60`s bairn

China the last I heard.

What a night that was...

Bainsford bairn was talking about 1888/9.....apparently I was there and saw it in person.

Not true, I said I remember you telling my dad about it...your memory is getting worse.

We will sadly. When it was a 2 league set up you didn`t lose a lot of cash when relegated as there wasn`t anything like the money that`s injected into the game now. In fact I`d guess we made more money winning promotion back to the top league through getting bigger crowds than we did languishing near the bottom of the old Division One most seasons. Before Celtic went on their dominant streak around 67, Hearts Kilmarnock & Dundee had all won the league that decade. Although Celtic and Rangers brought in more cash than the rest it was mainly due to them having a bigger support. The gap between them and the rest was nothing like it is today. That`s all history sadly and there`s no way I can see it ever going back to being that competitive.

Couldn`t agree more and is pretty much the point I made in my next post. After the introduction of the 10 team Premier league in the mid 70`s and the big drop in income after relegation from it, the incentive to give youth it`s chance became a thing of the past. It was survival in the top flight at all costs.

Wouldn`t bet against any of that. In fact, for me your second point (when it was introduced in the mid 70`s) was one of the main reasons for the start of our decline in producing quality players that we had so many of in the previous decades. The argument was that the 18 team set-up produced too many meaningless mid table games. What it also did though was allow Managers to blood youngsters, something that was curtailed drastically when the cut-throat 10 team system came into being. There were more factors than that involved obviously but it played a big part. We had the quality players back in the 60`s/70`s but we lacked the organisation of the top teams...we are better organised now (arguably) but the quality has dropped off a cliff.

I often hear the comment "We`re only a wee country, we can`t be expected to do any better". However, when you look at Denmark with an almost identical population size to Scotland`s, Switzerland with slightly more and Croatia with slightly less. All these teams consistently outperform us at International level.

Not quite answering the question...you`ve been watching too much politics!

Spot on.

Colin Spence next to Burrell, Dave Watson far left and Billy Johnson in the middle.

He came back from Dundee in 78, so same time frame.

I remember it too as it was the first time I had seen us play in anything other than a combination of Navy Blue, red and white. When I picture it I see "Joe McCallan" wearing it so I`m figuring around 77/78?

Yes, the wee man was fond of a confrontation or two.

Gaun yersel Jean!!