How did we get here?

[Kyle Reese]

3 minutes ago, 10menwent2mow said:

The two biggest things in terms of football out with Scotland have definitely been the creation of the EPL and Champions League. 

Within Scottish football it was Murray ploughing all the money into Rangers, even then it took ages for Celtic to get their shit together.

The worst point for me came when Rangers were signing all the Dutch boys (the ebt years) and Celtic were spending fortunes on Thompson, Lennon, Sutton, Hartson. My recollection of this period being that Celtic and Rangers just battered everyone 4 or 5 most weekends and it was really tedious to watch. 02/03 was probably the worst. They both had 97 points, Celtic scored 4 or more 12 times, Rangers 8. 199 goals between them. 

Yep. There was a real 'Old Firmy' feel about them at that time too, even more than normal. Both had the same shirt sponsors, both were opening shops in other cities. That was when they were at their most determined to strangle the life out of Scottish Football and have the game promoted as The Old Firm League. I think it maybe coincided with the first serious noises about Atlantic Leagues, as well. It felt as though the two chums were working hard together in the background in order to paint a picture of them transcending the rest of Scottish Football.

[Kyle Reese]

Was it just a fever dream, or did the OF not also propose that they could start their own TV channel that would be the official broadcaster for the SPL? 

[Dons_1988]

After removing the 50/50 gate receipts rule they also tried to get a 5% cut of gate receipts from every away game because they provided so many fans to the Diddy clubs. 

[killiemilan]

21 hours ago, Luddite said:

In discussion with @wastecoatwillyon another thread we went back and forth on how football has changed.  It really belongs on a different thread so what follows is my theory piecing together events as I understand them.

All opinions welcome and genuinely hoping to read some alternate views and learn something.

I'm not looking to antagonize anybody, what follows is not "fact", just the perspective of an average Joe-Schmoe....

 

1975  to 1978:

Jock Wallace improves Rangers. Jock Stein and Celtic decline.

Jim McLean improves Dundee Utd season-upon-season & Billy McNeill takes Aberdeen to within two games of a league/cup double. This kicks off a period, the only time in history, where the OF have been equally matched not just with each other (usually one OF team had been dominant) but also matched by provincial teams.

1978 - Alex Ferguson replaces McNeill at Aberdeen

What a thing of beauty that would have been to have Stein, Wallace, Ferguson and McLean battling each other over the course of a season! Wasn’t to be though as Stein and Wallace leave their clubs the same week, both replaced by their reliable captains, McNeill and Greig respectively.

’75 to ’78 just also happens to be the period one Margaret Thatcher is Leader of The Opposition.

With Busby retiring in ’71, Shankly retiring in ’74 and Stein spent as a force since his car crash in ’75 it’s pretty much the end of the traditional working class socialist managers, indicative of the change Thatcher will bring about to the trade union landscape in general.

0 Football clubs in “administration” during this period.

 

 

1979 to 1985:

2 English football clubs, 0 Scottish football clubs enter administration.

Thatcher becomes PM and over the next few years molds every aspect of British life and every British citizen, her enemies included, (whether they realize it or not) in her image . Every single one of us.

People bitch and moan and label her an evil witch, yet when it comes to “Right to Buy” or deregulation favouring small businesses/financial institutions and wider availability of shiny gadgets, toys and distractions for the plebs we all jump on board. So by the time she has finally crushed the miners, we don’t care.

During this period Ferguson and Brian Clough rise, but they are a new type of “socialist”. They talk a big “collective” game, but Clough is a Thatcherite individualist and Fergie is a New Labour Thatcher-Blairite if ever there was one.

 

1986 to 1989:

3 English football clubs, 0 Scottish football clubs enter administration

Ferguson leaves Aberdeen. Rangers director David Holmes and Lawrence Marlborough (US-based businessman and owner of the club) bring in Graeme Souness and shortly thereafter David Murray buys the club in '88. With Rangers having won just one league title since Jock Wallace's treble in '78, Murray breaks the bank to surpass Jock Stein’s achievements, aided by UEFA banning English teams from European competition, enticing top English players to move to Scotland.

Celtic still operating out of a biscuit tin, Hearts’ hearts broken by events at Love Street, Aberdeen never to recover from Ferguson’s exit and Dundee United peaking with an agonizingly close UEFA cup/Scottish cup double that didn’t materialize.

The Berlin wall comes down in 1989, bringing “the end of history” and Capitalism/Neoliberalism is the only game in town. We really are all Thatcherites now because There Is No Alternative.

 

1990 – 1996

9 English football clubs, 0 Scottish clubs enter administration

Thatcher is out, but it doesn’t matter, Thatcher-ism is the water we all swim by this point. John Major is just a continuation but, even more importantly, Tony Blair, after a 1992 jaunt to meet with Bill Clinton’s advisors, starts planning Thatcher’s ultimate victory, the total vanquishing of any other considerations for how to organize an economy and govern a “society” (if there even is such a thing, according to ol’ Thatch).

1990: Italia ’90, a liminal football event on the threshold between traditional football and the shining city on a hill, serves to rehabilitate English football and English football fans.

In the aftermath of Heysel, Bradford and Hillsborough much-needed stadia upgrades occur alongside other steps to sanitize the game and remove those pesky male working class ties....we are now supposed to be a “classless society” after all.

1992: The old English First Division gives way to The Premier League and Murdochball. Leeds United are the last champions to win that traditional league title before that horrendous Las-Vegas Beauty Pageant-esque Premiership trophy simply gets awarded to the richest club each year.

This is also when the European Cup becomes the absurdly named Champions League. Another step towards creating money islands for the favored nations.

 

’94  Fergus McCann confiscates the biscuit tin and prepares Celtic for the 21^st century because, again, There Is No Alternative….although at least he instills some sort of fiscally conservative ideals within the club, not cheating and bringing about their demise in the process.

Without the kind of support the OF can garner, and with the Prem and "Champions" League becoming ever more glamorous the smaller Scottish clubs will be left in the dust.

In other 1994 TINA news, Tony Blair becomes Leader of The Opposition and drags the country rightwards, obliterating any hopes of a strong left for decades/ever.

 

1995: Bosman ruling leads to player power leads to absolutely obscene amounts of money severing any possible connection players might have with every day fans. Those old-school traditional British managers who excelled in forging a group of working class lads into a cohesive force are finished, although Alex Ferguson, being the Blairite he is, adjusts seamlessly to the change.

 

1996: Euro ’96 and the sanitization/working class exorcism of English football is complete, and with Arsene Wenger joining Arsenal we see the first truly neoliberal manager in British football with his Taylorist measurable-data-driven-scientific-management ideology.

 

 

1997 to 2008

Between Tony Blair becoming Prime Minister in 1997 and the 2008 financial collapse / end of capitalism as a viable economic system / bank bailouts 32 English clubs and 8 Scottish clubs enter administration , with 2 being dissolved.

 

Discuss...

And the Sun Shines Now by Adrian Tempany tells this very story . Well worth a read IMO. Summary below.

On 15 April 1989, 96 people were fatally injured on a football terrace at an FA Cup semi-final in Sheffield. The Hillsborough disaster was broadcast live on the BBC; it left millions of people traumatised, and English football in ruins. And the Sun Shines Now is not a book about Hillsborough. It is a book about what arrived in the wake of unquestionably the most controversial tragedy in the post-war era of Britain's history. The Taylor Report. Italia 90. Gazza's tears. All seater stadia. Murdoch. Sky. Nick Hornby. The Premier League. The transformation of a game that once connected club to community to individual into a global business so rapacious the true fans have been forgetten, disenfranchised. In powerful polemical prose, against a backbone of rigorous research and interiew, Adrian Tempany deconstructs the past quarter century of English football and examines its place in the world. How did Hillsborough and the death of 96 Liverpool fans come to change the national game beyond recognition? And is there any hope that clubs can reconnect with a new generation of fans when you consider the startling statistic that the average age of season ticket holder here is 41, compared to Germany's 21. Perhaps the most honest account of the relationship between the football and the state yet written, And the Sun Shines Now is a brutal assessment of the modern game.

 

[Kyle Reese]

1 minute ago, Dons_1988 said:

After removing the 50/50 gate receipts rule they also tried to get a 5% cut of gate receipts from every away game because they provided so many fans to the Diddy clubs. 

Indeed. Whilst searching to find anything on the OFTV thing I mentioned above, I found this statement from 2002, off the back of them voting against SPL TV. The funniest part is where they refer to themselves in third person as "The Old Firm". This really was when the two clubs were at their closest and most destructive towards the rest of the game up here: Rancid dirty duopoly statement by Old Firm

"Regretfully, the Old Firm has elected not to vote for the SPL Resolutions to develop Scottish Premier League Television under the arrangements currently proposed.

Given our initial support for the concept the Old Firm has participated fully in the feasibility working groups, SPL Board and SPL General Meetings in relation to SPL TV providing constructive input and seeking clarity on points of detail when appropriate."

 

[Dons_1988]

2 minutes ago, Kyle Reese said:

Indeed. Whilst searching to find anything on the OFTV thing I mentioned above, I found this statement from 2002, off the back of them voting against SPL TV. The funniest part is where they refer to themselves in third person as "The Old Firm". This really was when the two clubs were at their closest and most destructive towards the rest of the game up here: Rancid dirty duopoly statement by Old Firm

"Regretfully, the Old Firm has elected not to vote for the SPL Resolutions to develop Scottish Premier League Television under the arrangements currently proposed.

Given our initial support for the concept the Old Firm has participated fully in the feasibility working groups, SPL Board and SPL General Meetings in relation to SPL TV providing constructive input and seeking clarity on points of detail when appropriate."

 

I’ve heard some conspiracy theories in my time, but if you’re trying to suggest that Celtic and rangers whole ‘mortal enemy’ stuff is just an act to rile up the good, intelligent people that follow them, and actually they work closely together in order to ensure both of their business interests are met? Then you need your head checked.

[Kyle Reese]

3 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

I’ve heard some conspiracy theories in my time, but if you’re trying to suggest that Celtic and rangers whole ‘mortal enemy’ stuff is just an act to rile up the good, intelligent people that follow them, and actually they work closely together in order to ensure both of their business interests are met? Then you need your head checked.

I know. I was reluctant to post such unbelievable stuff, but then i remembered people are taking this stupid microchip injection, so they would probably believe it.

[coprolite]

17 minutes ago, 10menwent2mow said:

The two biggest things in terms of football out with Scotland have definitely been the creation of the EPL and Champions League. 

Within Scottish football it was Murray ploughing all the money into Rangers, even then it took ages for Celtic to get their shit together.

The worst point for me came when Rangers were signing all the Dutch boys (the ebt years) and Celtic were spending fortunes on Thompson, Lennon, Sutton, Hartson. My recollection of this period being that Celtic and Rangers just battered everyone 4 or 5 most weekends and it was really tedious to watch. 02/03 was probably the worst. They both had 97 points, Celtic scored 4 or more 12 times, Rangers 8. 199 goals between them. 

That season was bookended by admin for Motherwell (late in previous season) and Dundee (a bit into the next) and marked the start of a period of austerity/Steve Patterson at Pittodrie. 

The highest average attendance outside the OF was Hearts with under 12k. 

Rangers were already reported to be £80m in debt and only surviving due to the forbearance of BoS. 

Here's a bit from the official spfl site's review of that season and probably a good indication of what that organisation thinks matters:

"The 2002/03 season was arguably the most exciting ever and was certainly the closest in recent years with Rangers and Celtic both going into the final game level on points. "

[Squonk]

20 hours ago, Luddite said:

In discussion with @wastecoatwillyon another thread we went back and forth on how football has changed.  It really belongs on a different thread so what follows is my theory piecing together events as I understand them.

All opinions welcome and genuinely hoping to read some alternate views and learn something.

I'm not looking to antagonize anybody, what follows is not "fact", just the perspective of an average Joe-Schmoe....

 

1975  to 1978:

Jock Wallace improves Rangers. Jock Stein and Celtic decline.

Jim McLean improves Dundee Utd season-upon-season & Billy McNeill takes Aberdeen to within two games of a league/cup double. This kicks off a period, the only time in history, where the OF have been equally matched not just with each other (usually one OF team had been dominant) but also matched by provincial teams.

1978 - Alex Ferguson replaces McNeill at Aberdeen

What a thing of beauty that would have been to have Stein, Wallace, Ferguson and McLean battling each other over the course of a season! Wasn’t to be though as Stein and Wallace leave their clubs the same week, both replaced by their reliable captains, McNeill and Greig respectively.

’75 to ’78 just also happens to be the period one Margaret Thatcher is Leader of The Opposition.

With Busby retiring in ’71, Shankly retiring in ’74 and Stein spent as a force since his car crash in ’75 it’s pretty much the end of the traditional working class socialist managers, indicative of the change Thatcher will bring about to the trade union landscape in general.

0 Football clubs in “administration” during this period.

 

 

1979 to 1985:

2 English football clubs, 0 Scottish football clubs enter administration.

Thatcher becomes PM and over the next few years molds every aspect of British life and every British citizen, her enemies included, (whether they realize it or not) in her image . Every single one of us.

People bitch and moan and label her an evil witch, yet when it comes to “Right to Buy” or deregulation favouring small businesses/financial institutions and wider availability of shiny gadgets, toys and distractions for the plebs we all jump on board. So by the time she has finally crushed the miners, we don’t care.

During this period Ferguson and Brian Clough rise, but they are a new type of “socialist”. They talk a big “collective” game, but Clough is a Thatcherite individualist and Fergie is a New Labour Thatcher-Blairite if ever there was one.

 

1986 to 1989:

3 English football clubs, 0 Scottish football clubs enter administration

Ferguson leaves Aberdeen. Rangers director David Holmes and Lawrence Marlborough (US-based businessman and owner of the club) bring in Graeme Souness and shortly thereafter David Murray buys the club in '88. With Rangers having won just one league title since Jock Wallace's treble in '78, Murray breaks the bank to surpass Jock Stein’s achievements, aided by UEFA banning English teams from European competition, enticing top English players to move to Scotland.

Celtic still operating out of a biscuit tin, Hearts’ hearts broken by events at Love Street, Aberdeen never to recover from Ferguson’s exit and Dundee United peaking with an agonizingly close UEFA cup/Scottish cup double that didn’t materialize.

The Berlin wall comes down in 1989, bringing “the end of history” and Capitalism/Neoliberalism is the only game in town. We really are all Thatcherites now because There Is No Alternative.

 

1990 – 1996

9 English football clubs, 0 Scottish clubs enter administration

Thatcher is out, but it doesn’t matter, Thatcher-ism is the water we all swim by this point. John Major is just a continuation but, even more importantly, Tony Blair, after a 1992 jaunt to meet with Bill Clinton’s advisors, starts planning Thatcher’s ultimate victory, the total vanquishing of any other considerations for how to organize an economy and govern a “society” (if there even is such a thing, according to ol’ Thatch).

1990: Italia ’90, a liminal football event on the threshold between traditional football and the shining city on a hill, serves to rehabilitate English football and English football fans.

In the aftermath of Heysel, Bradford and Hillsborough much-needed stadia upgrades occur alongside other steps to sanitize the game and remove those pesky male working class ties....we are now supposed to be a “classless society” after all.

1992: The old English First Division gives way to The Premier League and Murdochball. Leeds United are the last champions to win that traditional league title before that horrendous Las-Vegas Beauty Pageant-esque Premiership trophy simply gets awarded to the richest club each year.

This is also when the European Cup becomes the absurdly named Champions League. Another step towards creating money islands for the favored nations.

 

’94  Fergus McCann confiscates the biscuit tin and prepares Celtic for the 21^st century because, again, There Is No Alternative….although at least he instills some sort of fiscally conservative ideals within the club, not cheating and bringing about their demise in the process.

Without the kind of support the OF can garner, and with the Prem and "Champions" League becoming ever more glamorous the smaller Scottish clubs will be left in the dust.

In other 1994 TINA news, Tony Blair becomes Leader of The Opposition and drags the country rightwards, obliterating any hopes of a strong left for decades/ever.

 

1995: Bosman ruling leads to player power leads to absolutely obscene amounts of money severing any possible connection players might have with every day fans. Those old-school traditional British managers who excelled in forging a group of working class lads into a cohesive force are finished, although Alex Ferguson, being the Blairite he is, adjusts seamlessly to the change.

 

1996: Euro ’96 and the sanitization/working class exorcism of English football is complete, and with Arsene Wenger joining Arsenal we see the first truly neoliberal manager in British football with his Taylorist measurable-data-driven-scientific-management ideology.

 

 

1997 to 2008

Between Tony Blair becoming Prime Minister in 1997 and the 2008 financial collapse / end of capitalism as a viable economic system / bank bailouts 32 English clubs and 8 Scottish clubs enter administration , with 2 being dissolved.

 

Discuss...

Interesting post, although I'm bewildered as to why you only went as far forward as 2008.

You explain that "8 Scottish clubs enter administration, with 2 being dissolved" in the period 1997 to 2008, before inexplicably failing to mention one of the most seismic events in Scottish football history; Rangers being dissolved in 2012. Excuse the analogy, but that's a bit like providing a brief summary of World War 2 without mentioning Nazi Germany or Hitler.

Without going into the mass rewriting of history following Rangers' demise again, it is abundantly clear that the Scottish football authorities, blinkered by broadcasting and other commercial contracts, and aided and abetted by the mainstream media, are happy to preside over another 37 or more consecutive seasons of boring duopoly, even to the extent of exhuming the corpse and propping it upright after one of the duopoly's participants dies the death of liquidation. 

[Luddite]

2 hours ago, coprolite said:

Are you suggesting 1986 was the last serious non OF challenge for the league? 

 

2 hours ago, Desp said:

'91 was probably the last serious non-OF challenge, wasn't it?  Motherwell & Aberdeen were within 6 points of Rangers in 93/94 (I think) but Rangers took their foot off the gas in the final bit of that season.  

 

2 hours ago, topcat(The most tip top) said:

I assumed he was talking about ‘98 or possibly ‘06.

There’s a long discussion we could have about precisely how one should interpret the words “serious challenge” but it’s unlikely to be very productive

I think he was saying 1986 was the last non-OF challenger for a title in the period before the period old firm dominated, which would be accurate.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

I usually find Football History boring as sin but this was quite interesting.

Thank you.

[Luddite]

2 hours ago, Dons_1988 said:

Think it’s just the basic fact football has become a corporate/capitalist venture. 

Domestic leagues aren’t seen as just competitions to be fought out between the teams in the league, it is a brand that is competing against other leagues for market share and value. 

That means attracting as wide an audience as possible, which means putting your biggest clubs forward into European competition and marketing them as your unique selling point. 

The SPFL would not want Motherwell to win the league, then hibs, then livi and for them all to then get spanked out of Europe early doors and for Scotland to never get any exposure beyond our borders. 

The match going, domestic fan is far less important than attracting a mass audience of semi-interested people via tv or streams. So the investment inevitably goes towards clubs that can attract those audiences. 

This is correct, but have we just accepted that’s okay because of the changes to society on a bigger scale?

Used to be your average person could attain a sense of community from ALL the main areas they’d engage with day-to-day…immediate and extended family, neighbors and friends (IRL as the kids say), your workplace and colleagues, the local pub, social clubs and activities AND your local football team.

We’re all alone now on our own little islands, curated with all our own personal favourite things. 

Also used to be your average person could attain modest achievements in the material sense but also familial, work-related, status within the community and your friends. Now “success” is only/mostly measured by loud glitzy flashy in your face aesthetics of “success” , seen through the prism of celebrity. Those old-fashioned achievements just don’t stand up anymore.

With all the traditional avenues for community and “achievement” increasingly cut off to your average person, and us all being shunted down one single pathway where “the marketplace” will meet all our needs….is this why people are drawn to big soccer clubs, killing two birds with one stone, purchasing a manufactured sense of community and a manufactured sense of accomplishment when they win trophies?

 

 

Edited February 2, 2022 by Luddite

[Luddite]

2 hours ago, Kyle Reese said:

 

I would say 1998 where Hearts pushed them all the way to the last couple of weeks was the last serious challenge, but that wasn't what I was saying, no. I was talking about the run of non-OF teams winning it, before they started just sharing it between themselves. Butterflies' wings, chaos theory and all that jazz. Another year of non-OF dominance, and maybe we would be in a different timeline, with a different Spider-man and maybe Ben Affleck would never have been Bat-man.

 

 

Often wondered that myself…”Lost Futures” and all that jazz…if Hearts had won the ‘86 League, if Dundee United won the ‘87 UEFA Cup….

[Melanius Mullarkey]

39 minutes ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

I usually find Football History boring as sin but this was quite interesting.

Thank you.

If you find sin boring, I suggest that you are partaking in the wrong kind of sin, young man.

I say young man as you probably were when you joined P&B but you're probably about 40 now or somesuch. 

[Luddite]

1 hour ago, killiemilan said:

And the Sun Shines Now by Adrian Tempany tells this very story . Well worth a read IMO. Summary below.

On 15 April 1989, 96 people were fatally injured on a football terrace at an FA Cup semi-final in Sheffield. The Hillsborough disaster was broadcast live on the BBC; it left millions of people traumatised, and English football in ruins. And the Sun Shines Now is not a book about Hillsborough. It is a book about what arrived in the wake of unquestionably the most controversial tragedy in the post-war era of Britain's history. The Taylor Report. Italia 90. Gazza's tears. All seater stadia. Murdoch. Sky. Nick Hornby. The Premier League. The transformation of a game that once connected club to community to individual into a global business so rapacious the true fans have been forgetten, disenfranchised. In powerful polemical prose, against a backbone of rigorous research and interiew, Adrian Tempany deconstructs the past quarter century of English football and examines its place in the world. How did Hillsborough and the death of 96 Liverpool fans come to change the national game beyond recognition? And is there any hope that clubs can reconnect with a new generation of fans when you consider the startling statistic that the average age of season ticket holder here is 41, compared to Germany's 21. Perhaps the most honest account of the relationship between the football and the state yet written, And the Sun Shines Now is a brutal assessment of the modern game.

 

Well, I will be reading the f**k out of this! Thanks for that

[Luddite]

1 hour ago, Squonk said:

Interesting post, although I'm bewildered as to why you only went as far forward as 2008.

You explain that "8 Scottish clubs enter administration, with 2 being dissolved" in the period 1997 to 2008, before inexplicably failing to mention one of the most seismic events in Scottish football history; Rangers being dissolved in 2012. Excuse the analogy, but that's a bit like providing a brief summary of World War 2 without mentioning Nazi Germany or Hitler.

Without going into the mass rewriting of history following Rangers' demise again, it is abundantly clear that the Scottish football authorities, blinkered by broadcasting and other commercial contracts, and aided and abetted by the mainstream media, are happy to preside over another 37 or more consecutive seasons of boring duopoly, even to the extent of exhuming the corpse and propping it upright after one of the duopoly's participants dies the death of liquidation. 

I am of the opinion that our culture basically ground to a halt in 1997, all the formulas in every facet of life we’re set in place and only the delivery-systems have changed with some slight aesthetic tweaking.

I stopped at 2008 because that’s the year capitalism was proven to be a lie and a failure.

Nothing of real note has occurred since, just variations on a theme.

i enjoyed the demise of Rangers but I’m sure everyone here knows all the details and I didn’t want to start an OF bitching fest. Basically it goes without saying.

Edited February 2, 2022 by Luddite

[coprolite]

14 hours ago, Luddite said:

Cheers mate. I’m still trying to piece it together for myself so hoping insight from others will maybe correct me or bring new perspectives to light. Already had a few avenues to explore.

Don’t know why it’s so important to me, just feel like I/we have been robbed of something.

Any Adam Curtis stuff you could recommend? I’ve been reading a lot of Mark Fisher and Simon Reynolds stuff the past few years, and Curtis’ name keeps coming up.

 

Century of the self is his best imo. Bear in mind he's more story teller than documentarist. 

[Luddite]

35 minutes ago, coprolite said:

Century of the self is his best imo. Bear in mind he's more story teller than documentarist. 

Duly noted. Thanks

[Jimmy Shaker]

No mention of the abandoned plans for the Scottish Super League in 1992? Eyeing up the money on offer in England, five clubs quit the SFL to form a new league, rising to eight or nine before Celtic - at the time skint, rudderless and little more than a wreck looking for a place to happen - panicked, everyone fell out with each other, and the whole thing collapsed. What was pegged as a much more fan-friendly league - less games, pretty much all of which would be on a Saturday, no relegation for two seasons until it had settled down - was still in the planning as the Premier League took off, meaning we were immediately behind the curve as English football was reborn. Following the colllapse of the Super League plans, Murray pulled on his braces, pulled the ladder up and started signing cheques with a stamp - with a stamp, Marge! - to power Rangers to 9IAR, ahead of a decade and more of squabbling with Celtic culminating in 2012 and all that.

It also ultimately brought about the reorganisation of the leagues and the election of Inverness and Ross County - teams that almost immediately rocketed up the leagues, displacing old hands as they went - leading to a quarter of a century of grim pyramid chat and precious little action, since (sort of) recitifed. The whole episode coincided with Scotland's disastrous World Cup '94 qualifying campaign, which didn't help at all.

Took another few years for a breakaway league to launch in the shape of the SPL, but by then the EPL had won.

Strange season, 1992/93. 

 

[Monkey Tennis]

30 minutes ago, Jimmy Shaker said:

No mention of the abandoned plans for the Scottish Super League in 1992? Eyeing up the money on offer in England, five clubs quit the SFL to form a new league, rising to eight or nine before Celtic - at the time skint, rudderless and little more than a wreck looking for a place to happen - panicked, everyone fell out with each other, and the whole thing collapsed. What was pegged as a much more fan-friendly league - less games, pretty much all of which would be on a Saturday, no relegation for two seasons until it had settled down - was still in the planning as the Premier League took off, meaning we were immediately behind the curve as English football was reborn. Following the colllapse of the Super League plans, Murray pulled on his braces, pulled the ladder up and started signing cheques with a stamp - with a stamp, Marge! - to power Rangers to 9IAR, ahead of a decade and more of squabbling with Celtic culminating in 2012 and all that.

It also ultimately brought about the reorganisation of the leagues and the election of Inverness and Ross County - teams that almost immediately rocketed up the leagues, displacing old hands as they went - leading to a quarter of a century of grim pyramid chat and precious little action, since (sort of) recitifed. The whole episode coincided with Scotland's disastrous World Cup '94 qualifying campaign, which didn't help at all.

Took another few years for a breakaway league to launch in the shape of the SPL, but by then the EPL had won.

Strange season, 1992/93. 

 

That Scottish Super League was a hideous notion - no relegation for Christ's sake.

You make it sound regrettable that it never got going. 

 

It's also one Hell of a take on the SPL, to imply that the biggest problem with that shitshow was that it came too late.