Od Dear, Oh Dear, Oh Dear, Disaster for Scotland

OLD David Francey's catch phrase came immediately to mind as I listened to the BBC Scotland radio broadcast of last night's Old Firm clash at Celtic Park.

I listened because I refuse to pay Rupert the Rogue's prices for Sky and in any case David Begg's commentaries are always better than the clap trap you get on TV.

We are so used to the misbehaviour of so many of the half-wits who follow both Old Firm teams, I think we're beyond shocking by anything which happens either inside, or more-likely outside Hampden, Ibrox or Parkhead. But when you find players and management doing their best to out-ned the neds in the crowd, well, it truly is disaster for Scottish football.

I just wonder, might it now be worth while banning the usual suspects from the remaining games this season: Rangers therefore cannot pick El Haj Diuf, Celtic cannot pick Scott Brown, while Messrs Lennon and McCoist can watch from the stand, but are not allowed near dressing room or technical area.

Maybes aye, maybes naw, as someone else once said.

Or will the SFA, under pressure from the police and the government, be forced to order the League Cup Final and the remaining league games to be played behind closed doors? This might keep the spectating neds out, but what about the neds who are in the respective squads?

If I can take a wee diversion here. I was brought up in Ayrshire, I have covered enough Auchinleck Talbot v Cumnock games to be an accredited war correspondent. Here is a game which proportionally, given the smaller populations involved, is as big a potential flash-point as the Old Firm matches - but, in spite of the efforts of some ignorant commentators to find one, without the quasi-religious bigotry sideshow.

When I first started covering Cumnock v Talbot, the neds were generally on the park and in the committee rooms. Both sides had players who would cheerfully have kicked their grannies to get the ball, there were managers in either dug out who made referee intimidation an art form, while both clubs followed the ancient Ayrshire tradition of voting the village idiot onto the relevant committee.

In fact, the most-shocking incident I can recall in a Cumnock v Talbot game was when the then Cumnock vice president decided it would be a good idea to whack a Talbot player over the head with a corner flag (a long bit of 2"x1" timber) as he walked off the pitch. When said official appeared before the then Ayrshire Junior FA disciplinary committee and was censured for his behaviour, Cumnock cheerfully paid the fine and didn't ask him to resign, neither did he feel resignation had even been an option. Compared to this Lennon v McCoist was definitely handbags.

At least, the Old Firm haven't sunk to those depths - yet.

So, what do we do about the Old Firm rivalry, which is becoming increasingly fractious, since neither club can now appaerntly afford to lose games?

Can I suggest, instead of doing what Sky and the other TV companies apparently want: making Old Firm matches more frequent - we make them less frequent. I would suggest this would be to the long-term benefit of Scottish football.

To do this I would: re-structure the SPL as a proper league. The Oxford English Dictionary definition of a league is: league: 1. a collection of people, countries, groups etc, combining for a particular purpose, especially mutual protection or co-operation. 2. an agreement to combine in this way.

Therefore, by definition a league has to be mutually-rewarding -which the SPL isn't and which the proposed enlarged SPL will not be, since there will be a top division of clubs, with access to the supposed Old Firm/TV pot of gold, and SPL 2 - the rest without that access to the big money.

My idea, which I have put forward before, is: we have one SPL, like the NFL in America, split into two conferences, with Celtic in one, Rangers in the other and the other local rivals similarly split.

They play each other home and home in the first half of the season, before going into seeded play-downs, leading to a Championship decider.

Present day reality shows us that Celtic and Rangers would be seeded first in the rival conferences and so only liable to meet in the Championship decider. Similarly, the would be seeded one and two in the Scottish Cup and the League Cup, ensuring that they could only meet at most three times per season, and then only in really meaningful games at Hampden.

More clubs would thus have access to games against the Old Firm over the course of a season and more money would go round in the Scottish game.

Of course, we'd still have the potential for trouble from the neds, both playing and supporting, but at least we'd have lanced the boil of simmering feuding which seems to have grown this season over an increasing number of flashpoint games.

Furthermore, we'd still have to try to implant a brain into some of the people within both clubs - but, Rome wasn't built in a day.