the most sensible way of getting bums back on seats.
What would we, the fans get from this new set up? Indirectly we would possible get a poorer standard of player with our better players leaving for pastures new (certainly initially). To complement this we would see our teams winning more games if not trophies. Since 1991 only three teams have won the Scottish Cup out with the Old firm (Hearts, Killie and United), and since the ‘new firm’ of United and Aberdeen shared three championships between 1983-85, the old firm have won every one. Indeed looking at the top goal scorers in the league tell you that with the exception of Tommy Coyne in 94/94, every single top goal scorer since 1990 has been an Old Firm player. I would still foresee moneymen coming in and pumping money into certain clubs – Hearts and Aberdeen spring immediately to mind - but they would not have the clout and pulling power that the Old Firm have and therefore even allowing for this, we would still have a competitive league. As a fan, losing the OF games would not bother me, they lost their excitement for me along time ago and I now go to them home and away as some sort of vocation in my following of Dundee United. Even looking at what Livingston and our rivals across the road, Dundee, have tried to achieve in the last few years. These plans would have a more stable business sense IF the old firm were not there. It must be frustrating for the Marr Brothers to realise that no matter how much money was giving to the Bonetti Bros. They were never going to win the league. Most of the clubs have already done the adaptation that would be required if the OF were to leave – cutting squad sizes, wage bills and bringing through more youngsters – and crowds cannot get much lower than they are at present, so all in all there is not much that our clubs CAN lose. There is no doubt that initially TV deals, radio deals etc would suffer as the media would be unsure of how to attack this new found phenomenon – reporting without the OF factor! Once we found our level, these things would sort themselves out and a certain degree of normality would resume. Talk of the Scottish League becoming like an Irish league or a Welsh league is rubbish also. The main sport in Scotland is football, in the above-mentioned countries that is not the case. The demand for Football would not go away simply because the OF were not involved. It is also my belief that a lot of the OF fans who travel from other towns to watch them may go to watch their local teams if following Celtic or Rangers meant travelling to England or Europe every second week. After travelling down to Coventry on a coach I could vouch that making this sort of Journey once a fortnight would certainly test my commitment to United!!
To be blunt, the Old Firm outgrew us long ago, but their claims that we are holding them back cannot be farther from the truth. Anytime a club has looked like challenging them, they have swiftly purchased the main players in that team and in most cases stuck them in the reserves. Yet when they get bundled out of Europe on their annual two round holidays they claim it because of the lack of competition in their domestic league!
I don’t fear for the future of clubs like United if the OF do leave – these clubs are already cutting cloth accordingly but you would have to believe that the OF themselves would perhaps be taking on something that they could not handle. They would be a small fish in a big pool. If this is to be the way, welcome to the real world and I hope you know how to swim, because not one supporter outwith the Old Firm fans will be diving into save you.