SPFL actions ahead of Government probably saved lives

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The Commons report released today only looked at actions in England, noting that a failure to lockdown even a week earlier in March 2020 probably doubled the number of first wave fatalities.  Mirror actions took place in Scotland.

While politicians in London and Edinburgh pondered what to do, football acted.  With the most valuable game on the roster two days away, the SPFL went ahead of the Government and suspended its season on 13 March 2020.  By then, we had all seen what was happening in Lombardy and had an ominous feeling of what lay ahead.  Permitting football games, where tens of thousands of people mingled, was reckless, we all knew it, fans, administrators and statuesque Government ministers.

The decision to stop the season was brave and had consequences for the League’s board, who came under intense personal pressure, some of which remains to this day.   It possibly saved lives, so huge credit is due.  A less self-absorbed political class would have acted ahead of them.

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  1. When you see what a tiny group of islands, with a population about the size of Paisley, have done to improve grass roots soccer, it puts the SFA, ( or as John James calls them, the Square root of Feck All ) utterly to shame.

  2. INIQUITOUSIV on 12TH OCTOBER 2021 9:32 PM

     

    Decent cross from Paterson, it has to be said.

     

     

    ————-

     

     

    old proverb, one good cross doth not make you danny mcgrain.

     

     

    7 minutes scotland can hibs this yet.

  3. FAIRHILL BHOY on 12TH OCTOBER 2021 9:34 PM

     

    The blog should be good now 😉👍

     

     

     

    ——

     

     

    it will be once the england supporters are back on.

  4. ps.

     

     

    craig gordon is still an international class goalkeeper, why oh why oh why did we let him go,

  5. Moldova pull a goal back, but too little, too late.

     

    Yankee commentator says we ‘staggered over the line’.

  6. i actually quite enjoyed that as a watch,

     

     

    the islanders were excellently organised, blocking spaces, keeping the lines, always communicating with each other, and then some good skills when they broke forward, nobodies mugs anymore.

     

     

    all celts from all teams report home immedialtely

  7. Good cross by young Patterson ,which lead to our goal,can’t take that away from him no matter who he plays for ,What really annoys me is Sky of all the ex retired Scotland players they give you 2 ex Sevco Players ,but what do you expect Aye Ready Sky ,

  8. ALMORE on 12TH OCTOBER 2021 9:53 PM

     

    Éire now have two wins in a row.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Onwards and upwards CSC

     

     

    ————-

     

     

    that bhoy duffy back to back really good performances

  9. SAINT STIVS

     

     

    “that bhoy duffy back to back really good performances”

     

     

    Do you think he might be available on loan?

  10. prestonpans bhoys on

    First 20 minutes of second half was promising but the rest was like Lennon ball of last season😱

  11. Neil Lennon going after Norn Iron manager big time,for his lack of game management……..pots and kettles ffs

  12. Chavez @ 12:13 pm

     

     

    “Is this the same Paul Brennan who was bleating about fans not being allowed in stadia before we had a vaccine rollout? What a brass neck.”

     

    ——————————————————-

     

     

    My recollection is that Paul67 was stating that fans could be allowed back into a stadium, earlier than they were allowed to be, during the latter stages of lockdown. He was citing, as I was, the actual effects of allowing small crowds in large stadiums, socially distanced and masked.

     

     

    We actually ran trials at 2 rugby matches and at two football matches, where such full compliance was granted and not one incidence of Covid arose from them. What paul was saying was that we could have had 2000 to 5000 easily at CP well before we were given permission to do so.

     

     

    And actually, we might have generated better compliance with social distance rules, mask wearing and regular sanitising than we have now woth the disastrous post-;ockdown roll out we had.

     

     

    A couple of weeks of low attendance allowances followed by complete floodgates open. All over the UK and even in CP, people and footbal fans have interpreted this as lockdown over- we can do what we want. Mask wearing is a minority sport at CP, sanitation is largely ignored and we are back to doing the huddle because we think this thing has either gone away or has been beaten.

     

     

    This winter is going to surprise many of us if flu runs rampant alongside a fresh batch of young people who are regularly catching Covid yet.

     

     

    Science got a few things wrong in the early stages, especially with a tentaive backing of the Herd Immunity concept which turned out to be wrong. But politicians got much more wrong.

     

     

    The Labour Party, at UK and Scottish level, warned early that the care home discharges was a disaster but received a political backlash for “playing political point scoring” in the midst of a pandemic. The nationalists in both England and Scotland need to recognise that their chosen parties are very capable of getting things wrong and demand your scrutiny and disapproval wehn they do. They are not exceptional and neither are we; mistakes will be made and we need to spot them and change them.

     

     

    This pandemic was a new phenomenon for our governments to deal with but that is not an excuse to not supervise their mistakes. Thank god, some of our scientists did a better job of developing vaccines at a sped which we should not get to routinely expect as the consequences of failure to manage lockdown, control our borders and develop a working Test & Trace system are inexcusable.

     

     

    But we could have had small crowds at football and we did.

  13. SFTB

     

    I meant no insinuation. I think I have been away too long to understand the present situation there. I noted that players like McGinn represent their country and it seems I wrongly assumed that their management structure had moved out of the Dark Ages. A genuine mea culpa from me.

  14. They have not moved out of the Dark Ages.

     

     

    Niall McGinn has had the benefit of seeing what happened to Neil Lennon and has, wisely, chosen not to say anything publicly about having a preference for a United Ireland or a wish that he could have played for the Republic (rule changes have made this an impossibility for a senior capped player).

     

     

    The management may be more enlightened than the support but they are also realistic in knowing what reaction to expect if they nominated Neil for the manager’s post.

     

     

    They would definitely accept Brendan Rodgers if he wanted it and, at a pinch, Martin O’Neill but never NFL.

     

     

    I hope things change but it won’t for Neil.

     

     

    It is sad to see him still hated by them and now hated by some of our support too. I hope he gets a job somewhere and is allowed to get on with it quietly. He has suffered enough for being our manager.

  15. There’s nobody likes historical revisionism on here

     

    More than me.

     

    But the timing has got to be right

     

    The Germans, God Bless Them, waited until the 1960s

     

    Lenny, and Paul67 didn’t have that kind of patience

     

    That’s where they got it wrong

  16. It is sad to see him still hated by them and now hated by some of our support too. I hope he gets a job somewhere and is allowed to get on with it quietly. He has suffered enough for being our manager.

     

     

    Well written sftb.

     

    HH

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