A healthier league

I have watched a bit of the Championship on BBC Scotland recently.  It’s seldom brilliant football but almost always entertaining.  For most of the season I despaired at the prospect of Arbroath picking up the automatic promotion spot.  The last thing we need is another tiny club with tiny resources lining their entire team along the 18-yard line.

This is unfair, of course.  What this tiny team have achieved to get within a whisker of the topflight is remarkable.  With Premiership TV money, they could emulate Ross County and previously Hamilton.  They would bring little interest to the league, but seven figure payments go a long way when you carry low overheads.

The alternative is Kilmarnock, a side with vastly greater resources and a truly terrible artificial surface.  Inverness and Partick will likely compete with the Premiership’s 11th club for the remaining topflight spot.  Raith seem to have lost their way since the Goodwillie fiasco.

Clubs only survive in the lower leagues so long before whatever local appeal they had fades to an insignificant level.  Dunfermline have a history, a decent sized local population, with an affluent business community, but the Leishman days are gone for good, never mind the Stein era.  Ironically, it could be Raith, newly relevant in Kirkcaldy, who are more likely to bounce.

Former Celtic central defender, John Hughes, is currently managing Dunfermline.  He led Falkirk to the topflight 19 years ago, then onto the top half of the table and a Scottish Cup Final.  When he left for an ill-advised spell at Hibs, Falkirk never recovered.  They have lost more than they’ve won in League One this season.

I’ll regret whoever goes down of Dundee or St Johnstone.  Both are sold clubs with enough fans to do better.  Despite the pitch, a Kilmarnock would be welcome.  It makes for a healthier league.