Breaking the Mould

A quick scan of the websites of the London papers leaves one in no doubt that they don't take Scottish football at all seriously down there - they seem to think there are only two teams up here, Rangers and Celtic.

Even the two establishment clubs get short shrift, so, when as this week, you find those over-bumptious English football writers who pass as the opinion formers in England commenting on Old Firm matters, then you know something spectacular has happened up here.

Also, there's a saying in the media: "Bad news is good news (for us)" which rather sums-up what happened on Wednesday night.

[Damn, I said I wouldn't mention it again.]

So, how do we break this mould and make the Sassenachs and others realise there is more to Scottish football than religious bigotry, tribalism and bad behaviour.

We MUST take re-organisation seriously, so I have to tub thump for my idea of American-style conferences.

The Old Firm pair's in-built advantage comes, not so much from their financial muscle: let's face it, in recent years they have over-paid greatly for some fairly average talent, to the extent that, when they see Old Firm representatives coming to talk transfer turkey, the English Premiership and foreign clubs to me act kinda like Harry Enfield's "Saw You Coming" shopkeeper, asking and getting outrageous prices for tat.

No, where it comes from is, their greater consistency of performance. Results tell us, any non-Old Firm SPL side can beat any other non-Old Firm SPL side on any given Saturday; but, for any non-OF side to beat one or other of the OF more than once a season is something of a rarity.

It may be the Old Firm's better players, it may be their assumption of superiority, who knows. I have always felt it may have something to do with this: every other Scottish team (except possibly the Hearts' League of Nations XI) at any one time probably contains three or four each of Celtic and Rangers supporters. These guys are not too bothered if they are playing for say Motherwell against Hibs, or St Mirren or Kilmarnock.

Sure, they want to win it, there are bonuses up for grabs and there is professional pride.

BUT, when they run out against either half of the Old Firm, well the players who support that club OF club will burst their balls to prove they are as-good, if not better than the usurpers wearing their team's jersey, who are not as good as they (the fan on the park) thinks he is: while the players from the other side, will burst their balls to lower the hated enemy's colours.

This may also explain why Old Firm players perhaps sustain more injuries over the course of a season than provincial club players.

I have no scientific data in support of this theory, simply years of experience of watching Scottish football. Old Firm players play 38 "cup ties" per league season, the rest no more than 12 (eight OF plus their four local derbies).

So, if we are to raise the overall srtandard of Scottish football, we have to make every game as important. We do this by making the Old Firm just two other clubs.

For this to happen, the directors of the rest must, firstly, find their cajones. So long as the Old Firm stick together in the decision-making sessions - SPL and SFA meetings - they will get their way, since the rest will vote with them rather than fall-out with them. This will be the difficult part.

Until somebody stands up and tells the OF: "Naw, this suits youse two, it disnae suit the rest o' us" - and the rest agree with him, the OF will largely get their way. Don't hold your breath on this one by the way.

My restructuring plan calls for two 12-club conferences (since I reckon 24 clubs is probably as much as Scottish football can stand).

In part one of the season they play each other home and away, 22 games.

Then, in part two of the league season, the top eight clubs (first, second and third in each conference, plus the two winners of mini-leagues between the clubs fourth, fifth and sixth in each conference) then play Champions League-style two-legged knock-out games to produce the two finalists for the Championship game. The other 16 also play-down to find nine to 24 seeding.

The thing about conferences is, since I envisage Celtic in one, Rangers in the other, ditto Hearts and Hibs, Aberdeen and Dundee United, Motherwell and Hamilton, St Mirren and Kilmarnock etc; if you want your local derby, both you and your biggest rivals have to do well in your respective conferences.

These knock-out games are seeded: the top team in each conference initially plays-off against the bottom in the other and so on. This means, there can only ever be one Old Firm league game per season - which should suit the police and politicians.

Similarly, we go back to the sectional league cup games, again keeping the Old Firm pair apart as far as possible, while we also seed the Scottish Cup.

Re the League Cup groups; given we've got 24 senior teams, we either have eight three-team groups, or my preference, four six-team groups, again seeded to as far as possible keep teams from the same conferences apart. This would allow for some local derbies, but would keep the Old Firm apart, since they would almost certainly be seeded into different groups.

In seeding the groups, you have the top three in your league conferences seeded first in the six groups, then the rest going into the various pots as per FIFA or UEFA championship draws. Eight clubs qualify for the knock-out phases, two-legged quarter-finals and semi-finals, giving two finalists.

Scottish Cup, seed the top 16 clubs, all-in draw otherwise, round of 16, 1 v 16, 2 v 15 and so on; quarter-finals 1 v 8, 2 v 7 etc. same with semi-finals.

This way, there can only ever be a maximum of five Old Firm games per season: assuming they both have a bad year, one or other fails to win its conference and they are drawn together in the knock-out games. But, if they continue to be the two dominant teams, there will only be three - the Championship game and the League Cup and Scottish Cup finals.

This will cut down the opportunities for the lunatic fringes to go daft, but leave enough opportunity to keep the TV companies interested. But, it will give the other clubs a real chance to have a go at the Old Firm.

While we are re-organising, we should maybe look at ways of making Scottish football more attractive - but that's a notion I will follow-up on later.