People's opinions of the split (..and possible reconstruction?)

[Lex]

4 minutes ago, Kyle Reese said:

Always amuses me when fans of non-OF clubs fail to see who the real enemy are. Never mind m9, I’m sure the nefarious Mrs Budge is working on her latest sinister plot to destroy Scottish football.

Real enemy? Budge was never interested in destroying anything, the only reason she wanted reconstruction was to save Hearts from their deserved relegation. The funny bit was she claimed it was for the good of Scottish football. Now that Hearts are back in the top flight she no longer seems the least bit bothered about reconstruction.  Nothing really sinister about it, just pure self preservation dressed up as altruism. Gave us all a good laugh right enough. 

[Dons_1988]

9 minutes ago, Kyle Reese said:

Always amuses me when fans of non-OF clubs fail to see who the real enemy are. Never mind m9, I’m sure the nefarious Mrs Budge is working on her latest sinister plot to destroy Scottish football.

That’s a heads gone. 

[the jambo-rocker]

21 minutes ago, Lex said:

The structure and format are fine, makes for meaningful games throughout the season. Please leave them well alone. A 16 or 18 team leagues would be a complete disaster, IMO.

I don't sense any real appetite for change anyway. I know Budge was desperate for it a couple of years ago for the 'good of Scottish football', but she seems to have went quiet on it recently. Funny that. 

Quite hard to pander to the meaningful games schtick when we have 13 meaningless ones ahead as clearly nobody wants to challenge us for third.

[Kyle Reese]

1 minute ago, Lex said:

Real enemy? Budge was never interested in destroying anything, the only reason she wanted reconstruction was to save Hearts from their deserved relegation. The funny bit was she claimed it was for the good of Scottish football. Now that Hearts are back in the top flight she no longer seems the least bit bothered about reconstruction.  Nothing really sinister about it, just pure self preservation dressed up as altruism. Gave us all a good laugh right enough. 

*sigh

[Leith Green]

I am not sure what the answer is, but I dont think the current structure is working.

Yes, I know Hibs are having a shite season, but to be honest I have been bored with "the product" for some time now.

I dont always agree with @Kyle Reese but in this case he is right.

The league is a basically pointless competition with two clubs who have such outlandish budgets compared to the rest, and who basically run the game up here for their own benefit............even copyrighting the name of their own wee bigotfest matches.

Yes there is the "relegation battle"........fucking yawn. Or the battle for "top 6", whoopdee fucking doo.

All the rest can realistically hope for is winning a cup every 10 years or so - I mean, how fucked up and pointless is that??

Yes we now have "group stage euro football" for  (in all probability) the 3rd placed team. I have mentioned this before, but  due to the ridiculous skewed nature of how Big teams from Big leagues parachute through the competitions, UEFA may as well just write a big fuckoff cheque to Hearts and tell them to rest their players over the summer..............

[Steve McQueen]

7 minutes ago, Lex said:

Real enemy? Budge was never interested in destroying anything, the only reason she wanted reconstruction was to save Hearts from their deserved relegation. The funny bit was she claimed it was for the good of Scottish football. Now that Hearts are back in the top flight she no longer seems the least bit bothered about reconstruction.  Nothing really sinister about it, just pure self preservation dressed up as altruism. Gave us all a good laugh right enough. 

 

There's too many clubs quickly became lets add 2 more!

[Kyle Reese]

Wonder how the investment working party is getting on? Hearts, Hibs, Aberdeen and the two Dundee clubs, wasn’t it? Must be due to hear something soon, you’d have thought? 

[Kyle Reese]

3 minutes ago, Steve McQueen said:

 

There's too many clubs quickly became lets add 2 more!

It wasn’t “too many clubs”, it was too many clubs in the professional leagues. 

[Caledonian1]

4 minutes ago, Leith Green said:

I am not sure what the answer is, but I dont think the current structure is working.

Yes, I know Hibs are having a shite season, but to be honest I have been bored with "the product" for some time now.

I dont always agree with @Kyle Reese but in this case he is right.

The league is a basically pointless competition with two clubs who have such outlandish budgets compared to the rest, and who basically run the game up here for their own benefit............even copyrighting the name of their own wee bigotfest matches.

Yes there is the "relegation battle"........fucking yawn. Or the battle for "top 6", whoopdee fucking doo.

All the rest can realistically hope for is winning a cup every 10 years or so - I mean, how fucked up and pointless is that??

Yes we now have "group stage euro football" for  (in all probability) the 3rd placed team. I have mentioned this before, but  due to the ridiculous skewed nature of how Big teams from Big leagues parachute through the competitions, UEFA may as well just write a big fuckoff cheque to Hearts and tell them to rest their players over the summer..............

I have to admit that I pretty much agree with all of this.  I wish I didn't but I am completely bored with the top division these days.  I have a ticket for the Dons v Celtic on Wednesday and cannot get excited at all and regret saying I would go (£32 is terrible value for money)

Not even convinced that league reconstruction can improve things to any great degree but maybe worth a try - I always favoured the 14 team league - play each other twice (26 games) then top 6 play each other twice (further 10 games)  cuts down the number of fixtures by only two but i think there are too many games as it is. 

Edited February 7, 2022 by Caledonian1

[Leith Green]

7 minutes ago, Caledonian1 said:

I have a ticket for the Dons v Celtic on Wednesday and cannot get excited at all and regret saying I would go (£32 is terrible value for money

I have a ST, and have missed a couple of games already (one being Saturdays fiasco through illness, the other being our rogering by Celtic). I will deffo miss another in a few weeks due to being out the country............and dont really give a monkeys.

I have non ST mates and they laugh their tits off at the thought of paying >£30 for a cat A match.

 

[Lex]

30 minutes ago, Leith Green said:

I am not sure what the answer is, but I dont think the current structure is working.

Yes, I know Hibs are having a shite season, but to be honest I have been bored with "the product" for some time now.

I dont always agree with @Kyle Reese but in this case he is right.

The league is a basically pointless competition with two clubs who have such outlandish budgets compared to the rest, and who basically run the game up here for their own benefit............even copyrighting the name of their own wee bigotfest matches.

Yes there is the "relegation battle"........fucking yawn. Or the battle for "top 6", whoopdee fucking doo.

All the rest can realistically hope for is winning a cup every 10 years or so - I mean, how fucked up and pointless is that??

Yes we now have "group stage euro football" for  (in all probability) the 3rd placed team. I have mentioned this before, but  due to the ridiculous skewed nature of how Big teams from Big leagues parachute through the competitions, UEFA may as well just write a big fuckoff cheque to Hearts and tell them to rest their players over the summer..............

There's no league structure that stops the OF pissing the league every year. A 16 or 18 team league won't stop us having snooze fest days like yesterday, where they beat the teams in 3rd and 4th 0-4 and 5-0.

The only way that level of boring domination stops is more equitable income distribution.  If we had a 10-2 voting structure we could rule that ticket sales from all league games are put into a pot and split evenly among the 12 clubs regardless of home attendance, for example.  The 2012 boat for that kind of change has long sailed thanks to Aberdeen and Stewart Milne. We will now forever have 11-1 and there's no way either of them will ever agree to that, and understandably so. 

In my lifetime no one outside those two has won the Scottish top flight and i don't think any of us will ever see it again. 

Edited February 7, 2022 by Lex

[Kyle Reese]

12 minutes ago, Leith Green said:

I have a ST, and have missed a couple of games already (one being Saturdays fiasco through illness, the other being our rogering by Celtic). I will deffo miss another in a few weeks due to being out the country............and dont really give a monkeys.

I have non ST mates and they laugh their tits off at the thought of paying >£30 for a cat A match.

 

It’s brutal. You get a bit of a run going and you start to enjoy it, then you look at the fixture list to see you have a match v one of the OF on the horizon. Meh, that’s the run fucked, then. How people can’t see that playing the OF so many times stifles the league and creates an insurmountable barrier to challenging is beyond me. Can’t believe people like the current format, it just baffles me.

[paranoid android]

Just in case no-one has said this already, the Scottish football authorities and the TV companies know that fans don't want their clubs to play the same sides three, four, or five times a season - they just don't care.

[welldaft]

21 minutes ago, Leith Green said:

I have a ST, and have missed a couple of games already (one being Saturdays fiasco through illness, the other being our rogering by Celtic). I will deffo miss another in a few weeks due to being out the country............and dont really give a monkeys.

I have non ST mates and they laugh their tits off at the thought of paying >£30 for a cat A match.

 

I missed yesterday’s game due to family (in-law) reasons.

As a season ticket holder I tend to go to most games, but out of our group of around 8 I know that only 3 went. Less than 50%. 

I know we should all support our teams, but in reality the novelty of watching either of the Old Firm knock 4,5 or 6 goals past you whilst their fans gloat after the game, means quite a few of us would rather have our balls (or girlie parts) nailed to a plank of wood. 

 

[Leith Green]

3 minutes ago, paranoid android said:

Just in case no-one has said this already, the Scottish football authorities and the TV companies know that fans don't want their clubs to play the same sides three, four, or five times a season - they just don't care.

Perhaps we need to get to a solution where the TV gets to keep its Glasgow derby numbers, while the rest of us play each other a reasonable number of times?

Not being serious, but as you say there is only one game in town for them.

[Leith Green]

14 minutes ago, Lex said:

In my lifetime no one outside those two has won the Scottish top flight and i don't think any of us will ever see it again. 

I really think they should go elsewhere. It's a grotesque distortion at the moment, and ultimately will turn off more fans from football - or more likely, turn them into people who follow Man City or Chelsea......on the telly

[btb]

I think the present set-up is about as good as you can get with the split in the top division and play-offs for relegation/promotion slots giving most teams over the 4 divisions meaningful games well into spring. A 14 team top flight with a 7-7 split after 22 games would be an option but I'm not really sure that would be an improvemsnt and I really don't fancy any of the more convoluted splits I've seen suggested

From a selfish POV my team St. Mirren would likely spend the bulk of our time in the Championship if the top Division was reduced to 10 teams - so I say keep it as it is. I think the main criticism many fans have with the current set up is that when you throw in cup games you could play the same team 6 (or more?) times in the same season but again that is something I am willing to put up with. 

[Dons_1988]

Also forgetting plenty of clubs are happy to have at least 3 home OF fixtures a season and would piss their pants if reduced to two. 

[Leith Green]

1 minute ago, Dons_1988 said:

Also forgetting plenty of clubs are happy to have at least 3 home OF fixtures a season and would piss their pants if reduced to two. 

Yep, but should we really give a shite what the accountants think?

[dezz]

From a purely selfish point of view I'd like a bigger league of 14 or 16 teams for a bit of variety. Due to Motherwell's inability to get relegated from the top flight I do find it a bit stale going to the likes of St Johnstone or Livi potentially 3 times a season (no offence). I'd certainly be more likely to go to an away game at Arbroath, Raith or Partick if it was likely to be the only opportunity visit that ground (and pubs) that season. Obviously it's never going to happen though, because there's no way clubs will vote for a couple of visits from the OF, Hearts and Hibs to be replaced with the likes of Arbroath, ICT, Accies and Partick for example. The only way to potentially overcome this would be if the clubs voted to pool gate receipts across the league and equally redistribute the funds but that's not an option with the 11-1 voting system.  

The other issue with bigger leagues, especially one of 18, is that the second tier will effectively become a part-time division, which in the long run will likely see the same teams bouncing between the top two tiers as those that get promoted won't be able to compete against established top flight teams in the Premiership. 

I think the 12 team league with a split is about as good a format as we could have at the minute and I do enjoy the split, particularly the bottom half when there's a proper relegation battle on. For me, the format of our leagues could be better but unless there's a vote to redistribute funds more evenly, or in the process of doing their financial assessment thing DeIoitte magically find a way to bring an extra few million quid into the league, then I just can't see another format that realistically works financially. 

Edited February 7, 2022 by dezz