THE SPL kicks off tomorrow, the big start to the new season, you know something - I haven't a clue, which club is facing which other club, and where the match is being played. Since I refuse to subsidise Uncle Rupert and don't have a Sky contract, I couldn't tell you which match or matches are being shown live on TV, or when. Indeed, as things stand, at 3pm tomorrow, it looks as if I'll be following "management" round some supermarket.
And I will not be the only former football fanatic doing this. For all the sound and fury of Rangersgate, throughout the end of last season and the summer break, I have no desire to help make tomorrow "Sell Out Saturday".
There was much talk of such a day; the cyber warriors on the fans' forums - many of whom, I suspect, don't go to matches in any case - this was NEVER going to happen. It is one thing to pen online posts calling for castration, hanging, drawing and quartering of everyone who has pulled on a Rangers strip or been on the staff of that club since David Murray bought it. Figuratively putting the boot into Rangers felt good, but, actually paying-out good, hard-earned cash to go to an SPL game; to pay the over-inflated prices to watch the over-paid,under-talented players in the SPL, at a time of recession and financial hard times in the real world.
No, we Scots have never been that stupid.
One half of the two-headed monster has been, temporarily, taken out of the equation. The other half will still, barring a major sensation, walk the league. Do I see a genuine challenge to Celtic? Can we see some other club win the SPL? Will the critical wounding of Rangers be the catalyst for a re-birth of Scottish football? Are we on the verge of a Brave New World?
The answers: no, no, no, no.
It will be the same old, same old. A lot of sound, even more fury, and, by the end of the season, Scotland will still be sliding down the league table of world football - because, I don't see there being a genuine desire to make things better, and that is very sad.
You enjoy the football tomorrow. I will not be there, I will be keeping my powder dry to enjoy the Olympics, watching really-talented, well-trained, well-motivated Scottish and British Champions bursting a gut on the biggest stage of all - the Olympic Games.
They will not all win the medals they crave, but, they will put more into the effort than the vast majority of our highly-paid SPL footballers, and those of us who watch them will, I believe get more out of our Olympics experience than the men whose entrance money - the fans - get from the SPL experience.
If the club officials from the SPL clubs can lift their eyes higher than their knees and decide to embrace the Olympics ideal and really INSIST that their players get, faster and stronger, and aim higher - then the SPL and Scottish football can regain lost ground.
Insist on higher skills levels; demand and accept no less than greater effort; put in place and adhere to greater professionalism in all aspects of the game - and we can get back.
But, guddle along as we always have and we will only slide deeper into the slime of under-achievement and failure.
Come on everyone - go fot it.
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