Edmiston Drive Could Run Longer Than Coronation Street Or East Enders

IT says much about the collective mentality around Scottish Football, that, with the season now well underway, the continuing and seemingly eternal Soap Opera: Edmiston Drive, continues to set the media agenda.

 

We have Jack "Dirty Den" Irvine tweeting and spinning for all he is worth; we have the Easdales, a sort of Greenock version of the Mitchell Family by all accounts, finally getting their feet under the board room table, plus various other long-running characters - King, Murray, Smith, McColl and so forth, dipping in and out of the script to play cameos; not forgetting Ally McCoist, who has - like Bill Roach - seemingly gone seamlessly from Matinee Idol to Old Fart before our eyes. I draw no comparisons between Messrs McCoist and Roach as regards any still unproven accusations made against the veteran Mancunian actor, by the way.

 

Meanwhile, as they should with that squad, at that level - the Rangers' team simply keeps winning.

 

Then, we have Ian Black - a sort of Ian Beale character in his haplessness. As we all know, football has an ambivalent relationship with the betting industry; there has been a lot of rubbish spoken and written about the Black case, suffice to say - betting against your own side is, to me, a definite no-no. Black should have been fired by Rangers and dealt with more-severely with by the SFA, I feel.

 

I have no doubts about the genuine love and concern for Rangers being shown by the likes of Dave King, Paul Murray and so-forth. Mr Murray came across well on BBC Scotland last night. However, given the way NO Rangers Director had the cojones to stand-up to David Murray during his tenure and question his govenance of the club, then such former directors have, I feel, automatically disqualified themselves from having part of the decision-making in the club's recovery.

 

Then, there is the side-show of the Jim Spence case. I cannot see what Spence reportedly said as being in any way wrong or worthy of comment. To some people, the former club did die, that's taken as read. Only for "new" Rangers to rise, phoenix-like from the ashes.

 

For all the cries of "Youse is deid" and so on, coming out, mainly from The Celtic Family, the reality is, just as when Bill Struth called the shots, or John Lawrence, or Lawrence Marlborough, or David Holmes, or even Craig Whyte was in charge, there is a team called Rangers, playing in senior Scottish football, in blue shirts, at Ibrox Stadium. Some of the long-established "baggage" still surrounds the club.

 

And,for as long as that "baggage" and the counter baggage across the city continues to impact - Scottish football cannot progress towards a brave new world.

 

Mind you, for me, the Old Firm baggage is a side-show. The real problem about Scottish football is the way we cling to out-moded notions and do not put in place measures to properly reform and advance the Scottish football "brand" into this century.