Our Competitive League

[Dons_1988]

3 minutes ago, ConcernedReferee said:

It's just the nature of our population that has created a imbalanced league with only 2 realistic winners, I can understand peoples dislike with it given how long its been the norm but would it really be a better product if every one of the twelve teams was a realistic champion? It might but that might be uniquely boring, as a Celtic fan I don't think theirs any worse feeling than any of the less fancied teams taking 3 points from you and I would presume that works in the other direction too. That wouldn't exist if we somehow had a league where East Fife were as realistic to win as Celtic. 

 What 

[Nowhereman]

1 hour ago, VincentGuerin said:

No way to say this without sounding like my grandad, but money has simply killed what made fitba good. A lot of people don't seem to have had that penny drop yet.

We'll never have a competitive league again because fitba has become all about money at the top level and that filters down.

The European Cup used to be great, now it exists purely for teams from five leagues because of money. The UEFA Cup was great. Now it's derided and a sad imitation of what it once was. Because of money. Domestic leagues have been strangled by the drip down of money. So, our clubs need more money. So, I pay thirty quid to go to Pittodrie for a shite view of a poor game in a crumbling wreck to watch a competition we all know neither of these teams will ever win again.

Fitba is a great social thing. I love going to the game with my mates. But as an actual competitive thing for people who support clubs like most of us on this thread, it's finished. You just need to accept that. Go if you like going, stop going if you don't. But there is no solution to Scottish fitba's competitiveness problem. This is fitba now.

Agree with you but i can remember my dad saying that in the seventies - abolition of the maximum wage was where it all started to go wrong

[DA Baracus]

1 hour ago, Richey Edwards said:

Football is now as fake as wrestling is, which is sad.

Until I see a defender Rock Bottom a striker at a corner, a winger do the worm and a keeper taken out with a chair shot, I can't agree.

[VincentGuerin]

1 hour ago, ConcernedReferee said:

It's just the nature of our population that has created a imbalanced league with only 2 realistic winners, I can understand peoples dislike with it given how long its been the norm but would it really be a better product if every one of the twelve teams was a realistic champion? It might but that might be uniquely boring, as a Celtic fan I don't think theirs any worse feeling than any of the less fancied teams taking 3 points from you and I would presume that works in the other direction too. That wouldn't exist if we somehow had a league where East Fife were as realistic to win as Celtic. 

[Jacksgranda]

2 hours ago, VincentGuerin said:

No way to say this without sounding like my grandad, but money has simply killed what made fitba good. A lot of people don't seem to have had that penny drop yet.

We'll never have a competitive league again because fitba has become all about money at the top level and that filters down.

The European Cup used to be great, now it exists purely for teams from five leagues because of money. The UEFA Cup was great. Now it's derided and a sad imitation of what it once was. Because of money. Domestic leagues have been strangled by the drip down of money. So, our clubs need more money. So, I pay thirty quid to go to Pittodrie for a shite view of a poor game in a crumbling wreck to watch a competition we all know neither of these teams will ever win again.

Fitba is a great social thing. I love going to the game with my mates. But as an actual competitive thing for people who support clubs like most of us on this thread, it's finished. You just need to accept that. Go if you like going, stop going if you don't. But there is no solution to Scottish fitba's competitiveness problem. This is fitba now.

I'm impressed you managed to drag your favourite subject into a discussion about our non competitive league.

[HibeeJibee]

2 hours ago, VincentGuerin said:

No way to say this without sounding like my grandad, but money has simply killed what made fitba good. A lot of people don't seem to have had that penny drop yet.

We'll never have a competitive league again because fitba has become all about money at the top level and that filters down.

 

1 hour ago, Nowhereman said:

Agree with you but i can remember my dad saying that in the seventies - abolition of the maximum wage was where it all started to go wrong

Scottish football never had a maximum wage in peacetime.

[HibeeJibee]

1 hour ago, ConcernedReferee said:

It's just the nature of our population that has created a imbalanced league with only 2 realistic winners,

'Natural' that 2x Glasgow clubs - 10-15% of population - win 100% of titles for 35-40yrs?

There are more factors than population - social/European £/etc. - behind OF attendances/'spending power'/etc. and associated dominance.

 

1 hour ago, ConcernedReferee said:

I can understand peoples dislike with it given how long its been the norm but would it really be a better product if every one of the twelve teams was a realistic champion? It might but that might be uniquely boring, as a Celtic fan I don't think theirs any worse feeling than any of the less fancied teams taking 3 points from you and I would presume that works in the other direction too. That wouldn't exist if we somehow had a league where East Fife were as realistic to win as Celtic. 

WTF.

Edited December 23, 2022 by HibeeJibee

[Sergeant Wilson]

1 hour ago, DA Baracus said:

Until I see a defender Rock Bottom a striker at a corner, a winger do the worm and a keeper taken out with a chair shot, I can't agree.

Sounds like The Junior Cup 

[VictorOnopko]

2 hours ago, ConcernedReferee said:

It's just the nature of our population that has created a imbalanced league with only 2 realistic winners, I can understand peoples dislike with it given how long its been the norm but would it really be a better product if every one of the twelve teams was a realistic champion? It might but that might be uniquely boring, as a Celtic fan I don't think theirs any worse feeling than any of the less fancied teams taking 3 points from you and I would presume that works in the other direction too. That wouldn't exist if we somehow had a league where East Fife were as realistic to win as Celtic. 

Really????  Wow.  Just wow.

Oh, and it's *there's.

[Junior_Arab]

2 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

Until I see a defender Rock Bottom a striker at a corner, a winger do the worm and a keeper taken out with a chair shot, I can't agree.

What about a tweet containing the words “rock bottom” and a keeper getting busted wide open (to use the wrestling colloquialism) by a foreign object? 
 

2/3 ain’t bad. 

[Monkey Tennis]

7 hours ago, hk blues said:

Less shite maybe.  As I said, scraps in the cups every 10 years or so isn't really something we should be aiming for.  Personally, much as we may or may not dislike the OF at least the competition between them is surely better than one team starting the season 100% sure they will win the league and ALL the others 100% sure they won't.

For me anyway.

 

Fair enough.

For me, it's identical in terms of where the title goes.  They're essentially the same thing.

[Guest]

32 minutes ago, Junior_Arab said:

What about a tweet containing the words “rock bottom” and a keeper getting busted wide open (to use the wrestling colloquialism) by a foreign object? 
 

2/3 ain’t bad. 

A keeper called Glover, at that.

[Monkey Tennis]

Anyway, I've already outlined how we fix this in the other similar recent threads:

All the non-OF clubs get together and demand a massively different distribution model that presents a much, much more level playing field for clubs.  

It could involve gate sharing, merchandising being pooled, a requirement for a large chunk of European income to be shared out etc.    There would be a need for this model to involve lower league clubs also, so that no cliff face exists.

When these demands are rejected by the clubs and spluttered about in the media, the top flight diddies agree ahead of the next full season, that they will field youth sides against the OF, ensuring that they get hammered each and every time.  For home matches against the OF, they should urge their own fans to boycott the games, opening the grounds entirely to OF fans if they still want to come.  It'll mean that the OF sides take maximum points from everyone else, and the title will rest solely on the 4 OF games.  The spectacle for Sky will be shit and thoroughly devalued.

Meanwhile, the teams will all compete as usual against each other, meaning the 3rd placed team will be regarded as Champions by actual fans everywhere.  A trophy could even be presented. Relegation will still be decided in the traditional way, but as everyone has lost to the OF every time, the outcome will again be entirely reliant on non-OF fixtures.

The actual end of season table would not be that vastly different from what we get each year anyway.  The difference would be that the others would have stopped pretending that they all take part in a valid competition to win the league.

Think how this would capture the imagination.  Fans would for the first time be involved in what would be considered the actual title race.  This would be an international, sensational media story of the ancient footballing nation that stood up to the injustices of the modern game. 

The Latest OF league win would be rendered hollower than ever, derived as it would be from just 4 matches against 1 opponent.  Meanwhile, we'd all hail our new real champions.

No way would those in our game have the courage to do any of this of course, but it's a nice dream.  

We need the behaviour of our clubs to reflect that we don't need the OF, but they do need us.

2

[Monkey Tennis]

10 hours ago, Dons_1988 said:

Duopoly vs monopoly is quite key though. 

The duopoly condemns us to this shit forever. They push each other in this ridiculous arms race to forever outdo each other. They couldn’t care less if they beat the other diddies 10-0 every week because it’s just part of them competing together. 

Yes, Celtic won all the league titles in the 2012-2016 period but they regressed at a rate of knots and would likely have continued to if it was a permanent feature. It is no coincidence that their ‘invincible’ season was the season they had their best mates back. 

Spot on.

hk blues just doesn't seem to get the 'arms race' angle.   It's the fact that there's two of them that sustains the model by creating an illusion of competition.  The point seems to escape him.  

if we didn't have two such big clubs, we wouldn't have one.  Recent history tells us that.

Edited December 23, 2022 by Monkey Tennis

[Monkey Tennis]

4 hours ago, Ranaldo Bairn said:

Literally doesn't understand sport type post.

Quite simply this.

It's hopeless.

[Proudtobeabairn]

34 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Anyway, I've already outlined how we fix this in the other similar recent threads:

All the non-OF clubs get together and demand a massively different distribution model that presents a much, much more level playing field for clubs.  

It could involve gate sharing, merchandising being pooled, a requirement for a large chunk of European income to be shared out etc.    There would be a need for this model to involve lower league clubs also, so that no cliff face exists.

When these demands are rejected by the clubs and spluttered about in the media, the top flight diddies agree ahead of the next full season, that they will field youth sides against the OF, ensuring that they get hammered each and every time.  For home matches against the OF, they should urge their own fans to boycott the games, opening the grounds entirely to OF fans if they still want to come.  It'll mean that the OF sides take maximum points from everyone else, and the title will rest solely on the 4 OF games.  The spectacle for Sky will be shit and thoroughly devalued.

Meanwhile, the teams will all compete as usual against each other, meaning the 3rd placed team will be regarded as Champions by actual fans everywhere.  A trophy could even be presented. Relegation will still be decided in the traditional way, but as everyone has lost to the OF every time, the outcome will again be entirely reliant on non-OF fixtures.

The actual end of season table would not be that vastly different from what we get each year anyway.  The difference would be that the others would have stopped pretending that they all take part in a valid competition to win the league.

Think how this would capture the imagination.  Fans would for the first time be involved in what would be considered the actual title race.  This would be an international, sensational media story of the ancient footballing nation that stood up to the injustices of the modern game. 

The Latest OF league win would be rendered hollower than ever, derived as it would be from just 4 matches against 1 opponent.  Meanwhile, we'd all hail our new real champions.

No way would those in our game have the courage to do any of this of course, but it's a nice dream.  

We need the behaviour of our clubs to reflect that we don't need the OF, but they do need us.

2

Imagine going into the last game of the season on level points at the bottom and not trying because you were playing Rangers or Celtic and that was the 'agreement' you'd made.  Likely? 

[Proudtobeabairn]

Been said before but the only way to increase competition is to increase the size of the league to 18 or 20 teams and play home and away. 

Most teams lose to Rangers and Celtic so are effectively starting 8 games behind at the moment. Reduce that to 4 and someone like Aberdeen (for example) could potentially challenge at the top if they go on a run v the rest of the teams in the league.  

[Thenorthernlight]

9 minutes ago, Proudtobeabairn said:

Been said before but the only way to increase competition is to increase the size of the league to 18 or 20 teams and play home and away. 

Most teams lose to Rangers and Celtic so are effectively starting 8 games behind at the moment. Reduce that to 4 and someone like Aberdeen (for example) could potentially challenge at the top if they go on a run v the rest of the teams in the league.  

Those old enough to have last seen a league of similar size will tell you a too significant chunk of the games are meaningless.

8th v 11th or 9th v 12th has an air of “fuk all to play for”

As pish as the standard is currently in the league of 12 (Celtic excepted), the majority of games have something riding on them. 

EDIT…. A league of 18 would still not be big enough for Falkirk to “qualify” for it 

Edited December 23, 2022 by Thenorthernlight

[HibeeJibee]

20 minutes ago, Proudtobeabairn said:

Been said before but the only way to increase competition is to increase the size of the league to 18 or 20 teams and play home and away. 

Most teams lose to Rangers and Celtic so are effectively starting 8 games behind at the moment. Reduce that to 4 and someone like Aberdeen (for example) could potentially challenge at the top if they go on a run v the rest of the teams in the league.  

Evidence shows that wouldn't happen sadly.

Firstly there were long periods of OF dominance under old system e.g. every title bar 1 from 1904-51, and again from 1962-75.

Secondly the reality is your principal non-OF clubs already drop more points v each other and smaller teams than OF do, so playing them more and OF less wouldn't eliminate gap... if anything you could argue that playing OF more often gives more opportunity to makeup difference.

Thirdly and most vitally: financial impact on likes of Hearts/Hibs/Aberdeen would be considerable and more acute than on OF.

[Charles Stiles]

5 hours ago, ConcernedReferee said:

It's just the nature of our population that has created a imbalanced league with only 2 realistic winners, I can understand peoples dislike with it given how long its been the norm but would it really be a better product if every one of the twelve teams was a realistic champion? It might but that might be uniquely boring, as a Celtic fan I don't think theirs any worse feeling than any of the less fancied teams taking 3 points from you and I would presume that works in the other direction too. That wouldn't exist if we somehow had a league where East Fife were as realistic to win as Celtic. 

I thought this was a awful attempt at a wind up but then saw the club and realised it was serious. Further proof these cretins have a totally different mindset to we normal people, thank goodness.