Tonight I’m off to watch Celtic take on Hamilton Accies to extend their lead at the top of the table to six points. Here’s what’s going to happen: either we’ll win, and I’ll go home thinking about 5-in-a-row, or we’ll drop points at home to Accies, again, and there will be a joyless walk along London Road. There would be no compensation whatsoever in the latter, no matter how bravely Accies defend their 18 yard line. The former will provide limited joy, as despite previous results, I’ve already anticipated a positive outcome.
Hamilton Academical are a remarkably successful community football club. They are a fraction the size of Dunfermline, St Mirren or Hibs, who languish in the lower leagues, not to mention Dundee United, but no matter how admirable, they are not box office material.
The prospect of league reconstruction – creating a 14 or 16 team top flight, bringing in clubs unable to match Accies on the field, at the cost of games against top 12 teams, is enormously unattractive and unwelcome.
We abandoned an 18 team top flight in favour of a top 10 in 1975 because we are a tiny country who cannot support more than 10 competitive teams (or even that many). Football fans turned up in huge numbers for games against genuinely top clubs, but attendances against semi-professional clubs were as lousy as you would expect them to be.
My first objection against the last reconstruction was use of the word “Professional”. The SPFL includes professional, semi-professional and amateur clubs. The four division league was tarted up as something it’s not. We can, at best, support two leagues of genuinely professional clubs, with two leagues of semi-professional clubs below them.
A professional group of 20 clubs, separated into two divisions, should be created, with only marginal drops in commercial income distribution as you go down the gradient. Semi-professional clubs should acknowledge that status and organise their game accordingly. Set participation criteria, objectives, partnering and commercial plans to suit their needs. They should be free to formally partner with professional clubs, share resources, including expertise and youth development objectives.
There should not be automatic promotion and relegation between the professional and semi-professional leagues. At most, there should be a one up, one down, play-off. This would give teams who drop quickly, like St Mirren, a floor from which they can bounce off, instead of having to take unplanned or worse, un-budgeted, action mid-season to remain in tier two.
I love the prospect of a Scottish Cup game at East Kilbride, but that anticipation required the immediacy of the Cup. No sport survives by creating more mismatches games than it already has.
But this is Scottish football, so I suppose we should expect the worst from Hampden this afternoon.
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TD67
Lucky you. Have never met a Tim turnkey in my life. :))
HRVATSKI JIM on 19TH JANUARY 2016 3:00 PM
Tea break so, from BBC Scotland:
Scottish football clubs ‘unanimously against the introduction of strict liability rules’
Posted at 14:44
The Alloa chairman Mike Mulraney says the clubs are against the introduction of the rules to combat sectarianism in football and the use of smoke bombs and flares inside Scottish grounds.
Mulraney, who is also on the SPFL board, says clubs should not be punished if they do all they can to prevent unruly behaviour.
He was speaking following a meeting of all 42 clubs at Hampden earlier today.
Earlier this month, SFA chief executive Stewart Regan said strict liability – where clubs are held responsible for their fans’ behaviour – could be back on the table after sectarian singing was reported at matches involving Celtic and Rangers, and smoke bombs were set off at Celtic’s match against Stranraer.
****
Hello Jim
On and off the blog today, so dont have a lot of time.
I know it could be problematic given who the adjudicators in SPFL matters are (I would be loath to give them more chance to made ridiculous decisions). But if that issue could be sorted, personally, think the imposition of strict liability (as opposed to absolute liability) on the clubs for offences that occur by fans within the park is not a bad idea. It would force clubs to deal with their problems.
I know this might be used as a brick against Celtic, but I genuinely believe we and our supporters have a lot less to worry about. Plus, I think it might focus our club’s thoughts on what fights with fans they really want to have.And I do not believe that fans (our fans, at least) would take this as a license to misbehave, thinking the club (and not them personally) would be held liable.
Things are moving along nice.
http://www.indycelts.com/substance-over-rhetoric/
AWE NAW
Hope you are right on this.
Somebody, somewhere, surely has to lay a glove on thems.
They will be confident that matters are in hand.
Hope MA has a few wee surprises up his sleeve.
Would love to see them squirm.
HH
DELANEYS DUNKY on 19TH JANUARY 2016 4:02 PM
TD67
Lucky you. Have never met a Tim turnkey in my life. :))
– See more at: http://www.celticquicknews.co.uk/no-sport-survives-by-creating-more-mismatches-games/comment-page-4/#comment-2757095
He’s a Tim ???? :))
Sipsini,
It wasn’t in Celtic’s power to keep them out of the lowest division.
The SFL voted them in over other clubs with better credentials.
Celtic could only work within the rules,as they are members of the SPFL/SFA.
They don’t have the freedom to disregard those rules.
That is exclusive to one entity only. We all know that.
All we can do is stuff them on the park or close our doors.
Reality is a bitch sometimes ,my friend.
TGM
Ashley is a capitalist’s hero. He must have some Tory pals in high places in Westminster?
I think think this proves that like the judge, MA is not a brother, although I have my doubts with that judge, saying your not one makes me think he protests to much (as someone said earlier ) Huns must have pelted his web site warning him, it’s a strange one why he felt the need to out that, and his wife’s family bein Huns, very strange indeed, but I’ll say, IMO, MA needs new lawyers, the ones he has are not fit for purpose .
DD,
Can’t stand Mike Ashley, can’t stand the GSL Et al.
It really is a no win situation for me.
HH.
PADDY TURNER on 19TH JANUARY 2016 3:28 PM
BSR………..And! ……as my earliest recollection of watching Celtic was a wee ginger head running about.(PT)…..and amazed at all the wee weans collecting ginger bottles as well as the fellas selling rolls on spam…..(before the spearmint chewing gum)..hence the user name
Philbhoy….Unlike yourself I’m fit and well……The bold Ryan attending tonight with his Mum……..also a ST Holder……
Welcome back TD…..now behave yourself….
Paddy T
Aye! But have you ever tasted one of the ‘Often Eaten, But Never Beaten’ VC Pies?
– See more at: http://www.celticquicknews.co.uk/no-sport-survives-by-creating-more-mismatches-games/comment-page-4/#comments
DD @ 3:43 you will need to explain that one to me, went right over my head. I’m a “malcontent” according to him. H H Hebcelt
TD67
Can assure you that Hebcelt is a fine Tim, and a fine human being too!
I enjoy his company, as I am sure I would enjoy yours. Keep threatening Masty that I will dig oot my passport and venture across the Clyde again and visit the Brazen again. Been four years.
DD
MA is up against the proper establishment huns.
Be interesting to see the outcome.
No surprise, that he has been under pressure in the press, in relation to the way he operates SD
I dont believe thats coincidental.
The establishment are gunning for him, they want to dilute his power.
I hope he has some ammunition, he is going to need it.
HH
Sevco stuck in ‘six figure’ bid hell.
Hebcelt
TGM mentioned that TD67 has escaped incarceration in the Outer Hebrides.
If Sevco tender another six figure bid for MOH, will the be known as 666.?
TGM
To be fair, like Greenpinata I take no side in DK v MA.
A pair of very bad men!
There’s a guy in West Nile Street sells the late paper…………………………”Vinyl Times!”……………….”Vinyl Times!”
Glasgow CSC
Delaneys Dunky on 19th January 2016 4:19
Was just ferkin wi yi, hence the :)) face
THOMTHETIM
They have got 666 stitched into their shorts and socks.
Ive also heard they have a massive cauldron in the bowels of ipox, and supposedly, Dave King has a throne made out of thousands of unpaid bills.
When he sits on it….he goes into a trance and speaks strange words….Kaffliks…Kaffliks…Kaffliks.
Something not quite right over there:)
BTW….this is true, every word of it:)
HH
mike in toronto on 19th January 2016 4:03 pm
Re strict liability, I heard Paul67 on the radio talking about the implications of a club being deducted points in a tight title run in. Imagine the “whataboutery” in that situation.
The only real way is education and self policing. The statements form our various supporters’ associations about flares seem to have done the job and, going back, the issue of lateral movement was sorted when people understood why it was a danger. We do need to be on our guard and keep our own house in order and this can only be done when the officials and the large majority of supporters of our club do work together to self police.
Also – surely it is easy for the “large majority” to drown out the “small minority” when an inappropriate chant is raised? Seems logical to me but does not seem to work everywhere in Scotland. Must be different atmospheric conditions that enable the small voice to be louder than the big voice. I am not a scientist so cannot explain this phenomenon.
DD
Yeah…MA and DK
Lets hope they both get jailed:)
That’s fair.
HH
tonydonnelly67 :
I see they’ve already made a movie of your time in The Cooler :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZa79QGDeo8
:-))))
TBJ
How is the weather in the East End?
Should I dress for the Baltic Sea rather than Paradise for tnight’s match? :)
Great rebuke : Im not a di@khead, I’m a Unicorn.
A unicorn so simple in its style.
HH.
DD ok read back got you now, rest assured he would not have escaped, St Kilda beckoned!!! H H Hebcelt
BOURNESOUPRECIPE on 19TH JANUARY 2016 4:22 PM
Sevco stuck in ‘six figure’ bid hell.
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Oh you can mock – but it’s a double rollover the morra…
Hrvatski Jim on 19th January 2016 4:34 pm
Be very wary of proacative self policing.
I am old enough to remember the days when guys were hauled out of terracings on nothing more than the word the word of those around them.
As I may have previously posted. I was once next to a guy who got lifted for no other reason than he had a pugnacious Fred Flintstone like face.
GREENPINATA on 19TH JANUARY 2016 4:37 PM
Great rebuke : Im not a di@khead, I’m a Unicorn.
A unicorn so simple in its style.
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PMSL!!!
Been longer Brahms and Lizst than TD was suspended.
Hrvatski Jim.
As you say, the atmospheric conditions are strange in Scotland.
Seemingly reporters cant hear the Sevco mob when they are singing the Billy boys.
However, they can hear a few smoke bombs and flares going off, from a hundred miles away:)
Surely there cant be any truth to the rumour that the ears of hun journalists are fitted with dimmer switches:)
HH
Direct from the Car Park
I saw a picture earlier witch was supposed to show Fletcher arriving at Glasgow airport was it a fake or is he at Parkhead talking to Celtic anyone know ? H.H.
Natknow
Have the couple in Hawick (Paul Murray’s area) been sent any begging letters fae Doomdome since their £33m win?
JOE FILIPPIS HAIRCUT on 19TH JANUARY 2016 4:45 PM
I saw a picture earlier witch was supposed to show Fletcher arriving at Glasgow airport was it a fake or is he at Parkhead talking to Celtic anyone know ? H.H.
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I’d take anything you see or read on the internet with a large pinch of salt.
Including this post. :-)
DELANEYS DUNKY on 19TH JANUARY 2016 4:47 PM
Natknow
Have the couple in Hawick (Paul Murray’s area) been sent any begging letters fae Doomdome since their £33m win?
——————————————–
Wouldn’t surprise me dude.
I can only hope they got mine first…! :-)))
Joe Filippis Haircut on 19th January 2016 4:45 pm
I saw a picture earlier witch was supposed to show Fletcher arriving at Glasgow airport was it a fake or is he at Parkhead talking to Celtic anyone know ? H.H.
==================
He’s buying a house on the Gallowgate so draw your own conclusions…
HH
Evening Timland from a warmish hun free mountain valley.
This is too much, they really are trying to kill the game.
And you can bet your bottom dollar the focus will be on our supporters.
Shocking stuff
http://news.stv.tv/politics/1339639-football-chiefs-ask-for-government-help-to-tackle-offensive-behaviour/