BEING a bloody Borderer, Jim 'Creamy' Telfer, the former Scotland rugby coach and Director of Rugby, kens hee-haw about fitba. He admitted as much in his autobiography, in which he revealed that his sole exposure to the Gentleman's Game had been as wee Terry Christie's "minder" in the Forrester Secondary Teachers XI.
It was, apparently, during teachers' games, that Telfer developed his uncompromising rucking style!!
I have just finished re-reading the Telfer tome: 'Jim Telfer Looking Back For Once' - published by Mainstream Publishing; and one passage leapt out at me; when he revealed that a document: "The Boston Report", published in New Zealand in the early 1990s and which was an investigation into professional sport around the world - American Football, via basketball to soccer and rugby - concluded that a population base of 500,000 was necessary to sustain a single professional sports team.
That indicates clearly, Scotland has too-many so-called "professional" football clubs, and, to give our game a chance of flourishing in the 21st century, we need to find a way of reducing the number of "professional" football teams operating in Scotland.
Some of us have been saying this for years, but, with entrenched positions to defend, the Hampden "blazers" have refused to listen.
WHY should wee toons such as Forfar (population 13,000), Annan (pop 8,500), Brechin (pop 7000), Dingwall (pop 5000) have "senior" football teams, when similarly-sized or larger towns such as Barrhead (pop 20,000), Linlithgow (pop 14,000), Cumnock (pop 13,000) have to be content with "junior" teams?
There have been calls, for some years now, for the implementation of a pyramid structure in the game here. These calls have now been partially answered by the formation of the "Lowland League"; however, as with so much of Scottish football, the change was not properly thought through.
There was nothing in it for the SJFA member clubs, so, they have by and large ignored it. Certainly, I expect Spartans, for one club, to make rapid progress up through the ranks. At least, that opportunity is now open to them, where before it wasn't, but, the Lowland League is a case of too-little action. It has some merits, but, in the long run it will make little difference to Scottish football.
As ever, the clubs, who rule the roost, put self-preservation ahead of the good of the game.
Now, I am not suggesting that the clubs in tiers three and four of the senior game in the new season should, with the obvious exception of Rangers, abolish themselves, or go junior. Most of these clubs are from catchment areas too-small to support a proper, full-time, professional club; but, while they have in my view, no right to continue as "senior" clubs, simply because they have always been thus; they have a right to survive, to find a level at which they can continue to operate as part-time, semi-professional entities - I simply believe, by not thinking things through, this has been denied them, to the long-term detriment of Scottish football.
This is the problem facing Scottish football; it is one they have ignored for far-too-long and which the Hampden "blazers" cannot continue to ignore.
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