News that Dundee United will vote against allocating a place in next season’s SPL to Sevco confirms what we suggested yesterday, that sentiment has swung against the notion. Motherwell’s innovative idea of allowing fans (who have already expressed overwhelming opposition to the idea) a vote is further evidence that even hard-pressed clubs are prepared to make financially difficult decisions. Suggestions that the Motherwell board should grow a pair and take responsibility themselves have some merit.
Stewart Milne has denied BBC reports that Aberdeen have decided to vote against but I expect this is a matter of due process more than any genuine indecision.
There was a feeling this morning that matters could be brought to a head sooner than 4 July if enough clubs publicly declared against Sevco. This would suit Charles Green’s company as they would be able to prepare offers to Rangers players (who they are able to sign) knowing where they are likely to end up. If they are forced to wait until 4 July, Sevco will not know what squad requirements they will need for next season before making a decision on what Rangers players to offer employment to.
More than SPL football, Sevco need clarity. A rush to declare against them might seem harsh but it would be enormously beneficial rather than being forced to wait a further 12 days.
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Lee McCulloch will love Division 3. I just hope the St. John’s ambulance volunteers are up to the job at the various ‘stadia’.
St Mirren,even.
In the heat of Lisbon
bankiebhoy1 @ 11 47.
” the real joke ”
Yes —— defrauded and demeaned the sport of football . Defrauded and demeaned Scottish football . Defrauded and demeaned every competition they took part in . Cheated other clubs . Cheated the supporters of other clubs . Defrauded the Exchequer . Defrauded their creditors.. Corrupted the media etc etc .
But – Hey – Scottish fitba needs them..
Let them die .
My Colander Plan (it’s full of holes) for Scottish football would be for Them to be excluded and having to re-apply.
Dunfermline to be reinstated, due to the up coming points deduction for Them.
This would negate the fixture problems of Dundee being Club12.
No relegation for one year from SPL, due to D’line not having time to plan for SPL.
Reconstriction the following season, incorporating top clubs in Div.1 into SPL2.
By that time, Them may be in Div.2.
Inthe meantime, the SFA to be purified and the prophecy of ” Those days have gone”, will come to pass.
Now, that’s not too difficult, is it?
Jim Spence @bbcjimspence
On Sportsound, Rangers latest, Euros, Willie Miller, Gordon Strachan, Pierre Van Hooydonk and more. 2-4 pm
Might be worth a listen.
Hail Hail
It is customary to commemorate a death by reminiscing about good times shared. So, now that Rangers (RIP) are an ex football team here are my memories that bring a smile
One of my earliest memories is of my Dad(who sadly died last October) waking me up in bed to tell me that we had beaten them 4-0 at Ibrox. I’d never been woken up for anything before (and only once after, more of which anon) and can still remember my Dad’s joy, it ddnt matter that it was a Glasgow Cup game he was amazed and euphoric about the score (thank you, Bobby Lennox). Now my Dad was an Englishman who moved up to Glasgow just after the war to marry Mum but he was fully converted to Celtic and brought me up telling me how much Scottish society was loaded in favour of the Ibrox team. He, along with any others who have passed away, would be loving today.
Much of my earliest memories of Celtic Rangers games was through the radio commentary of David Francey. I remember being amazed when we beat them 5-1 at Parkhead (thank you Stevie Chalmers) as it sounded like five breakaways!
The next game that stands out was the 4-0 cup final victory in 1969 as the press had prepared me for a resounding defeat by the boys in blue. For auld hands like myself George Connelly’s goal is up there with Henrik’s first in the 6-2 game. If you haven’t seen it here’s a link though it just catches the end stage of the goal which came seconds after Lennox scoring the second.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4ai7kp_8cg&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Also around this time was the next time I was got out of bed in the middle of the night, this time by my Mum with the immortal line ‘if we are going to die then we are all going to die together!’. It was the night of the great storm (’68/ ’69?) and it did sound like a thousand banshees were passing by. We lived near Copland Rd so that wasn’t a new experience but I remember looking out of our third floor window to see that part of the Rangers end roof had blown off, much hilarity at St Gerard’s the next day!!
We then move to the early 70s and another Glasgow cup game where we thrashed them 3-1 with a reserve team out. I remember cheering their goal as we were so much on top!!
By this stage I was lucky to be going to games against them (through underhand means as my parents didn’t want me going) and I was at all three games at Ibrox in August/September 1971 which we won. Great memories of Kenny scoring with a penalty, Jinky with a header, and their fans being totally scunnered, though not as scunnered as they must feel today!!
Later that season I was at Hampden to see Lou Macari and Harry Hood win us the Scottish Cup in the replay. That was almost a whitewash season as we beat them 2-0, 3-0 and 3-2 at Ibrox, 2-1 at Parkhead and won the Scottish cup in a replay. So we win five and drew one (and this was the season they won the ECWC!!).
I left Glasgow in ’77 and my final game before leaving was the 1-0 cup final( thank you Andy Lynch) which was also Kenny’s last game.
I still go up to games when I can and my passion is undimmed ( as was evident at Carrow Rd last month) but these games bring back particularly warm feelings. Be great to hear other posters memories of these days.
S O T
Agreed.
The Hun jeerleaders in the media are playing Extra Time on this – first spread propaganda that thems are being punished no doubt by “heavy-handed officialdom”…….then fabricate myths around the commercial value of the defunct club, foment panic amongst the smaller clubs and then present a convenient soft option ( League reconstruction or Div 3) that allows thems to rebuild without being forced to take the shame and responsibility for their actions.
In effect – getting off scot free………….
Shameless charlatans, protecting their own interests.
Fencelt
Great story , thanks for sharing .
Hail Hail
MWD Absolutely spot on mate 100% agree with that comment
Hail Hail
Stephen with a ph
Division 3 teams better think about increasing their players’ insurance cover if Elbows ends up there. Many of them are part timers and would lose out on their day jobs if he crocked them.
Looks like the wheels are coming off the chuck wagon if oldco supporters continue with their ST boycott!
Damned if you do…..!
fencelt…
From memory, those 3 games at ipox 2-0, 3-0 & 3-2 all came within 17 days (I think) in 1971
I was at all three
MWD. at 11:22
Makes sense to me, mate …
In those rare, moments of clear-sightedness, I agree that what you say makes sense: the odds on any professional football club rising from the ashes of that once arrogant institution known RFC are surely lengthening by the day.
I suppose it may be the effects of lifelong conditioning that prevent some of us from maintaining this conviction for very long.
Then I read well-reasoned pieces like yours and those of Auldheid (and some notable others, too, of course) and my fears subside.
In terms of those (still) in positions of genuine influence in the Scottish game, there may be a number of powerful inner forces at play: e.g. a lifelong affection for the Foe Malign (i.e. RFC, as was), deep masonic ties, an ingrained distaste for things Irish/Catholic, plus the growing realisation that this may well be the last throw of the dice to prevent der hun from disappearing into the abyss.
FF
Cosgrove kicking bahookey on Shortbread
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/oscars-spirits-far-from-flagging-after-20000-raised-3147121.html
Apologies if this has already been posted.
Do we want to start re-writing the Mowbray era as one defined by dodgy refereeing as opposed to dodgy management (taking off N’Guemo for Ki at Pittodrie thus surrendering the midfield and the game)?
Well while we’re at it why not sing the praises of John Barnes?
If the cheating takes in the whole of the Advocaat era then in theory he is a league winning manager. After all his brand of football was far more entertaining than Mowbray, his teams had Lubo, Herrik, Viduka and Berkovic, when it worked it was incredible. No plan B though.
Gordon_J backing Neil Lennon on 23 June, 2012 at 12:03 said:
Division 3 teams better think about increasing their players’ insurance cover if Elbows ends up there. Many of them are part timers and would lose out on their day jobs if he crocked them.
————————————————————————-
Elbows may find that what Div 3 players lack in pace and flair is compensated by their more ‘agricultural’ approach.
The view from a St Johnstone fan;
It’s a long time since this website has been updated with anything even vaguely resembling regularity. Once upon a time, BH was not only a printed fanzine, but also a busy web community of Saints news, views and rubbish Dundee jokes. My main excuse for letting all this slip is that I’m a lazy bugger at heart, but there’s also the marginally more acceptable reason that I now have to spend most of my time in London. While I still spend frankly stupid amounts of time and money travelling to watch my boyhood heroes, I’m no longer an ever-present, and feel my ability to publish fair comment on the latest right-back or new pie range has long since diminished.
Incredibly, though, blueheaven.org.uk still pulls in a daily slew of hits from all over the world. Admittedly, many of them appear to be from people looking for recipes for Scottish ‘Biscuits’ (hello biscuit fans, if you’re reading this!). But a fair whack of them are also St Johnstone supporters. People still use this site to get in touch and ask me how they can get hold of old fanzine issues, or when there will be a new one, or even whether I can spare some time to give a fans’ view to the media.
So, in my own odd way, I feel an annoying sense of residual duty to use this site to express some sort of view on the crisis that is currently ripping through Scottish football. Which means me crawling out of retirement for one last rant.
On 4th July, our club will be asked to vote on whether or not a cheap, hurriedly constructed version of Rangers will be allowed to play in next season’s SPL. It could be the SPL’s very own Independence Day, or it could be the day that sees thousands of fans up and down the country turning their backs on clubs they have supported for their entire lives.
In the BH fanzine days, Rangers (or The Forces of Darkness as we always knew them) were essentially treated as the comedy bad guys. And I suppose that now, with their fiendish EBT scheme, TFOD have indeed turned out to be Scottish football’s equivalent of Dick Dastardly in Wacky Races; always stopping mid-race to place increasingly elaborate obstacles in their competitors’ way, too stupid and greedy to realise that if they only kept going they’d be miles ahead anyway.
And now that it’s blown up in their faces, after years of boasting about being too good for Scotland and threatening to pack up their belongings and head elsewhere, Rangers need a favour. The mighty Rangers, with their world record stash of domestic trophies, wondrous marble staircase and noble history of religious intolerance, need a favour from us, the shit on their shoes.
But there’s just one problem. Because they’re not even Rangers, are they? Rangers – the real Rangers that is, with their cheeky, lovable fanbase – lie dying in the gutter. And, while a succession of predictably dodgy characters squabble over the scraps, a New Rangers has appeared like a phoenix from the flames. Or, at least, a phoenix from some shit. A stinking phoenix from a pile of corrupt, festering shit.
Yet this new club (catchily titled Sevco 5088 – it’ll look great on the Union Jack flags), that has never as much as kicked a football, supposedly has the SPL running scared. We can’t upset Sevco! Anything but that! After all, without the pulling power of Sevco, the league will degenerate into something akin to Irish-League-meets-swingball, with no TV deal, no Sevco fans to swell our stands and piss in our shop doorways, and none of that juicy European glory we’ve all grown so accustomed to dining out on as Scottish football fans. The end of the world is officially nigh.
Unfortunately, the pro-Sevco argument falls apart on two fronts: 1. It’s bollocks (if Scottish First Division clubs can survive without the Old Firm or a TV deal, then why can’t the larger clubs of the SPL?); 2. Even if it weren’t bollocks, it’s not the point. It’s not about money. It’s not about product. It’s not about standard of football. It’s not even about Rangers (because, let us never forget, they’re not Rangers). It’s about sporting integrity, and it’s about supporters up and down the land saying enough is enough.
From a purely personal point of view, if I was at all bothered about watching the world’s greatest footballers playing sexy football inside a packed stadium and in front of a huge TV audience, I would not be a St Johnstone supporter. I, like many others, support Saints because they are my local club, representing my home town. From an early age, I was hooked on the sights, sounds and smells of following that club. My most enduring memories of watching Saints stretch from buying blue popcorn and Dotty bars as a kid in the Ormond Stand, to losing the league in the last minute of the season at Hamilton and being hammered 4-0 by Stenhousemuir. Very few of my St Johnstone memories involve any sort of glory, and those that do stand out only because they are so rare. Yet, like the rest of us, I’ve carried on going back, and at increasingly hard-to-justify levels of expense at that.
To paraphrase one of the contributors to the We Are Perth forum, what it boils down to is this: I’d rather watch St Johnstone playing amateur Sunday league football on the North Inch, than pay to see them willingly participate in a fixed, corrupt Premier League. Because that is exactly what the SPL will become if it allows a brand new football club to leapfrog the lower divisions and start out in the top flight, based purely on the strength of an application form.
Is this really how the SPL wants football to work now? Should we ditch the concept of promotion and relegation completely, and just open up every place in the league to the highest bidder? Why even bother playing football at all? Why not just turn the whole league into one big, obscene auction?
If that is what the SPL wants, then I’m afraid it’s probably time for me – as a fan of football, not of business – to bow out. And if it’s something St Johnstone are prepared to vote in favour of, then like many other fans I’ll be forced to re-assess whether or not I really want to support them. That’s something I never thought I’d say. But, while I’ll always be a Saints fan at heart, I’ll view my commitment to supporting the club in a very different way if the club votes ‘yes’.
If I could make one plea to Steve Brown and the rest of the St Johnstone board, it would be this: please don’t turn your backs on the club’s ethics. Those same ethics prompted Geoff Brown to speak out against Livingston and Gretna, and they’re as valid now as they were then. Don’t give in to bullying, or greed, or corporate threats. Don’t give up on being a football club. Don’t give up on being St Johnstone. No surrender.
@GaryPanton
Div 3 CSC
fencelt on 23 June, 2012 at 11:58 said:
A sparkling post my friend – great memories shared
HH
AndyM
Whatever.
66% Vote from SFL to change rules
fencelt on 23 June, 2012 at 11:58 said:
—————–
Was at every one of those games…….
The GC game @ Ibroke – Buzz Bomb Hatrick………..A midweek game. Travelled straight from my work. Lost a shoe/bit when exiting……..was hanging about outside the ground, when a guy handed me the shoe/bit…..
The 3 in a row @ ibroke…….2 league Cup section games + lague game. Think CP was being renovated. 4 of us were chased by a team of hunnies flashing knifes & steel combs………jumped on a supporters bus to get away.
Memories….some guid some bad.
Paddy T whocoulnaefighthiswayooto’apaperbag…..
crushed nuts?’ ‘Naw, Layringitis!’ on 23 June, 2012 at 12:10 said: Gordon_J backing Neil Lennon on 23 June, 2012 at 12:03 said:
Division 3 teams better think about increasing their players’ insurance cover if Elbows ends up there. Many of them are part timers and would lose out on their day jobs if he crocked them. ————————————————————————-Elbows may find that what Div 3 players lack in pace and flair is compensated by their more ‘agricultural’ approach.
——
Agreed mate.
The pansey newco won’t know what’s hit em.
HH
/Bishop B
We were relegated two leagues three days before the season started. Anything is possible.
David Stoker Livingston Director
Free wireless being installed at Celtic Park
Celtic rumours CSC
bourne 1210:
that post warms the heart..
it makes me feel that the common supporter defo does have that little bit of power, that can make a difference :)
It’s true, some of the decisions given against Mowbray’s team were scandalous. If I remember right, it was McDonald who scored the goal incorrectly disallowed at Falkirk. However, Celtic lost 3 goals that day to a team who got relegated. They lost 4 at Pittodrie to McGhee’s pathetic Aberdeen side. The 4-0 defeat at St Mirren was the worst performance I have ever witnessed from a Celtic side.
Honest mistakes didn’t cost Mogga his job, they were only part of the problem. The main one being he wasn’t up to it.
Bring back Dennis Pennis.
roy croppie-Sportsound was good last week,Jim Spence telling the huns their fortune,cue abuse on twitter.
I’m quick to slag Shortbread but well done to Cosgove on Off the Ball, he’s not missing them and hitting the wall…as my auld maw would say!
john mgarry: ‘blatant gerrymandering!’ , ‘rangers don’t exist’, (daily mail)
text from a former rangers’ fans spokesman(!)
Cosgrove giving it lots of ‘former club’
googybhoy-Currently 52nd on the Kano Predictor,had Germany 3-2 last night….
Bada Bing
Spence has been consistently good throught this enjoyable saga. I swear on occasion I can hear him laughing at Jabba and the other loyal followers.
The best thing about Off the ball and the worst thing simultaneously is that they are telling the truth but it is terrible that two guys not taken all that seriously are the ones telling the truth.
bankiebhoy1 .
Yes – the bizarre sense of entitlement , the delusion that they are something , the delusion that they have the right to impose their will on others . This is Scotland’s chance to say – Dinosaurs bye bye . It has to be taken .
Throughout it all – my thoughts have often turned to a [ many moons ago ]Rangers supporting acquaintance who chucked it within months of the Murray / Souness opening gambit . —- His reasons ——- Minty was a shyster . Minty and Souness were pandering to [and profiting from ] triumphalism and base bigotry. Minty would lead Rangers [ and much of their support ]up the garden path . He forecast it would end in disaster . He was particularly upset by the glee with which the media had signed up to the charade…
Really hot here [ much hotter than is normal for June ] -the beach and a cooling sea beckons –
Moonbeams WD. Kano 1000 \o/ Supporting Neil Lennon 100%. Champions. C’mon Wee Oscar. on 23 June, 2012 at 11:22 said:
How you doing mate . with regards to the slamming of doors . What really sticks with me is the fact that the governance of scottish football ,even in the light of the proof that this club has blatently cheated , still find it in itself to defend and look for avenues to lighten their punishment . There remit is to follow there own guidlines and rules and administer the punishment due for the crimes committed . This they are not doing . and in my opinion render there office untenable . Another point i just cant get my head round is why again even with the proof staring them in the face , do the scottish media ( with the exception of a few) still defend this club . It always seems to be the same names that crop up , i wonder what the real reason is for such loyalty . wonder if alex thompson has the answer to that .
jimtim
McGarry: fans would miss the OF games
Cowan: there is no OF!