SPFL: The lion roars

Finally a vision of what the future is going to look like.

The SPFL - the Scottish Professional Football League - today unveiled its new lion logo and the names of the four senior leagues in the newly amalgamated structure.

The logo - I assume intended to be an updated version of the rather more peely-wally branding of the Scottish Football League - features a lion with what appears to be the remnants of the Champions League football logo caught up in its mane. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be roaring, sticking its tongue out at SPFL critics or smoking a battered old stogie it found lying on the street.

That the English Premier League logo also employs a lion-football mash up is clearly nothing more than a coincidence.

Unveiling the new brand, Graeme Souness said:

"The lion suggests you’re strong and dominant which hopefully we will be."

Which is a pithy load of pish.

The league nomenclature could have been predicted:

• Scottish Premiership
• Scottish Championship
• Scottish League One
• Scottish League Two

I think that means we're starting out the SPFL era with naming conventions borrowed from the 2005/2006 English season.

What, of course, is in a name? A Scottish Premiership by any other name could still be as exciting/predictable/woeful/bankrupt.

But one might have expected the SPFL would have been keen to give the impression of an organisation full of fresh ideas, ready to tackle the rehabilitation of Scottish football with vigour and verve.

The appointment of Neil Doncaster as chief executive suggested that wasn't the case, a feeling compounded by choice of names.

Now its chosen to announce itself to the world wearing ill fitting clothes stolen from a richer and more glamorous older brother.

All of which will be meaningless if the new organisation can deliver an improvement in the fortunes of Scottish football.

Marketing will play a role in that. Today's logo and naming jamboree wasn't accompanied by the unveiling of a title sponsor for any of the leagues.

And the SPFL website won't be live until next month.

The more things change, the more Scottish football's marketing stays incompetent and the more the game remains a hard sell.

All that Hampden dilly-dallying has meant time has been against the new organisation - but a functioning website should have been a basic requirement today.

As Stewart Weir commented on Twitter:

"Looking at the new #SPFL logo, the famous phrase 'lions led by donkeys' could apply yet again ..."

Scottish Cup: Celtic Take The Trophy

The curtain comes down on domestic football for another season.

Yesterday's Scottish Cup will not perhaps be long remembered as a classic. Celtic too often seemed unable to click through the gears, that lent long periods of the game a scrappiness that seemed to offer Motherwell their best hope.

A couple of memorable goals though. Ki Sung-Yeung's pearler opened the scoring and Charlie Mulgrew's third was a fine, fine free kick. By that stage the game was over, Mark Wilson's deflected second all but killing off Motherwell's resistance.

For their part Motherwell almost scored one of the all time great Scottish Cup final goals. Almost. Gavin Gunning's shot all but breaking the crossbar but bouncing out to safety.

The reality though was that Gunning's shot was Motherwell's most potent attacking threat on a day when their forwards never got going. A 25 yard effort from a full back is not the sign of a team able to offer a sustained assault on the opposition goal.

Given some of the stories of the season it was probably predictable that referee Calum Murray would have a big role to play. And controversial that role proved.

Daniel Majstorovic and Keith Lasley were both booked early on. If those cards looked fair enough there was perhaps more doubt about the yellows handed out for Ki and Brown seemed a bit more harsh.

There was no doubt, however, about Majstorovic's deliberate handball when the defender seemed to lose the flight of the ball, the position of the nearest Motherwell player and himself all ends up. That should have resulted in a yellow card and a red.

Murray let it go with a warning. Minutes later a similarly exposed Stephen Craigan punched the ball away as he lay on the ground. The referee might not have seen that as a professional foul and a red. But it had, at the very least, to be yellow. Murray somewhat oddly seemed to see it differently.

Not a good day at the office for Mr Murray.

A shame that the romance of the cup should be spoiled by talk of the referee. But there it is.

And one man's romance is another man's slide towards divorce. So while Motherwell were left with broken hearts, Celtic were free to celebrate.

As a neutral observer Motherwell actually offered the more romantic story. Much was made of Celtic's two years without a trophy. Motherwell have gone twenty years without a trophy. That's a drought.

But there was more significance to Celtic's win than just a trophy.

You can like Neil Lennon or you can dislike him. As a football fan that's your right. You can simply find the Celtic manager to be not your cup of tea. That's fair enough.

What's not fair enough is the hate campaign that some lunatics have waged against him this year.

And so, big softie that I am, I did find something heartening about the sight of him with the trophy. And that's from someone who is as bored to back the teeth of Glasgow's big two winning trophies as anyone.

It just struck me as a heartening victory for both his resilience and for the resilience of football.

The BBC made much of Dermot Desmond's pre-match confirmation that Lennon would be staying as Celtic boss.

Personally I don't think there was much doubt about that. Not even the board of a football club could have looked at the scenes at Celtic Park last weekend and decided that they could risk breaking that bond between manager and fans.

Challenges remain. More than anyone else Lennon would have seen yesterday as no more than a consolation, the trophy he most wants having slipped from his grasp.

That's the target for next season. It's one he will relish. And one he should be allowed to strive for in atmosphere of sanity.

> A word for Dundee United. Celtic's win means fourth place in the SPL has been enough to take United back into Europe.

> Congratulations also to Ayr United who will take their place in the First Division after a 3-2 aggregate win over Brechin in the play off. Finely poised after a 1-1 draw in Ayr, Brechin took the lead just before half time today. Ayr stuck at it though and two goals in the last 13 minutes were enough.

> And final congratulations to Albion Rovers who clinched promotion to the Second Division. A 3-1 home win had set Rovers on their way and they increased that advantage in the first half against Annan today. Annan pulled back two second half goals but Rovers held on for the aggregate win.

Cowdenbeath: Ghosts of Good Times

A difficult Saturday afternoon for Cowdenbeath, shipping three goals and losing their derby with Raith inside the first half hour.

There have been better times though.

As Daniel Gray writes in Stramash:

“Central Park is a relic that binds. If its pensionable walls could speak, they would talk of 1920s glory days and mention the first team of miners that won promotion in 1924 and the following season finished fifth in Division One.”

The medal above is from that promotion campaign and was won by a goalkeeper called David (Davie) Stevenson.

Stramash suggests that John Falconer kept goal in the First Division season so I’m not sure if Stevenson remained with Cowdenbeath or not.

Certainly he was also signed for both Hibs and Hearts, his Hibs career beginning in 1913 and resuming after World War One. His player registration form shows that he was with Hearts during the 1921/22 season.

Another forgotten name from Scottish football’s cast of thousands.

But he did make enough of an impact at Cowdenbeath to be celebrated in song:

We have a dandy goalkeeper,
Davie Stevenson is his name;
He has been tried and tested,
At this awfu’ fitba’ game

See the album below for the rest of the song, documents and a picture of Stevenson in Cowdenbeath garb.



The register of members’ interests: David Stevenson was my great, great uncle.

The Scottish Football Blog News Feed

Stramash - Tackling Scotland's Towns and Teams

Ayr, Alloa, Cowdenbeath, Coatbridge, Montrose, Kirkcaldy, Greenock, Arbroath, Dingwall, Cumbernauld, Dumfries and Elgin.

Twelve towns offering a fair snapshot of Scotland’s social and industrial history in the last century.

And twelve towns that keep the ever threatened flames of lower league football in Scotland just about alight.

Losing faith in the magic of his beloved Middlesbrough and Sky’s millions, Daniel Gray set out to reconnect with football through the strange power of Scotland’s lower leagues.

The result is Stramash - Tackling Scotland’s Towns and Teams. Here is Scotland outside the history of Glasgow and Edinburgh, football outside the dominance of the SPL.

It’s a story of industrial decline and the collapse of once thriving towns in our industrial heartlands, of the shattered utopia of our new towns.

Towns, as Gray discovers, with histories rich in incident and humour. And towns that, even if the locals don’t always seem to realise it, are often mirrored by the ups and downs - mainly downs - of their football teams.

Unloved, ridiculed, ignored. Yet thrawn enough to keep buggering on regardless. There is something admirable to be found at every ground, even as the terracing crumbles and the players wilt.

I defy anyone to read Stramash and not fall in love with Scottish football’s blessed eccentricities all over again. And perhaps to wonder where we went wrong. Why did we suddenly stop producing talents who could graduate from Stark's Park or Palmerston and hold their own on football's biggest stages?

It is, of course, easy to be overly sentimental. The very survival of some of these teams is a triumph. But is that enough? Certainly as our elite clubs plan a top down overhaul of the game - a revolution led by the aristocracy - Gray provides a salutary reminder of the “pools towns” that Neil Doncaster seems to have forgotten.

Here are the human stories behind the clubs, the triumphs of their early days, their legacy to our game. If nothing else they are worth more than being the pawns in an SPL power trip.

The book is also funny. Funny enough to bring on involuntary, laugh out loud moments. It’s a good book to read if you want to disconcert your fellow Scotrail commuters.

From an obsession with Midget Gems to a directionally challenged episode in Cumbernauld that plays as an homage to Bill Forsyth’s Gregory, the town’s most famous footballing dreamer, Gray is quick to play it for laughs.

And, more often than not, he carries the humour off.

And there is hope, there is optimism. Alloa are a well run club with a forward looking owner in a town that is beginning to look to the future again.

Ross County remain a community club looking to take the great stride into the SPL.

Where people care, and the right people come on board, there is hope. And where there are football fans there is always optimism. Although, as Gray discovers, that optimism is often hidden by a fatalist humour that makes the extended fallow times easier to cope with.

Gray covers all this and more with a fine lightness of touch. The result is an admirably accessible introduction to Scottish football, our footballing heritage and our rich social history.

Stramash: Tackling Scotland's Towns and Teams by Daniel Gray (Luath Press)

Co-Operative Insurance Cup Third Round Draw

With football fans across the world desperately searching for the latest transfer news and Jim White doing his man-on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown-because-of-the-excitement-of-it-all routine, today seems like a strange day to schedule a national cup draw. Especially one that sees Rangers, Celtic, Dundee United, Hibs and Motherwell feature for the first time.

But Scottish football’s administrators are a strange bunch so the Scottish Football League held the draw for the next round of the Co-operative Insurance Cup at Hampden this afternoon.

I dare say Jim White will be able to muster more excitement for the news that Ryan Babbel has gone to the toilet today than a lot of people will for the lesser of our two cups.

But still. Someone’s going to have a Hampden party at the end of all this.

The draw is:

Rangers v Dunfermline
Kilmarnock v Hibs
Aberdeen v Raith
Falkirk v Hearts
Celtic v Inverness
Ross County v Dundee United
St Johnstone v Queen of the South
Brechin v Motherwell

Two all SPL ties as Mixu’s Killie take on Hibs and Celtic and Inverness reignite their cup rivalry. Tricky trip to Brechin for Motherwell, Raith might fancy a wee drive up to Pittodrie and Dunfermline won’t be greeting at the thought of an Ibrox payday.

Just thought that I’m probably not supposed to list the fixtures.

So I’ll not tell you when they’re being played. But it might be a good idea to keep Armenian Independence Day and the American Business Women’s Day free this September.

Kick Off Part One

The SPL Brylcreem boys don't get going for another week but senior league football returns to these shores tomorrow with the IRN-BRU First, Second and Third Divisions getting underway.

I've done a quick headcount and it appears that all the teams that finished last season are still alive and - to varying degrees - kicking, so that's something.

And, with Brechin's charity shirt logo and Stirling Albion's fan ownership, two SFL clubs are doing a far more passable impression of Barcelona than any SPL sides can manage.

Somebody at the Scottish Football League actually seems quite switched on at the moment and they've got a shiny new website that you really should check out. BBC Alba will continue to provide some TV publicity and SFL TV will carry online highlights on the website.

Scotland struggles to sustain even a top flight of 12 teams. So the SFL is always, always going to face problems. But maybe this year they are ready to come out fighting rather than lying in a darkened room whimpering about how nobody loves them.

In an ideal world all the clubs would be supported and sponsored well enough to break even, each league would be competitive from top to bottom and there would be a constant supply of fresh young talent moving through the leagues.

But this is Scotland, not some strange footballing utopia. Some of those aims should be achievable but in the meantime we need to make do and mend with what we've got.

Part of that should involve paying more attention to the lower leagues. And I'll endeavour to do that as this season progresses.*

For now let's just welcome back league football and hope that things get going with a bang tomorrow afternoon.

*If you'd like to cover any of the SFL divisions or write club specific posts then get in touch. No payment I'm afraid but you'll get to see your name up in lights italics.

Pitch in

Maybe we should be welcoming landscape gardener supreme Jim Farry back to head a taskforce. As a man who seemed much more suited to the role of local park keeper than modern day football administrator, he'd be perfect to head up the SFA's PISH (Pitch Is Shocking, Help) committee.

With the lower divisions facing what is invariably known as a fixture headache, St Johnstone's head groundsman suspended pending the outcome of an inquiry into last week's late call off and Motherwell only being allowed to play Kilmarnock on Saturday by the skin of their teeth, Scottish football is sending out the clearest of messages to this harsh winter: "We cannae cope wi' you."

Is summer football the answer? I'm not convinced. We're already struggling to cope with modern football, moving out of synch with the major European leagues might not help. With English football getting blanket coverage across the UK, I think there is a risk that it would be difficult for a completely rejigged football calendar in Scotland to win the PR battle for hearts and minds.

A winter break seems manageable elsewhere but, again, carries risks. Scottish football has little enough momentum as it is without taking an extended break in the middle of the season. There's also a question of how you would time a break. A Scottish winter is an unpredictable beast.

But there is a problem and we do need to address it. Undersoil heating has a role to play but the last few weeks have proved that it is unreliable and, when required for an extended period, it really harms the pitches. It's also an expensive solution that our clubs can ill afford.

I do question why we needed full midweek fixture cards in both late December and early February. The scheduling of the Cooperative Insurance Cup so that semi finals are played early in the New Year is also of questionable worth.

An old hobby horse of mine, the return to the days when a home game was followed by an away game, would also give pitches more time to recover and allow groundsmen to properly schedule the work they need to do rather than simply trying quick fixes to allow two or three matches in a row to take place over the space of 10 days.

I suppose in essence I'd like to see a more common sense approach to the fixture list adopted before we take the giant leap to summer football.

We can all rest assured though. If the powers that be decide to act then you can bet your bottom dollar that whatever action they take will only make our problems worse.

Interested to hear other views on this. Is summer football the answer? Is there a danger of overreacting to a freak winter? How can the fixture list be scheduled to ease the problems? Let me know.

Looking down

I am increasingly aware that I don't give anywhere near enough attention to the lower reaches of Scottish football.

So after giving it some thought I've decided I'm going pick a team and track them throughout the season.

I have my reservations about this. I'm still haunted by the way Match of the Day patronised Barnsley during their brief flirtation with the top flight and I'd not want to replicate that.

It's a risk worth taking though. My theory is that I'll be able to give a general picture of the state of the lower leagues by focusing on one team's season. I might, of course, fail or lose interest. If I don't then I think it will be quite interesting.

Which leaves the question of what team? Should I be looking at the First, Second or Third Division. Or lower still into the world of junior football.

Geography might play a part (unless I can persuade the league sponsors to lend me that car) and I'd like somewhere that's pleasant to visit (although I'm prepared not to be put off by Jonathan Meades' documentary on Scottish "football pools towns.")

I'm open to suggestions and persuasion. Bribery in the form of a pie and a pint might also colour my thinking.

Post your ideas in the usual fashion or contact me through the about page.

Livi-ing the dream?

So Scotland’s lower leagues kicked off on Saturday.

Dundee, powered by spending that is the envy of most SPL clubs, started with a win over Morton. The hope at Dens Park will be that they’ve done enough to buy promotion.

But although the cash offers an advantage, money on its own is no guarantee of success. Inverness will be looking to bounce right back up – their prolonged stay in the top flight has given them an SPL mindset and they’ll be eager to prove last season, however inconvenient, was but a temporary blip.

Elsewhere, Dunfermline will be aware that each season in the First Division makes it that much to escape back to the SPL.

But really what does any of that matter when the SFL is so clearly in thrall to a cult of amateurism? The lower divisions of Scottish football are never going to be a hotbed for brilliant football and multi million pound deals – that doesn’t happen when you’re the smallest of sprats in a miniscule pond.

That doesn’t mean they can’t provide drama and intrigue, bring through exciting talents and encourage clubs to become focal points in their community.

If all that was the case then supporters and interested neutrals would have looked on Saturday with optimism at the thought of a season full of potential, full of the highs and lows that make football so enduringly appealing.

Instead we got a shambles. And the blame for that lies with the incompetents that run the Scottish Football League. Everyone of those men (and, inevitably, it’s all men) should be asked to hand over the blazers and disappear.

I have nothing against Livingston. I’m delighted for their fans that they’ve survived. I fear that they remain unsustainable but they’ve had a stay of execution which offers time to prove me wrong.

To survive to the start the season they needed a number of things to fall into place. Amazingly, and at the last possible minute, the jigsaw came together. Livingston were spared and, thanks the largesse of the SFL, they remained in the First Division.

By committing themselves to sparing Livingston the SFL contravened their own rules. My guess is that they feared a club dying in the present climate. With money so tight Livingston represent the most extreme case of a general trend. The blazers feared that the lights going out at Almondvale would lead to a flurry of closures and implosions elsewhere.

So they broke their own rules but they did it with reasonable justification. The business sense of propping up struggling clubs is questionable but the decision being taken on compassionate grounds is entirely understandable.

So there we were. Livingston saved. The SFL compromised but intact with a full portfolio of member clubs for the new season.

And then the amateurism began to mingle with the malevolence of those little men in their blazers. Livingston, the First Division club with the First Division business plan, were told – with what? 24 hours notice? – that they would actually be playing in the Third Division. Just like that.

Resentment that Livingston were given special treatment and lingering resentment at the behaviour of the owner who drove Livingston to the precipice seems to have motivated the SFL into what accounts to an act of murder against a football club they had just saved.

And so the new owners, who stepped in with their own cash thanks to the apparent benevolence of the SFL, were royally screwed. You would like to think the consortium’s previous links with Cowdenbeath and Dumbarton – and some of the ill will that was left behind – had nothing to do with the knife in the back. You’d like to think that but you’d almost certainly be wrong.

Malevolence and small minded bitterness is what the people who form the labyrinthine subcommittees of the SFL and SFA do best. These men are the baddies from a hundred Ealing comedies. But this time nobody's laughing.

They gave to Livingston and then they took away. Because they can. And if there’s one thing a blazer likes it proving that he has power.

Understandably Livingston didn’t want to complete their fixture before the laboriously long appeals procedure had run its course. No problem said the SFL. Only you’ll start in the Third Division on minus 15 points if the appeal goes against you. That appeals process is fundamentally flawed – what else could it be? – because the people who sit in judgement will largely be the people who made the original decision.

My own view has long been that our attitude to the lower leagues is misguided. There shouldn’t be such resistance to closures and there shouldn’t be the constant rush to elect new members when the worst does happen. Relegation from the bottom division would also help to freshen things up.

But none of that has happened. Instead we’re left with the farcical situation of the SFL allowing Livingston to continue, apparently in the belief that they could be a viable business, only to then turn round and make it virtually certain that the business plan was doomed to failure.

Whatever else has gone on at Livingston the fans and players don’t deserve that.

What I find most depressing is how unsurprised I am. You expect the SFL to be run by incompetents. To their last blazered belly they never disappoint.

The game needs fresh ideas and a fresh approach. One governing body for all football run by professionals with the passion, drive and wit to make things happens would be a start.

It’s time for a night of the long knives at the Scottish Football League. Be quick though, because you can be sure they’ll be planning to stab you in the back first.

Welcome Annan

Congratulations to Annan Athletic on becoming the latest club to join the Scottish Football League.

By staying clear of the central belt the SFL have followed the pattern of recent years. By choosing Annan they've at least given the fans who didn't go to Gretna games the chance to not go very far to not watch Annan. You see, it all comes together.

The process did seem to throw up the possibility that the closed league structure may soon end. The pyramid system, much whispered about over the years, could finally become a reality to end the stagnation of our lower divisions. I'll believe that when I see it.

If it does happen how about a complete change of structure? The SFL, SFA and SPL. Scotland does not need three jealous, bickering, blazer filled organisational relics running the game. A streamlined body working for the good of the national team, all clubs and all fans.

Utopia beckons!

Play off, play off and play the game

First Division Play-Offs

Brechin City 1 (Russell) – 3 Airdrie United (Harty,2, Twigg)

Raith Rovers 0 – 0 Stirling Albion

Second Division Play-Off

East Fife 4 (Reilly,3, Gibson) – 1 Stranraer (Moore

David Longmuir accepted the post of Scottish Football League Chief Executive today. He made no mention of the play-offs. He probably didn’t know they were being played.

Anyway they were. Wednesday night in fact. Three games. And nine goals between them. Which is nothing to be sniffed at.

Queues formed early at Glebe Park

Raith Rovers actually drew a crowd of over 3000 for their (and is this not just Sod’s Law) goalless draw with Stirling Albion. Unfortunately the other three games (including the one at Hampden on Tuesday) drew a combined crowd of 2670.

I don’t know. Maybe it means a lot to the clubs and their fans. But the play offs strike me as a monumental waste of time. The SFL needs major surgery. The play offs are a miserable piece of cosmetics.

As for Mr Longmuir:

He loves football – would he admit to hating it?

He has a strong background in the alcohol industry and he will be charged with revamping the marketing of the three divisions, the CIS Cup and the Challenge Cup.

Good luck to him. But having come from drink it may only be a matter of time before he is turning to it for solace.

Spiders Trap Red Lichties

Second Division Play Off First Leg

Queen's Park 2 (Weatherston, Trouten) - 0 Arbroath

Play-off time again. Don’t understand why they are played. Don’t understand why the Scottish Football League promote them so miserably.

I have an idea that faced with the realisation that the lower leagues need a major overhaul the SFL chiefs hurriedly scribbled down a compromise on the back of a fag packet but agreed not to mention it to anyone except the teams involved. So play-offs it is.

And first up tonight Queen’s Park against Arbroath. The first leg of a fixture which promises the winner the chance to play another two leg tie for the right to play in the Second Division next year.

And it’s advantage to the Spiders after David Weatherston and Alan Trouten scored late goals. I believe there was nothing fishy about Trouten’s penalty. Boom Boom. Arbroath’s misery was compounded by Robbie Raeside’s dismissal in the lead up to the penalty.

The game was brought forward by 24 hours because the UEFA Cup Final means Hampden can’t be used for two weeks after this evening. Which seems a silly rule and also leaves me wondering what Queen’s Park will do if they hold on to their advantage.

Arbroath had to rely on the largesse of Roddy Black’s firefighter colleagues to ensure he had the night off after the last minute change of schedule. Try dealing with that kind of difficulty, Jose Mourinho.

Jose, incidentally, may well have been in the 974 strong crowd at Hampden because he certainly seemed to be watching a different game to everyone else at Anfield.

The second leg is on Saturday – and away goals don’t count so the Red Lichties will be hoping to turn things round come the weekend.

Gretna Make the Grady

Have you got your breath back yet? An incredible afternoon brought the curtain down on an enthralling season of First Division football.

And, at the death, when St Johnstone looked to have secured promotion up popped James Grady to snatch the title for Gretna.

Yes. Gretna will play SPL football next season. We don’t know where or what manager they will have. But all the players and the fans care about is winning. And they’ve done that in the most dramatic way possible.

Four games Gretna had gone without scoring. But in came Grady to grab a double in a three two victory. Ross County fought valiantly but Airdrie United’s victory over Queen of the South consigned them to relegation. Airdrie will now take their chances in the play off.

As I’ve said before Gretna getting promotion raises more questions than it answers. They need a ground, they need more money and better players and – at the moment – they need a manager.

The SPL don’t want them and the feeling persists that not all at Gretna really wanted the SPL.

But they’re there now. And not many people will ever write them off again.

For now though let’s look at the positives: Gretna have secured three promotions in a row and they’ve done it by scoring goals.

And Brook Mileson could not be more different from the usual SPL chairmen who think that romance in football begins and ends with a glass of port whilst reading a balanced set of accounts. Brooks might be the kick up the backside they need.

St Johnstone, of course, will be devastated but Gretna have been rewarded for their early season form. Owen Coyle’s side made a late charge that just wasn’t enough.

And maybe we need the romantic Brook Mileson rather than the pragmatic Saints Chairman Geoff Brown who had this to say before the game:

"When we played Gretna at McDiarmid Park in January they only brought 160 fans. They won't bring many to the party - if they do it then good luck to them.

"I think Brooks Mileson has a dream and he's taken it up and done extremely well. It's his money. But, at the end of the day, it's false.”

Sorry Geoff. You were horribly, horribly wrong. At the end of the day Gretna are very, very real.

Extra: read my post here to see how I wrong I called today’s events.

Friends like these

So you've watched your league lead dwindle to one point. You're mystified about the lack of goals coming from your once prolific attack.

The last thing you probably want is your own match "announcer" taking the mickey.

But as Gretna's players slumped to the turf on Saturday after a goalless draw with Clyde - which left St Johnstone not so much breathing down their necks as enveloping them in a half nelson - they were assailed by Queen and David Bowie's Under Pressure blaring out from the tannoy.

Nice, if nothing else, to see gallows humour alive and well in Gretna.

Can The Saints Go Marching On?

St Johnstone’s cup runneth over.

A second semi final in the same season. And the chance to go one better in the Scottish Cup. They’ll fancy themselves against Celtic, of course, but will hope for Hibs (who they could have beaten in the CIS Cup) or Dunfermline (who would probably be underdogs against the Saints).

The real treasures lie, inevitably, in the SPL and St Johnstone aren’t done there yet either.

Ten points behind Gretna, St Johnstone have two games in hand and still need to play everyone’s favourite fairy tale. A one point deficit and it’s suddenly, in the words of Sir Alex Ferguson, squeaky bum time.

And, right now, I’d say that St Johnstone are probably better suited to coping with the SPL. I don’t know what Gretna will spend in the summer and they may splash out big style if they get promoted.

But people often overlook the divide between the two leagues. It is easy to create a team that can storm the First Division and be suddenly caught cold in the SPL. The best players in the lower league might be just that – First Division players.

St Johnstone have a streetwise attitude that manager Owen Coyle always had as a player and is now embodied by their more experienced players. Gretna, under Rowan Alexander, have lacked that quality in some one off games this season.

The First Division run in is one to watch and Gretna hosting St Johnstone on April 7th is not to be missed.

SPL2 - The Sequel We Don't Want To See

The SPL2 is a misguided plan wrapped up in a monumental folly.

We don’t need a second tier of the SPL. We do need a debate on the way all our leagues are structured but the SPL2 is a muddled compromise that will do little good for Scottish football.

We have too many clubs, in all divisions, playing for nothing. We play too many games in all our divisions. We don’t have enough movement between the top league and the First Division. We have an SPL structure that includes a split after 33 games that is mind blowing in its stupidity.

So let’s have a 16 team SPL. Teams play each other twice, home and away. The fixture list is drawn up on a simple home and away basis, so fans know that if they’re away one week then they’re at home the next.

Admit two more sides into the football league and have two divisions based on geography with 14 teams.

Relegate up three teams from the SPL every season. The bottom two to be replaced the two lower division champions. The third team to play in a round robin with the runners up from the two regional leagues.

And admit up to 3 teams from the junior ranks every year as well. The bottom of each regional league to be relegated and the two second bottom teams to be involved in a play off with the third ranked non-league side.

I know we might need to be slightly open with our geographical definitions and that clubs would play fewer games. The former is a pedantic argument, the latter can be solved with a beefed up League Cup.

Celtic and Rangers would still be favourites. But lower down things would heat up – if three teams are to be relegated then scraping the odd draw to pull away from the bottom side wouldn’t work.

With fewer games the league would become more competitive - two or three losses in a row would become a massive problem. Teams would have to go and win games.

Obviously everyone has their own opinion on this. But what I think is clear is that the SPL2 is just an attempt to create a bigger buffer between the elite and the also rans.

The system I propose would allow romance back into our game. And it would circulate some much needed fresh air around our stagnated football world.