In Scottish Football It Is Pointless Change For Pointless Change's Sake

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I have not been blogging on Scottish Football for some time – since I have found much of what has transpired this season – even before the shut-down – has been beyond parody or comment. Scottish football, and in particular the way it has been run, has been beyond satire. However, given the present moger, I felt I had to say something – so:

EXPERIENCED observers of Scottish football are not getting worked-up about the current on-going battles along that notorious sixth floor corridor at Hampden Park, where reside the great and the good of our game. Why not, because, they've seen it all before.

If, as Principal Skinner of Springfield Elementary School in the good old U S of A remarked: “You Scots are a contentuous people,” well perhaps nothing better exemplifies our natural ability to cause a row in an empty house than how we run Scottish football.

We introduced league football into Scotland in 1890, and, in the 130 years since, we have employed 33 different examples of how we organise this league – that works out at a change roughly every four years.

Thirteen of these revisions have been undone a year later, while over the 130 years, we have had seen the original ten clubs be joined by up to 55 other clubs in enjoying “senior” status for at least one season.

Mind you, we appear to have stopped acting like deckhands on the Titanic, the deck chairs on the sinking ship which is Scottish Football, have not been re-arranged this century, since the current 12-10-10-10 format was introduced in 2000.

Since then, the “blazeratti” have restricted their need for tinkering and change to finally adopting a play-off system which gives the best club between the Highland and Lowland Leagues that year the chance to pick-off, if they can, the worst club in the Second Division (actually the fourth) in the Scottish Professional Football League.

Currently, they are taking advantage of the game being halted due to global pandemic, to think again of change. Mind you, based on watching how our administrators have operated for the past 50 years, I cannot help thinking, if they do opt for change, they will get it wrong – again.

The basic fact, which the guys running our game refuse to admit, is – we have too-many so-called “senior” clubs in Scotland.

The population of England is just under 56 million; they have 90 “senior” league clubs (I have discounted the two Welsh-based clubs). In Scotland, our 5.5 million population's needs for senior league football is serviced by 42 clubs.

These figures mean, in England, there is a senior football club for every 622,000 people. In Scotland, there is a senior club for every 129,000 people. If our number of clubs was in proportion to the English game, we would only have between eight and nine “senior” clubs.

The biggest problem we have, in my opinion, is the presence among us of our two “Super clubs.” The Old Firm effect totally distorts our game. For instance, either Rangers or Celtic has won the Scottish League title every year since 1985 – a 35-year duopoly. This hegemony takes boredom to a whole different level.

If the Big Two had not been around for these past 35 years, the league championship would have been shared thus:

Aberdeen 11 wins

Heart of Midlothian 10 wins

Motherwell 6 wins

Dundee United 3 wins

Hibernian 2 wins

Kilmarnock 1 win

Livingston 1 win

St Johnstone 1 win

Even if we only look at the 20-year term of the current four division set-up, we find stagnation and familiarity. Here, tabulated, are the various “classes” of Premiership clubs; this is based on where each club has finished over the past 20 seasons.

Mostly Premiership	Mostly Championship	Mostly League One	Mostly League Two
Celtic	Hamilton Academical	Ayr United	Stirling Albion
Aberdeen	Dunfermline Athletic	Clyde	Forfar Athletic
Kilmarnock	Ross County	Airdrieonians	Stenhousemuir
Motherwell	Partick Thistle	Alloa Athletic	East Fife
Heart of Midlothian	Livingston	Dumbarton	Peterhead
Hibernian	Falkirk	Cowdenbeath	Queens Park
Dundee United	Queen of the South	Brechin City	Albion Rovers
Rangers	Greenock Morton	Arbroath	Montrose
St Johnstone	Raith Rovers	Stranraer	Elgin City
Inverness CT			Annan Athletic
St Mirren			Edinburgh City
Dundee			Cove Rangers

Only four clubs: Aberdeen, Celtic, Kilmarnock and Motherwell have been top-flight ever-presents over this period. Hearts have been in the top flight for 19 of the 20 seasons, Hibs for 17 seasons, Dundee United and Rangers (following their liquidation and banishment to the bottom division) for 16 seasons each, St Johnstone for 13 seasons, St Mirren and Inverness Caledonian Thistle for 12 seasons and Dundee for 11.

If we ignore Rangers' first two seasons on their road back, then we have 12 clubs who have never been out of the top two divisions.

A further six clubs have enjoyed a taste of top-flight football over the 20 years of our four division set-up: Hamilton Academical have enjoyed nine seasons in the top flight and Dunfermline Athletic eight; three clubs: Livingston, Partick Thistle and Ross County have each enjoyed seven top-flight seasons this century, while Falkirk have had five top-flight seasons. These clubs amount to 43% of our 42 senior clubs.

A further 13 clubs have played at least one season in The Championship, our second tier. Of these, the most-consistent has been Queen of the South, with 17 Championship seasons under their belt, Greenock Morton, with 13 Championship seasons and Raith Rovers with 12 seasons.

Of those teams who have spent most of the past two decades in the lower leagues, some have had, or still are having, a good spell in the second tier. Ayr United and Clyde both have nine Championship seasons to their names, Airdrieonians have eight, Alloa Athletic seven, Dumbarton six, Cowdenbeath four, Brechin City and Arbroath each has three Championship seasons to show and Stranraer and Stirling Albion each has had one season at that level.

Of the remaining 11 clubs, seven: Forfar Athletic, Stenhousemuir, East Fife, Peterhead, Queens Park, Albion Rovers, and Montrose have spent the past 20 seasons pottering around between the bottom two divisions, while Elgin City have spent 20 straight seasons in the bottom tier, as have the three newest clubs: Annan Athletic, Edinburgh City and Cove Rangers. Although we should pay tribute to the last-named, who seemed set to win the Third Division in their debut season in the SPFL before Covid-19 came along.

Therefore, we have a neat 50/50 split among the 42 clubs, with 21 who are normally to be found in the top two tiers, while the other 21 clubs are more frequently to be found in the bottom two flights.

That 50/50 split surely indicates, the “tail” of Scottish football is wagging the dog. If we are to push up standards, then we need to see a smaller corps of full-time clubs, playing good, exciting football, while at the same time arranging a “soft” landing for those clubs who appear, over the years, to merely be filling-out an over-stuffed fixture list.

Re-arranging the deck chairs in the hope of something different happening will not work. If we are to have change, and I feel change is a must; it has to be change for the better.

Somehow, nothing in their past record leads me to believe the blazeratti will grasp the nettle and make things better.

As to what those changes should be, I will return to in the next part of this blog.