36 years, how much longer?

[TheScarf]

42 minutes ago, pozbaird said:

I used to feel that way - happy to see an ugly beaten by a diddy. I no longer feel that way. The competition that is Scotland’s top flight is now so over as a contest, that the only important thing for me is the wellbeing of St Mirren FC. We need to remain a top flight club, we need to not do a Partick or a Hamilton. To that end, 4-0 at Ibrox and 5-0 at Rugby Park directly helps St Mirren who hadn’t got off to a great start. All the clubs of a similar stature to St Mirren getting pumped does us no harm. It would be great to think St Mirren fans could just concentrate on our own results and what we do, but looking at our top flight campaigns clearly shows we need other results to go our way. I’m not cheering the 4-0 and 5-0 results at the weekend there, just recognising that they are helpful for our campaign. In isolation, they are a sad reflection of just how completely fcuked our top division is. The two of them will be gone, over the horizon, by Christmas.

I'm the same, when The Caley were in the top flight I wanted the clubs around us, Hamilton/County,St Mirren etc to get absolutely reamed by Rangers and Celtic as these sides getting their GD worsened helped us

[10menwent2mow]

Would the average fan of Rangers and Celtic really want to go to a league where they had f**k all chance of winning though. The entire 'brand' of the old firm is based on winning all the time. 4 or 5 years of being just an average club would soon tire them out and they'd be begging for battering Ross County or Killie 4 or 5 scud to reinforce their superiority complex. 

I'm all for getting them so far to f**k it's unreal and most fans in Scotland would be desperate for it, would their fans deep down really want it though. 

[Lurkst]

2 minutes ago, 10menwent2mow said:

Would the average fan of Rangers and Celtic really want to go to a league where they had f**k all chance of winning though. The entire 'brand' of the old firm is based on winning all the time. 4 or 5 years of being just an average club would soon tire them out and they'd be begging for battering Ross County or Killie 4 or 5 scud to reinforce their superiority complex. 

I'm all for getting them so far to f**k it's unreal and most fans in Scotland would be desperate for it, would their fans deep down really want it though. 

Well the Old Firm fans in my office were certainly delighted with the weekend's scuddings. 

The Scottish Premiership is basically a season long Old Firm game with the other 10 clubs playing the part of the ball.

 

[10menwent2mow]

7 minutes ago, Lurkst said:

Well the Old Firm fans in my office were certainly delighted with the weekend's scuddings. 

The Scottish Premiership is basically a season long Old Firm game with the other 10 clubs playing the part of the ball.

 

Just about the best summing up of it. For me it's getting back to the days of the early 2000's. Of Larsson, Sutton, hartson and all the Dutch lot on the other side. Really enthralling times. 

[TheScarf]

18 minutes ago, 10menwent2mow said:

Would the average fan of Rangers and Celtic really want to go to a league where they had f**k all chance of winning though. The entire 'brand' of the old firm is based on winning all the time. 4 or 5 years of being just an average club would soon tire them out and they'd be begging for battering Ross County or Killie 4 or 5 scud to reinforce their superiority complex. 

I'm all for getting them so far to f**k it's unreal and most fans in Scotland would be desperate for it, would their fans deep down really want it though. 

This is it for me. The vast majority of Celtic and Rangers fans are so because they win all the time.  They'd soon drift away when that stopped.  Look at Rangers' crowds in the 80's and Celtic in the early 90's.

[Jimmain]

55 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

This is it for me. The vast majority of Celtic and Rangers fans are so because they win all the time.  They'd soon drift away when that stopped.  Look at Rangers' crowds in the 80's and Celtic in the early 90's.

exactly this...they crave the scuddings...when it isn't happening for whatever reason, we get endless 'Thcottish Footbaw needth a Thtrong Old Firm' articles and general weeping about the lack of strength because they aren't sweeping all before them.

I'm old enough to remember the 80's when there was genuine competition, our National Team was decent, and our European record was excellent for a League of our size...but our game was apparently in crisis because 'Rangerth' weren't strong enough.

Well, Legless fixed that for us all...killed our game while he was at it.

 

[Jacksgranda]

23 hours ago, stu92 said:

For talking's sake, let's just take all ten teams in League 2 and punt them out of the SPFL pyramid.

• Albion Rovers - Despite being in Lanarkshire, the only team who would stand to gain a bigger support would be Celtic.
• Annan Athletic - QOTS could arguably stand to benefit by Annan going regional, but only if you're saying that Annan's presence in the SPFL pyramid since 2008 has been to their detriment.
• Bonnyrigg Rose - Joined the SPFL five minutes ago. Kicking them back out again would have zero change to other club's fan bases.
• Dumbarton - Next nearest club would be St Mirren I imagine, but given that they struggle to entice fans in from the OF next door, what is to say that people from Dumbarton would not just jump on either Rangers or Celtic also?  
• East Fife - Average attendance last season of under 500. How many are going to hop along to support local rivals Raith?
• Elgin City - 1hr drive to next nearest team.
• Forfar - Average attendance last season of under 500. How many are going to hop along to support one of the Dundee sides?
• Stenhousemuir - Average attendance last season of under 500. How many are going to hop along to support local rivals Falkirk?
• Stirling - Average attendance last season of under 500. Alloa is probably the next closest side, followed by Falkirk, but how many fans would either of these teams stand to gain?
• Stranraer - Best part of 1.5hrs to next nearest team, who's fanbase stands to benefit?

 

The reality is that population is more widely spread in Scotland than in other countries (i.e. England where population centres are more densely populated). To consolidate and condense the number of teams in the professional set up only stands to make professional football less accessible to sections of society. But you're probably right, local communities having their own professional football team is a pretty backwards idea.

Are all these fans disabled?

[Jacksgranda]

23 hours ago, pozbaird said:

Good weekend for Jambos fans, moved right to the top of the league. Now Hearts are the ones for the rest of us to aim for.

 

Keep this up all season. 

[AndyM]

1 hour ago, Lurkst said:

Well the Old Firm fans in my office were certainly delighted with the weekend's scuddings. 

The Scottish Premiership is basically a season long Old Firm game with the other 10 clubs playing the part of the ball.

 

This. 

And whilst the Old Firm will inevitably come a cropper every so often (usual suspects often include Hibs, Hearts, Aberdeen and Livingston) these are now occasions that are becoming rarer all the time.

One thing that is noticeable is how much Rangers and Celtic types absolutely hate you talking about budget and financial resource disparities as if we must give them credit for scudding teams operating on 10% of their budget.

[Jacksgranda]

1 hour ago, TheScarf said:

This is it for me. The vast majority of Celtic and Rangers fans are so because they win all the time.  They'd soon drift away when that stopped.  Look at Rangers' crowds in the 80's and Celtic in the early 90's.

Aye, they had to suffer, what, 5/6 seasons without a trophy? How did they cope?

[Forever_blueco]

6 minutes ago, AndyM said:

This. 

And whilst the Old Firm will inevitably come a cropper every so often (usual suspects often include Hibs, Hearts, Aberdeen and Livingston) these are now occasions that are becoming rarer all the time.

One thing that is noticeable is how much Rangers and Celtic types absolutely hate you talking about budget and financial resource disparities as if we must give them credit for scudding teams operating on 10% of their budget.

I think Dundee utd’s victory over us at the very start of last season was the last time someone beat us or Celtic in the league outside of each other 

Edited August 16, 2022 by Forever_blueco

[Forever_blueco]

To put that in perspective only one team other than Celtic have beat us in two full seasons and Celtic are nearly a year undefeated in the league since we beat them at Ibrox 

Edited August 16, 2022 by Forever_blueco

[ParsJake]

16 hours ago, wastecoatwilly said:

the cull would be just the first step.

Fully on board with the idea of a cull of teams, and you only need to cull two of them to instantly improve Scottish football.

Get Celtic and Rangers to absolute f**k, problem solved, ask me another.

[PauloPerth]

2 hours ago, pozbaird said:

I used to feel that way - happy to see an ugly beaten by a diddy. I no longer feel that way. The competition that is Scotland’s top flight is now so over as a contest, that the only important thing for me is the wellbeing of St Mirren FC. We need to remain a top flight club, we need to not do a Partick or a Hamilton. To that end, 4-0 at Ibrox and 5-0 at Rugby Park directly helps St Mirren who hadn’t got off to a great start. All the clubs of a similar stature to St Mirren getting pumped does us no harm. It would be great to think St Mirren fans could just concentrate on our own results and what we do, but looking at our top flight campaigns clearly shows we need other results to go our way. I’m not cheering the 4-0 and 5-0 results at the weekend there, just recognising that they are helpful for our campaign. In isolation, they are a sad reflection of just how completely fcuked our top division is. The two of them will be gone, over the horizon, by Christmas.

Same boat. A fairly recent change for me, but I now feel them pumping everyone else is better for us.  Our 0-4 at ibrox being slightly better than killie’s 0-5 v Celtic makes the weekend’s results not quite as shite.

We need a new league system:

2 - 16 - 12 - 12  

No relegation/ promotion to the top league.  If they want more variety they can add their B teams to make it a 4 team league.

Let them keep all the media attention, the cash, the champions league places, and leave us to enjoy something worthwhile.

 

[TheScarf]

43 minutes ago, Jacksgranda said:

Aye, they had to suffer, what, 5/6 seasons without a trophy? How did they cope?

You know fine well what I mean.

[Jacksgranda]

12 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

You know fine well what I mean.

Yes, I was agreeing with you!

[VincentGuerin]

56 minutes ago, Forever_blueco said:

To put that in perspective only one team other than Celtic have beat us in two full seasons and Celtic are nearly a year undefeated in the league since we beat them at Ibrox 

They lost to the franchise team a couple of weeks later, but the point still stands.

I had Match of the Day on the other night and Man City's routine pumping of Bournemouth and the reaction to it reminded me very much of an OF home game. One of these things where you just wonder what the fucking point is and why anyone bothers?

Like this week's two OF matches, it had the look and feel of a training session. I just don't get how this is what anyone wants.

[paranoid android]

The two of them can join the english, irish, portuguese, or whatever the f**k league on the condition that they take their fans with them.

Feel free to f**k off any time. 

[vikingTON]

On 15/08/2022 at 13:03, stu92 said:

•  

The reality is that population is more widely spread in Scotland than in other countries (i.e. England where population centres are more densely populated). To consolidate and condense the number of teams in the professional set up only stands to make professional football less accessible to sections of society. 

That's just not true. The urban areas of Glasgow and Edinburgh alone account for 1.5 million people, or around 30% of the entire population of the country. The equivalent figure for the two largest settlements in England  - London and Manchester - was around 23%. (2011 figures). London's primacy in England is no greater than Greater Glasgow's demographic weight in Scotland. 

Half of Scotland's population live in just the 14 largest settlements listed here. That's a relatively high degree of population density and is certainly higher than in England, where half the population 'only' lives in the top 25 English settlements among the UK list here.  

 

[Forever_blueco]

5 minutes ago, virginton said:

That's just not true. The urban areas of Glasgow and Edinburgh alone account for 1.5 million people, or around 30% of the entire population of the country. The equivalent figure for the two largest settlements in England  - London and Manchester - was around 23%. (2011 figures). London's primacy in England is no greater than Greater Glasgow's demographic weight in Scotland. 

Half of Scotland's population live in just the 14 largest settlements listed here. That's a relatively high degree of population density and is certainly higher than in England, where half the population 'only' lives in the top 25 English settlements among the UK list here.  

 

Just out of interest and not really any relevance to what is actually being discussed  what do they class as greater Glasgow on that list ?

always assumed that places like Coatbridge , East Kilbride etc would fall into that category to be honest so just wondering how they classify some areas like that as separate but for example Paisley isn’t on the list 

Edited August 16, 2022 by Forever_blueco