The Scottish Football Blog

Rangers and the SPL: Looking for leaders

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Hall) — Thu, 31 May 2012 20:14:00 +0000

Another week slips by and the saga of Rangers drags on.

It seems the capacity this story has for delivering farce is almost limitless.

Where are we this week?

Hard to know exactly:

Charles Green and his largely unknown consortium still want to take control of Rangers, delivering them from evil either through a CVA or the unknown delights of a newco
"Take control" rather than buy: it seems Green - and his still conditional offer - will involve him and his mates spending cash that Rangers will then need to pay back, with interest, over the next eight years
A CVA offer has gone out - showing that debts have risen since the scale of Rangers' financial dunderheidedness was first revealed - but outstanding tax cases and outstanding legal challenges make a proper appraisal of that CVA offer look all but impossible
Duff and Phelps are under increasing scrutiny regarding their relationship with Craig Whyte - a scrutiny they dismiss as the muckraking of the tittle tattle brigade - but seem to be pretty sure of their own multi million pound payday whatever happens
Rangers took the SFA to court and won over the transfer embargo, the SFA being told that they'd need to consider a punishment within the specific sanctions laid out in their own guidelines
The SFA are preparing another appeals panel in light of that court ruling while FIFA - for whom clubs taking such matters to national courts is about as appealing as a transparent trial of goalline technology - consider how they're going to deal with what is no longer Scotland's little local difficulty
To the sound of hoofs rumbling through an unlocked door the SPL agreed to bring in a selection of financial fair play rules but decided that decisions on newcos getting into their exclusive club would be decided on a case-by-case basis by all the clubs
Oddly Charles Green - who currently owns about as much of Rangers as any taxpayer - was allowed to play a part in that SPL meeting, the lunatic invited out for tea before taking over the asylum
Rangers have finally delivered, three months after being asked, the documentation the SPL requested as part of their dual contact deliberations, with the SPL board set to receive an update on the progress of the league's investigation on 18th June
After the BBC's Mark Daly raised the ceiling on ridiculousness with cameos in this story for Joanna Lumley, Prince Albert of Monaco and a "Cockney football fixer," this week we had the SPL's Neil Doncaster suggesting that Gandhi - while possibly a damn fine football chairman - might struggle to pass a fit and proper person test

What next?

The SFA must react to the slap in the face delivered by the Court of Session and, to avoid an international conflagration, do so in a way that doesn't further antagonise FIFA.

Chief executive Stewart Regan has confirmed tonight that the they won't risk the wrath of FIFA by indulging in a tit-for-tat court appeal (one appeal judge backed the embargo, one appeal judge dismissed the sanction, who knows where a best of three contest could end up?)

So now the SFA's appeal panel must refer back to the other sanctions available and bar Rangers from the Scottish Cup or suspend or terminate their SFA membership.

They'll also probably have to make yet more adjustments to their disciplinary procedures come this summer's AGM. One step forwards, two steps back.

Rangers can also expect an additional punishment for taking this matter to the Court of Session in the first place. FIFA will be watching out for that one.

This might still be a most Pyrrhic of victories.

For those of us who have argued that the outrage and uproar over the transfer embargo was a well orchestrated diversion by some at Ibrox might now look at the CVA offer - I speak only as a cheated taxpayer not a direct creditor - and see a deal that looks as measly as Duff and Phelps look weaselly.

Non-acceptance of that offer would send us back to the delectable prospect of internecine warfare as Scottish football decides on a home for Rangers 2012.

Meanwhile, of course, the issue of dual contracts won't go away.

I'm sure Neil Doncaster wishes it would go away but it won't. Every room he walks into, there it is, a big, well paid elephant lounging on the couch.

Without closure on that, one way or the other, it's difficult to see how the rancour and distrust will ever clear.

And that's a big problem.

Things have dragged on too long without resolution.

I've seen too many people connected with Rangers not only predict that letting Rangers die would be nothing more than a mass suicide pact for Scottish football or, worse, taking gleeful delight in the idea that if they're drowning, they'll drag the rest of us down with them to really care now if they don't survive in the SPL. Or even survive at all.

A tragedy for the decent Rangers fan of course. But there it is.

Duff and Phelps, the Keystone Cops of administrators, and Charles Green, a man who looks perpetually lost without his black cloak and scythe, still seem to be the only people standing between Rangers and further disaster. They're hardly the Fantastic Four.

But what's the plan for Scottish football?

Forget about Rangers.

Financial fair play rules are all well and good. But we're entering the summer without a clear idea of the teams that will make up our top flight, we've got a TV deal that looks no closer to being signed, a headline sponsor winding down with no sign of a replacement.

Somebody's got to take control of the situation and plot a course to safety.

If life without Rangers is going to be as petrifying as some tell us then start planning for the worst. If Rangers somehow pull their listing ship through just about intact then that will be a bonus.

It should also be a lesson to all that living beyond our footballing means is no longer option.

In the meantime there's thousands of people like me who have already made an investment in next season.

Who's fighting our corner? Rangers' mess is their mess. Isolate it and find a way to fill the gap.

We deserve more than a whole game paralysed in the face of someone else's greed, mendacity and disregard for the sport we love.

We're not looking for a Gandhi. But I'm not sure we're looking for a Neil Doncaster either.

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Pub football

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Hall) — Thu, 31 May 2012 18:41:00 +0000

To Glasgow last weekend to spend the nicest, hottest Saturday of the year sitting in a basement bar on Bath Street talking about football.

That's never a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon but on this occasion there was also a - slight - point to the outing.

I was very happy to be invited along to have my say in the Scottish Football Forums end of season podcast.

Thanks to all the chaps - there were no women, I guess the Scottish Football Forums team must be a touch sexist - for their hospitality and bonhomie.

A strange season in many ways, one perhaps better digested with a beer in hand.

It was certainly a more agreeable trip to Glasgow than my Hampden outing the week before.

No free drinks from the Bath Street Pony though.

I suppose this could be remedied next time if we all give them huge compliments so I'd like to thank the staff at the Bath Street Pony for being quite the superstars as a disparate group of football mercenaries descended on them to rant into a microphone.

All the ways to listen (and a full cast list) here

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Hibs: Starting over

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Hall) — Fri, 25 May 2012 05:44:00 +0000

This time last week Hibs were looking forward to a once in a lifetime Scottish Cup final.

Harold Wilson was a Huddersfield Town supporter so he probably knew that if a week is a long time in politics it can be an eternity in football.

A fairly miserable eternity at that.

The Hibs team that turned up at Hampden lacked belief and lacked desire. They were also hopeless.

A triple whammy to die of embarrassment for.

The mind plays tricks but in the back of my mind was the idea that at times Hibs managed to appear more overwhelmed in losing 5-1 to Hearts than Aberdeen did in losing 4-0 to Rangers in the 2000 cup final.

And Hibs didn't have the excuse of losing their only goalkeeper with 87 minutes remaining.

Another Scottish Cup slips by. 111 years now.

Against Hearts. In the first all Edinburgh Scottish Cup final for 116 years. After a performance that made mediocrity look an aspiration.

For a club that likes to stress the importance of supporters as part of the "family" Hibs certainly find ever more inventive ways of smacking their fans in the face.

The positive spin: Hibs escaped relegation and got to an unlikely cup final.

That's not too convincing. Waiting until the penultimate game to finally consign a poor Dunfermline side to the drop with only a second home win of the season.

Then losing your biggest ever game after a humiliatingly dominant display from your greatest rivals.

After finishing tenth the season before.

The negative reality is that mediocrity as aspiration was not a phenomenon unique to last Saturday.

Rather its a culture that seems to have infected the Hibs team - in all its many incarnations - for three years.

Why?

The appointment of Colin Calderwood was clearly a mistake, a mistake compounded by the decision to stand by him - vociferously support him - as he mulled over Steve McLaren's sweeties last summer.

Yet the available statistics still point to Hibs being above average payers.

Which means some of the ten teams that outperformed them in the league this season and the nine above them the season before are doing more with less.

That - combined with the sheer volume of players who come, go and do little memorable in between - points to a breakdown in recruitment and scouting.

Last spring Hibs changed their board structure. In the 12 months since Fife Hyland has proved himself a fairly ineffectual chief executive.

His counterpart in charge of football affairs, Scott Lindsay, hasn't even been that good.

As the board's main footballing power Lindsay has had as many managers as home league wins.

Yet with Hyland leaving Hibs - and a response to an email from a fan that I saw on Monday that fairly dripped with sarcasm points to a man delighted to be free - it is Lindsay that chairman Rod Petrie has appointed as chief executive.

That smacks of rewarding failure, of creating a culture of mediocrity from the top that has infected the whole club.

Last summer's blue riband signings were Ivan Sproule and Garry O'Connor.

That's indicative of a lack of originality. O'Connor's goals have been important but he's also been inconsistent and featured too often in the news pages. The harsh truth is that when other clubs are moving forward Hibs can't afford to be a philanthropic rehabilitation centre.

And Sproule was a nostalgia signing, a player who was always going to be limited when he lost the confidence to live on his pace alone.

Harsh, of course, to pick on just two players. Harsh but illustrative of a club that preaches progression in it's off field dealings but has recently just staggered from one ill conceived quick fix to another on the pitch.

Which brings us to the cobbled together starting eleven that broke every heart in the stadium except Hearts' last weekend.

Loan players, summer signings and youth graduates who have been allowed to drift for too long.

Is it any wonder that when asked to become legends they couldn't find it within themselves to discover any sort of spirit?

A team that didn't deserve a cup final playing for a club that recently hasn't deserved even such a distant promise of success.

What now?

A mass clearout has begun, one that goes further than just the disappearance of the far too large cast of loan players.

Such an overhaul is needed - there were five painful examples of why last weekend and there could have been more - but it has to be done with ambition, creativity and a sure hand.

Scrabbling around in the last days of the transfer window, signing players who played in a decent Hibs team six or seven years ago, players who the manager was impressed by four seasons ago, bolstering them with untried loan signings.

That's not going to work. Bitter experience points to that. Hibs have at least made the mistakes already. Now they need to learn from them.

A big job for Pat Fenlon.

Rebuild the squad, rebuild the spirit of the squad, rebuild the failing scouting department, make sure the youth squads are producing the kind of player that can once again enhance the first team.

Wipe away this culture of mediocrity, this dangerous complacency that lets people think they've got away with failure because Dunfermline's failure was worse.

He does that now against the ghastly backdrop of the final. The fans, although they'll never forget, need to forgive him and trust him.

Trust. He needs that from Rod Petrie and Scott Lindsay as well. When next season kicks off that duo will have been involved in this period of decline longer than anyone else.

They need to back their manager, interfere less and trust his judgement.

What if Fenlon gets it wrong or if he finds his ideas are stymied by a disapproving moustache and a boardroom henchman who think, against all the available evidence, they know better how to deliver footballing success?

Well, if that happens then the Scottish Cup semi-final win over Aberdeen could be the last moment of Hibernian cheer for quite some time.

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Mr Mojo Risin'

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Hall) — Thu, 24 May 2012 23:08:00 +0000

Those industrious chaps over at STV are in the process of unveiling the top ten Scottish players in the Online Writers' Player of the Year awards.

I was delighted to be asked to take over as profile compiler when they reached number five: West Bromwich Albion's James Morrison.

Another year of solid improvement for Morrison, a key part of Roy Hodgson's improving West Brom side and now an established international presence.

It's five years since he made the modern footballer's Declaration of Abroath and hitched his colours to the Saltire.

I'm not sure we've learnt to love him in that time.

But he's here to stay and his inclusion in this countdown of top players maybe points to an ever growing admiration of what he can bring to the squad as we look longingly to Brazil 2014.

Read my take on James Morrison

Read the Online Writers' Player of the Year countdown so far

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Champions League: The result

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Hall) — Sat, 19 May 2012 09:06:00 +0000

What snivelling wretches we have running football.

Michel Platini and his Eurocrat acolytes make our own dear Neil Doncaster look heroic.

When it's clear that the eyes of global football should be focused on El Broon Sauce Clásico at Hampden, they attempt to divert football lovers the world over with a sideshow in Munich.

The Champions League final. Pfft. A mere sapling of a game compared to the stately oak of a match taking place in Glasgow.

Who exactly are Bayern Munich and Chelsea when Hibs and Hearts are battling it out in the game of the century? They're nobody.

Anywhere here's a tip to remember as you browse your sportsbook review and decide where best to place your money.

Bayern Munich will beat Chelsea. They will beat them 2-0 and Chelsea will be absolutely raging at the result.

This game, and this will save you bother of watching so by all means just go and get steaming after the final whistle blows at Hampden, has been played out before.

For Chelsea read Leeds. For 2012 read 1975. For Champions League read the European Cup (a proper tournament that.)

Chelsea have an ageing squad. Check.

Chelsea hire a young manager who's enjoyed success elsewhere. Check.

Chelsea's ageing squad don't like young manager. Check.

Chelsea's ageing squad force young manager out. Check.

Chelsea replace young manager with manager who's enjoyed some success with an unheralded side. Check.

Chelsea progress through Europe's premier competition. Check.

Chelsea beat Barcelona in European semi final. Check.

Chelsea lose controversially to Bayern Munich in European final. Get a bet on.

The damned Chelsea? Written in the stars.

I mentioned this on The Footy Pod between the first and second legs of the semi final and I've been proved right so far.

And Jonathan Wilson put far more meat on the bones of the theory than I ever could for The Guardian.

Fill your boots.*

*Scottish Football Blog predictions often crash and burn.

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Scottish Cup: Hibs for the cup?

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Hall) — Fri, 18 May 2012 17:58:00 +0000

Time, I think, to take Rudyard Kipling's advice about triumph and disaster and fling it in the Water of Leith.

Those two impostors are the only things up for grabs at Hampden tomorrow.

The ultimate triumph. The ultimate disaster.

An all Edinburgh Scottish Cup final. The first for 116 years. Games don't come bigger for these two clubs. They might never have a bigger game.

Good luck to any fan of either team who manages to greet victory or defeat just the same.

Less than 24 hours to go now.

I've spent the week talking about this blasted game, it's been impossible to escape, a date with destiny looming ever closer on the horizon.

The dull ache of Hibs' hopeless history in this dear old tournaments has been replaced, as the days and hours have been counted down, with a gut wrenching desire to seem them finally bloody win it.

Not, I think, a gut wrenching desire to avoid defeat nor a gut wrenching fear of defeat.

Just the thrilling thought that seeing the trophy come down Easter Road could be so close.

So close. But still so far. It's the waiting that is so agonising.

How do I feel?

A bit nervous, a bit caught up in the whirlwind that the game has created, a bit scared, a bit confident, sort of looking forward to it, sort of dreading it.

Emotional at times too, for the friends who won't be there tomorrow who would have relished every minute of this, who would have danced for joy just seeing Hibs on the cusp of something this special.

Their memory marches on.

Can Hibs win?

Yes.

That's not to say they will.

But they can.

Hearts have better players at their disposal, they've dominated this season's derbies and Hibs have failed to land a punch on them in over three years.

Hearts have a mentality in these games that is admirable. Pat Fenlon upset some by talking about them "bullying" Hibs.

An unfortunate word to use but I understand his point. In recent clashes Hearts have taken to the field with an assured self-belief, they've approached the games thinking that they will dominate. And dominate they most surely have.

There isn't any real reason to suppose that will change tomorrow. But Hibs have slowly shown some improvement, gradually developed a cohesion. A brittle recovery for sure but a recovery nonetheless.

League positions point to the story of the season. An average year for Hearts punctuated by some fine performances. An instantly forgettable season for Hibs punctuated by some genuine relegation worries.

A divergence in the SPL for sure, but less marked than the one Kilmarnock scaled in the League Cup final. Less, even, than the gap Hearts leapt in their semi final win over Celtic.

Hibs need to produce the performance of their season, they need to hope that Hearts aren't quite on their game.

But Hampden's seen upsets this year.

Anything can happen.

Who do you fear the most?

I fear a collective. Or rather a couple of collectives.

Hearts' midfield and Hibs' midfield.

If Ian Black can control the game and Rudi Skacel finds freedom to roam lazily before pouncing with lethal intent then Hibs are surely doomed.

I suspect the Hibs midfield will be Stevenson, Claros, Osbourne and Soares.

What games they need to have. Stevenson needs confidence and belief, Claros needs to show he now "gets" the Scottish game, Osbourne needs 90 minutes of concentration, Soares needs to shrug off his lapses into laziness.

Still that might not be enough, but they've at least got to make a game of it.

It's the middle of the park or bust.

Is Pat Fenlon up to the job?

A question that's cropped up from Hibs fans and from supporters of other clubs. People seem unconvinced.

I honestly don't know. He's impressed me at times and he's disappointed me at times.

As I pointed out before the semi final against Aberdeen when he came head to head with Craig Brown, Fenlon has experience of getting the job done in the closing stages of tournaments.

Transferable skills that have made the hop across the Irish Sea?

We'll need to wait and see.

I like him and I think he'll be good for Hibs in the long term.

If he pulls off a win tomorrow I would happily marry him.

How big is this game for Hibs?

Absolutely massive, insanely huge.

More than a derby because it's a Scottish Cup final. More than a Scottish Cup final because it's a derby.

A green and white crackerjack.

If Pat Fenlon has managed to play that down among the players then good on him.

But there's no point in the fans trying to do the same.

Walk around Leith tonight, chat to the fans from Australia, America, Norway, Belgium and the rest.

Spend some time in the company of Jimmy O'Rourke, Paul Kane or Lawrie Reilly.

It won't take you long to realise what a spectacle this is, what it means to so many people.

Something no living person has ever seen before.

Monumentally big.

Has fate decided this is Hibs' year?

I suppose that depends if you believe in fate.

I'd say no. Fate hasn't decided against Hibs every other year in this decades long wait either.

They've just not been good enough. Not good enough even, agonisingly, in the seasons when you might have expected them to be more than good enough.

Conversely, of course, a team that is to all intents and purposes not good enough now have a chance to show that they are, in fact, good enough on the day.

A funny game, football. But not one decided by twists of fate or a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazonian jungle.

How will you feel?

I'll feel miserable sitting on the bus to Hampden. I always do.

I'll feel appreciative of being there for all of five minutes then I'll fret and worry and curse the smoking ban and try to make secret trades with those same gods of fate that I don't even believe in.

If Hibs lose?

I'll be beside myself, gutted, a pitiful shell of a man.

Then I'll recover.

I'll hear a million jokes cracked at my team's expense and I'll get the usual stick on Twitter. I'll have a few pints, sing a few songs, and the world will keep on turning.

It will be horribly impossible to forget but I'll move on.

If Hibs win?

Ah, if Hibs win...

It's difficult to know. The longing for this trophy has lasted so long, the pain caused by 110 years of misery being laid to rest against the auldest of enemies would bring such relief and such euphoria that I find it hard to even imagine the feeling.

There will be tears. They'll come in victory but not in defeat. Defeats happen and it's best to learn to cope with them.

But this could be a victory that I never thought I'd see: Hibs can make me cry at Hampden tomorrow but Hearts can't.

Tears of joy, disbelieving tears that would greet the final whistle and flow through Sunshine on Leith. They might actually flow all the way along the M8.

Sharing that moment, a moment that has been the collective will of all Hibs fan for so long, with good mates, perfect strangers and my brother.

It would be a special, special feeling.

Who'll win?

I steer clear of predictions before games like this. The more people that tell me they think Hibs will win, the less I want to hear it.

What will be will either painfully or gloriously be.

A hard game. Nervy, jittery, disjointed and frantic to begin with. It will be crucial to see who emerges from that opening period the stronger.

The bookies say Hearts are favourites. The bookies are right.

History to beat, form to beat, a better team to beat.

After 110 years Hibs were always going to have to do this the hard way.

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Scottish Cup: Hearts and soul

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Hall) — Thu, 17 May 2012 07:45:00 +0000

The end of a 116 year wait draws ever closer. Hearts, Hibs and the Scottish Cup final. Excitement is growing, nerves are jangling.

I'm delighted to welcome Laurie Dunsire back to the blog to give a Hearts fan's view of why the stakes are so high and why this is a game that will mean so much to families across Edinburgh and beyond.

Nothing is preordained. So who will have the last laugh?

If the climactic closing weekend of the English Premier League taught us anything, it's that football can offer more twists and turns, more dramatic endings and more far fetched tales of glory than any Hollywood script could ever dream of.

As the respective league campaigns north and south of the border came to an end, the attention shifted to the Scottish Cup Final - as a Hearts supporter the biggest game of my life, and probably the biggest game in each club's history.

116 years since the two rivals met in the final of Scotland's premier cup competition, and, as we all know, 110 years since the green half of Edinburgh emerged victorious in this tournament.

As Saturday draws ever closer, both sides appear to be drawing on superstition and history to convince themselves that their team's name is already on the cup. For Hearts fans confidence is taken from our fantastic recent form against Hibs, and the fact they NEVER win the cup. Do they...?

For Hibs it would seem that all the pieces are falling into place. When they last won it, in 1902, they had an Irishman in charge. Step forward, Pat Fenlon. The clock outside the Balmoral Hotel apparently stopped in 1902, and did so again this year. Indeed, if this WAS a Hollywood script then Hibs would be the winners. Surely life would not be so cruel as to allow them to get so close to changing history, only to be denied by HEARTS. Would it...?

Life, and football, can be cruel though. But equally records are there to be broken, and no matter what has gone before, this is just 90 minutes (or 120 minutes plus penalties), and anything can happen.

I have never felt so nervous prior to a football game. I'm close to being downright terrified. This is bigger than an Old Firm final, MUCH bigger. If Rangers or Celtic lose a cup final to their greatest rivals, how long will they have to wait to avenge it? Maybe a year, possibly two at most? For Hearts and Hibs this might be the last time they'll meet in such a game. This could mean eternal bragging rights.

One thing IS clear to me. Nothing is preordained in football.

Past form goes out the window, superstition means nothing. Two teams go head to head on Saturday and until the final whistle is blown, both sides are in with a chance of glory. The stakes are high, and I'm far from confident!

There is NO name on the cup. Yet.

As a Hearts fan I often get a bit of stick for not disliking Hibs as much as I'm 'supposed to'. But, for me, the Edinburgh derby is a healthy but controlled rivalry, and although I love nothing more than spanking the other lot from down Leith way, I couldn't imagine life without them!

Maybe this respect for our greatest rivals comes from my family background, as my late grandfather, Andrew Dunsire, was a Hibs fan. In fact he regularly took my dad to see Hibs back in the 50s, during the famous five era when, many would argue, Hibs had their greatest ever team.

But, for whatever reason, my dad didn't take to Easter Road, and began sneaking off to watch Hearts instead. Eventually he came clean, and he has remained a Jambo ever since.

My dad didn't take me to see Hearts for quite a while when I was young, not until I actually became interested and asked if he would. Was it fear that I'd reject them and become a Hibs fan if he forced my interest, like he had done to his father? Probably not, but either way I followed a maroon path.

Sadly my grandfather passed away in 2003, but I do recall the last Edinburgh Derby I watched with him – on TV of course. Hibs won 2-1 at Easter Road, and my lasting memory is just his laugh as my dad and I became increasingly frustrated as Hearts pushed forward, in vain, for an equaliser.

By this point he didn't get too flustered over football, and he'd drunk a few glasses of whisky - I think he probably preferred whisky to Hibs by this stage to be honest. But maybe the cheerful chortling was just his way of enjoying a victory. Needless to say he had the last laugh on that occasion.

But he was my Grandad first and foremost, and a Hibs fan second. He would always have me round to watch the Hearts match if it was on TV, and sit and 'enjoy' it with me. Football means an awful lot to me, sometimes too much, but there are things that are more important.

That said, like any other Jambo I'll be celebrating deliriously if we win on Saturday, and I'll be contemplating ending it all there and then if we lose. This game is simply MASSIVE.

I've tried not to think about the match itself too much, as it makes me far too nervous. I can't call it at the moment. I still believe we have a stronger team than Hibs, and if we turn up on the day and perform to the best of our ability then we will prevail. But the gap isn't huge, and Hibs have shown a bit of fight recently, with McPake in particular appearing like an impressive presence at the back.

The Griffiths and O'Connor strikeforce are always going to pose a threat as well, and I certainly wouldn't bet against either of them getting on the scoresheet at some point.

But the game could be won and lost in the middle of the park, and I feel that's where we are strongest. If Ian Black can keep his head right and perform as he has done in previous derbies then he can dictate the play, and with Rudi Skacel ahead of him we can always pose a threat going forward.

There are too many ifs and buts at this stage though. It's a game that either side COULD win, but only one side WILL win.

Nothing is decided yet, the two sets of players will determine their own fate come Saturday afternoon. There will be tears, there will be laughter. Of course I hope on this occasion it is my father and I who have the last laugh, but regardless of the end result, I'll take a moment after the game to sip on a glass of whisky and remember my Grandad.

Andrew Dunsire, 1914-2003.

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Rangers: Transfer embargo stands

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Hall) — Thu, 17 May 2012 00:20:00 +0000

Another day and another twist in the ongoing Rangers saga.

Or perhaps not a twist, more a rare outbreak of consistency in an unwieldy drama.

The SFA's appellate tribunal has dismissed Rangers' appeal against the year long transfer embargo imposed by the original judicial panel.

In short, Rangers will not be allowed to sign players over the course of the next two transfer windows.

Surprise?

Perhaps. There was a lingering suggestion that the SFA might feel a certain pressure to reduce the punishment in the face of a backlash from inside the club and from Rangers fans.

But the likelihood of that happening seemed to diminish with the release of the original panel's report last Friday.

That was an exhaustive and ultimately damning study of a total breakdown in corporate governance. It took account of the huge role played by Craig Whyte - still, as far as we know, owner of the club and its assets - but also pointed to the failings of others.

It is companies that tend to be held accountable when there is such a complete failure of management.

The summary of today's findings suggests that the original panel were correct to decide that Rangers' failings called for a more stringent punishment than the £100,000 fine, that it was right to discuss but then decide against expulsion from the SFA and that the embargo does not represent the cataclysmic end for the club that some have predicted.

It also reiterated how seriously the SFA looks on non-payment of taxes, a hardline stance that could well be tested again depending on the eventual outcome of the "big tax case."

Rangers were represented by Richard Keen QC. We can expect he gave a strong account of the club's position, concerns and challenges regarding the original ruling.

His arguments met only with a complete rebuttal from a panel chaired by Lord Carloway, a judge who specialises in appellate hearings. A serious man with serious expertise presiding over a serious decision.

And the decision was that a competent judicial panel had decided on severe - but not the severest - punishments for instances of wrongdoing. Corporate liability meant the club would pay the price.

What next?

Rangers almost immediately issued the following statement:

An SFA independent appeals panel has this evening upheld a decision to impose a 12-month transfer embargo on the club.

Duff and Phelps, administrators of Rangers Football Club, issued the following statement tonight.

Paul Clark, joint administrator, said:

"The decision by the appellate tribunal to uphold the sanction, namely the suspension of registration of players for one year, is not competent in the view of the club and its legal advisers.

"Such a sanction was not available to the tribunal and should not have been imposed and it is the intention of the club to challenge the determination.

"The club will consider seeking review of this most disappointing decision and it is a matter of regret that the certainty and finality Rangers sought on this matter has not been achieved.

"Everyone at Rangers is bitterly disappointed and dismayed at this outcome."

Charles Green, who leads a consortium purchasing Rangers, said:

"Our group went into the purchase of the club with this sanction in place but we hoped the decision would at least be commuted.

"We fully support the club as it considers an appeal against this latest decision."

Sandy Jardine, spokesman for the Rangers Fans Fighting Fund, added:

"Rangers supporters will be shocked and bitterly disappointed by this decision and will find it hard to take that the club has been so heavily punished for the actions of individuals."

So it goes on.

Which is hardly surprising. The angst with which the club greeted the original decision suggested that the verdict of the appeal panel would be accepted only if it resulted in a complete climbdown. It's done pretty much the opposite.

The next step would seem to be to take the appeal above the SFA - a process that offers neither a speedy nor a guaranteed resolution.

Paul Clark's reading of the SFA rules is different from mine - and Lord Carloway's - if he considers that an embargo was simply not an option. By stopping short of expulsion, the maximum punishment, the panel saw fit to impose an embargo in addition to a fine. That's something that the SFA's own guidelines, ratified by all clubs last summer, allowed them to do.

Rangers search for a "certainty and finality" that suits Duff and Phelps will likely now go to either the Scottish courts or - more naturally but not definitely - FIFA or the Court for Arbitration for Sport.

Protracted, costly, uncertain. A triple whammy Rangers don't need. You'd guess that this farrago is not playing out well in the corridors of European football power. I'd also suspect that, in this case, UEFA will be frowning more on Rangers than an oddly steadfast SFA.

Certainly moving the argument into the Scottish courts will likely push all the wrong buttons at UEFA. It's for Duff and Phelps to decide how much of a gamble they want to take.

Maybe cooler heads will prevail, a decision will be made that swallowing this bitterest of pills is a quicker way of reaching the certainty needed for the club to finally begin to move forward. But don't bet on it.

Acceptance here might also leave Rangers better placed to face challenges to come, be that an unfavourable decision from the tax tribunal or further scandal from the SPL's second contracts investigation.

Again, however, I'd put no money on it. Bringing calm and order to the club has proved beyond whatever talents the administrators have. The result is a Rangers swinging wildly at every opponent, real or imagined. The danger is they'll be exhausted and yet more vulnerable as ever heavier hitters enter the ring.

From this mess, allowing still for hidden dangers lurking around dimly lit corners, Charles Green - or AN Other - must try to piece together a survival strategy.

It's not a task I envy.

He - or whoever - might end up being thankful that the appellate tribunal have at least given them a steer in the direction of the 40 or so players the club could still have at its disposal come the start of next season.

Summary of the Appellate Tribunal's verdict

The Appellate Tribunal will give its full reasons in writing in early course. However, in summary, it considers that:

1. It was competent for Disciplinary Tribunal to impose the additional sanction of prohibiting registrations of any new players of 18 years or older for a period of 12 months.

2. The Disciplinary Tribunal was correct to determine that the conduct involved - especially the deliberate non-payment of very large sums, estimated in excess of £13m of tax in the form of PAYE, NIC and VAT - was attributable to the club as a member of the Scottish FA.

3. The Disciplinary Tribunal was correct also in holding that the maximum fine available for this breach was £100,000, and on its own was inadequate as a punishment for this misconduct. It was therefore correct to select an additional sanction.

4. The sanctions available included expulsion from participation in the game and termination or suspension of membership of the Scottish FA, which would have had a similar effect. The Appellate Tribunal observes that serious consideration was given by the disciplinary tribunal to imposing one of these sanctions, which would have had obvious consequences for the survival of the club. The Disciplinary Tribunal rejected these as too severe and this Appellate Tribunal agrees with that conclusion.

5. Although the Appellate Tribunal has listened carefully to the representations from Rangers FC about the practical effects of the additional sanction, it has concluded that this sanction was proportionate to the breach, dissuasive to others and effective in the context of serious misconduct, bringing the game into disrepute. In particular, the Appellate Tribunal recognises that the Disciplinary Tribunal decision does not affect Rangers’ ability to extend the contracts of existing professional players, including those whose contracts will expire at the end of this season and including also those currently on loan to other clubs. The Appellate Tribunal observes that Rangers FC have over 40 professional players in this category.

Therefore, the Appellate Tribunal affirms the decision of the Disciplinary Tribunal.

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Scottish Cup: Talking about waiting

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Hall) — Tue, 15 May 2012 20:41:00 +0000

Like children before Christmas we wait with increasing excitement for the all-Edinburgh Scottish Cup final.

For those of us with an emotional attachment, of course, this Santa delivers either the greatest gift of all or a ginormous slap in the face.

High stakes.

Given I can think of little else it was a pleasure to join The SPL Podcast for a cup final preview show.

We also took a look at the SPL season that was with Celtic flying high and Dunfermline plumbing the depths.

Thanks to Robert (@RMcCracken91), Paul (@steakheed) and Simon (@SFurnivall) for the hospitable welcome.

Listen here or subscribe on iTunes.

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Scottish Cup: Hibs head for the (Irish) hills

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Hall) — Thu, 10 May 2012 19:37:00 +0000

Some consternation among the fourth estate as Hibs announce that their media open day ahead of the Scottish Cup final will be held in Ireland.

An away media open day.

With budgets being squeezed across the land, sports editors might be loathe to send journalists off on a Ryanair adventure.

It is us, dear reader, who will suffer, denied the insight and access that make the build-up to the cup final so unique every year.

A void needs filled.

Fear not.

Here's exclusive filler for that very void: The Scottish Football Blog's Copy and Paste Hibs Media Guide.

Speaking at his side's training camp in Ireland, captain James McPake said:

"All the boys know the history, it will be a huge occasion but a hard game, we'd all love to win it for the fans."

From his team's luxury training base outside Dublin, on-loan striker and boyhood Hibs fan Leigh Griffiths said:

"We'd all love to win it for the fans, all the boys know the history, it will be a huge occasion but a hard game."

At the side's training camp across the Irish Sea, Lewis Stevenson, one of the true Hibs fans in Pat Fenlon's squad, said:

"It will be a huge occasion but a hard game, we'd all love to win it for the fans, all the boys know the history."

Masterminding Hibs' final challenge from a luxury base in Ireland, manager Pat Fenlon said:

"The fans all know the history, all the boys know it will be a huge but hard occasion, we'd love to win it."

Billy Brown, Fenlon's assistant who started the season with cup final opponents Hearts, speaking at the side's Irish training camp, said:

"The fans and the boys all know the history, obviously for me there's even more recent history as well. But that's football and there's a job to do here.

"The occasion will be both huge and hard but I'd love to see us win it for both the boys and the fans."

Me? I'd quite happily hibernate until 3pm on Saturday 19th May.

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Rangers: Miller's tale leaves SPL adrift

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Hall) — Wed, 09 May 2012 05:48:00 +0000

"It's Miller time."

If I had a pound for every time I've heard that since Tennessean truck tycoon Bill Miller was confirmed as the preferred bidder for Rangers I'd...

Well, I'd have a sizeable amount of money and I wouldn't even consider piling it all into a wager that Rangers will now avoid liquidation.

It turns out that Miller time is no time at all. Just days separated the announcement that his bid had found favour and the announcement that he was, after all, not going to bother.

Reasons? That he cited the treatment he received from Rangers fans might have brought a wry smile to the faces of those who have felt that, in recent weeks, certain supporters have taken an unjustly scatter-gun approach to spreading the blame for this financial farce.

My exposure to the tow truck industry in the United States is limited. I imagine, however, it breeds a deal of earthy characters. The sort of chaps that might not take too kindly to Miller's profits through austerity business model.

I'm unconvinced that even advancing years will have turned him into the shrinking violet that his statement hinted at. In which case one must conclude either a degree of insincerity at play or such a level of abuse from fans that some supporters are themselves are an obstacle to finding a saviour. Prudence should dictate that the more bombastic supporters are now encouraged to shut up.

Perhaps more telling was the suggestion that he'd swallowed the false optimism of administrators Duff & Phelps only to discover that reality was somewhat harsher.

The legacy of years of mismanagement combined with a ban on European participation, as yet unknown domestic sanctions and the possibility that his hybrid newco and liquidation by any other name scheme wouldn't stop the demands from creditors.

It all added up to more than - an admittedly naive - Miller either had or was willing to risk.

So he was gone. Turns out his unconditional bid had a secret condition attached after all: if the mess was bigger than he thought he could bugger off with indecent haste.

And Rangers, it appears, are no closer to a resolution than they were when the administrators were appointed back in February.

Not that Paul Clark and David Whitehouse of Duff & Phelps are likely to admit that.

Like a happily drunken Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee the pair of them have somehow conjured up three new bidders over the bank holiday weekend, a weekend when they were apparently working on Miller's bid.

Who these mysterious people are we don't yet know. It's expected that Paul Murray and Brian Kennedy's Blue Knights will climb once more onto their trusty steeds.

Will they have found the money now that they didn't have last week?

Certainly they don't seem to have the ability to pull off a CVA in the traditional way, a route that the administrators announced as closed last week.

Are we to accept that the three bidders have heard Miller's reasons for turning his back on the deal and not questioned just what it is they will find when they begin their own due diligence?

And what comfort should fans take from the suggestion that one of these bids comes close to matching Miller's bid just hours after Miller has let it be known that his own offer wasn't enough to carry out the necessary salvage work.

Duff & Phelps-land seems like a jolly pleasant place to be but there is an increasing wariness about its apparent disconnect from reality.

There's a risk, given the exposure we've all had to this sorry saga over the past few months, that laymen start pontificating like experts.

I'm a layman. My non-expert opinion is that Rangers are now doomed.

Liquidation seems a racing certainty. The whens, ifs and buts of that will be dictated by the timing of contract deadlines and by how jumpy the creditors are getting at the unerring ability of Duff and Phelps to bring further disharmony where there is already plentiful discord.

There might yet be further grenades ready to explode. The big tax case, the second contract stramash, the next move of Craig Whyte, a police investigation.

I'm not sure how a route to survival can be navigated through that lot. I'm not sure that pleading mitigation because football is a strange industry and Rangers are a special case can really work much longer.

I'm not sure where any good fortune is going to come from.

Certainly the clock seems to be ticking. If Miller's claims of earning limitations and legacy expenses are true then each day makes things worse.

And since Valentine's Day - maybe even over the course of the last decade - nobody has arrived on the scene with clout, the determination or the wit to save the situation.

The window for last gasp heroics is getting ever smaller.

Throughout it all the fans remain helpless, agog like the rest of us as the club awaits its fate.

The other SPL clubs and the SFA are also left to watch from the sidelines.

It seems that representatives of the SPL did get drawn into hypothetical discussions with Bill Miller over the future.

Hypothetical discussions with a hypothetical owner.

That was a misjudgement that shouldn't be repeated with any other potential buyers.

SPL football needs to kick off next season with or without Rangers. Contingency plans for every eventuality need to be put in place.

Neither the administrators nor any future owner are in a position to dictate the terms of those plans, the crisis has now stretched on too long for that, the club is too stricken and too many unanswered questions remain.

Shutting their eyes and hoping it all blows over is no longer an option for the league.

Someone has to take responsibility for planning the future. Rangers will just need to fit into those plans when and if they're ready to do so.

How can the SPL grab the initiative?

Given the cack-handedness of the last few weeks it won't be easy.

Here's an idea though: if we've been taught anything by this imbroglio it is that the SPL experiment has been completely flawed.

It's delivered our clubs not into riches but into a state of beholden servitude, prostrate at the feet of their TV or Glasgow masters.

So kill the league.

Vote it out of existence. Tighten belts, swallow pride and return to the SFL fold.

Give every Scottish senior club a chance to shape the future. And, a convenient benefit this, let every club shoulder the collective responsibility of deciding just what to do with a problem like Rangers.

A single structure would also increase the options for negotiating the entry of what is increasingly looking like a Rangers newco into the league structure.

It would be an odd irony if the SPL's Neil Doncaster was the first redundancy of Rangers' collapse. It might console him that he would likely not be the last.

For an organisation so adept at snatching humiliation from the jaws of defeat this would be a dramatic move but an audacious suicide pact might just allow them to salvage enough respect to give the game some sort of positive future.

It's unlikely to happen.

But five years ago many people would have thought it unlikely that Rangers would today stand on the brink, the possibility of the gates being locked at Ibrox looming ever larger.

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Hibs: Another second chance

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Hall) — Tue, 08 May 2012 22:56:00 +0000

It's a strange one: sticking around at a stadium to greet like heroes a squad that has just escaped from the struggle of their lives.

Pat Fenlon called last night's acclaim for his Hibs team "embarrassing," stressing that this was more an opportunity to thank the fans rather than an occasion of unadulterated joy.

Football inspires daftness though. And a season long struggle with inadequacy, an inability to plot safe passage through the bog of relegation, can drive a supporter mad.

Last night, then, was a howl of relief as much as anything. Supporters thankful for the escape, thankful to finally have a reason to celebrate.

It took Hibs until their last home game to record a second home league victory, to attract their highest crowd of the season, to deliver a performance that the fans could really respond to and finally finish off the lingering threat of Dunfermline.

Until the last home game of the season, in fact, to offer up any sort of evidence that fans weren’t completely demented to put their faith in the team.

Not just blind faith either. Season tickets might have broken down to as much as £31 per home point and £23.82 per home goal. With kick off times ever more unpredictable, that’s a hefty price to pay for doom and gloom with only sporadic outbursts of football.

Fenlon has had his struggles since inheriting Colin Calderwood’s listing ship. His search for a first home league win went to the wire.

He’ll have been heartened that those three points were won thanks to an impressive team display. Six of the his starting eleven and two of his substitutes have arrived at Easter Road since his first game in December. At the last, his team finally came together.

It’s not been the most rapid of quick fixes but the club was in disarray when he took over. And he has, as he said he would, got the job done.

For that achievement to be truly worthwhile the cycle of loan deals and January window signing sprees has to be broken.

Last season a good February was enough to save Hibs from a prolonged relegation battle.

This season they have not even enjoyed that sort of purple patch. One good month in two seasons is a poor return.

Last summer was defined not by the root and branch rebuilding job that was required but by an obstinate board standing by a disconnected manager.

With the guardian of football matters and the guardians of the purse strings both distracted Hibs drifted aimlessly into the new season.

It took until last night to free them from the obvious consequences of that mismanagement.

They can't afford a repeat.

This summer needs sensible, competitive investment in the team. A reinvigorated scouting policy. The fabled but faded conveyor belt of young talent chugging back into life.

The sort of sound management of footballing matters that has somehow eluded Hibs of late.

A permanent deal for on-loan captain James McPake would be a fine starting point. A show of ambition, a symbol of determination, a sound building block for both the immediate future and a signing to develop a team around in the long term.

It would also be a far more meaningful "thank you" to the fans than a lap of honour in the immediate aftermath of a win over the SPL's bottom club.

Fenlon has a part to play. Some fans still need to be convinced that he's the right man for the job. More perhaps are happy to give him the benefit of the doubt, impressed with his commitment and his desire to put right the wrongs of the past.

He can't do that alone. There are others at the club who have survived managerial changes and presided over the general decline into this malaise.

They've made plenty of mistakes. This summer must surely be their last chance to show that lessons have been learned.

Last night showed that the fans will respond to meaningful games and will react to fine performances.

They shouldn't have to wait until the last home game of the season with SPL survival on the line to prove it.

Of course the landscape might change yet again. Somehow this patchwork team, so often frustrating in the league, find themselves on the brink of the club's biggest ever game.

The Scottish Cup final against Hearts draws ever closer.

A victory there would create legends, make history.

But it wouldn't hugely change the summer's priorities.

A Hampden win would be a hell of a success, one I can hardly begin to comprehend.

Another summer of failures, however, would render it a solitary one.

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SPL: Finding meaning, finding belief

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Hall) — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 11:06:00 +0000

Quite a Sunday ahead.

Celtic hosting Rangers and Hibs continuing their long, frustrating struggle to shake off relegation rivals Dunfermline against St Mirren. Two games that might normally have the Betfair football betting experts scratching their heads.

Today's match at Celtic Park is both essentially meaningless and yet crammed full of meaning.

The league title is already Celtic's. Rangers will likely claim a second place that will be rendered redundant by their current suspension from European competition.

One of these dull, go-through-the-motions, end-of season affairs then?

Perhaps not.

Some are trying to label this a bookend game: the final act in a dramatic rivalry that began on 28 May 1888.

That's unlikely. Rangers will still be around next season although it's impossible at the moment to predict where or in what form.

Yet even if the sense of closure is somewhat false there's reason for players and fans to view this as a big game.

Celtic, revelling in the role of conquerors, have a chance to drive home the feeling of triumphalism in front of a home crowd that will, surely, be high on the madness that swirls round their oldest rivals.

But what a boost a strong showing here would be for Rangers and their supporters.

Battling on a hundred fronts, swiping like punch drunk pugilists at enemies real and imagined, moving no closer to the resolution they crave.

Duff & Phelps, Rangers' administrators, have presided over a process that has delivered only delays and conditional bids, a process that has seen them look ever more like the boys who cried wolf, rescue packages still tantalisingly out of reach.

Today's match offers a 90 minute distillation of that drama, a game without tangible rewards but packed with enough meaning to ensure fans on both sides care more than ever.

How will it pan out?

I find predicting these things increasingly unpredictable, it's a game that can inspire some and leave others looking bereft.

The bookies though, and heaven knows my expertise is limited, would seem to be offering unusual generosity in their verdict on Rangers.

The club is, unavoidably, in a crisis of gargantuan proportions but recent form has seen the players show an admirable fortitude in the face of such ructions. We need look no further than the last Old Firm game to illustrate that an unknown future hasn't fulling snuffed out the danger that lurks in this team.

Fence sitting, as ever, suggests erring on the side of a draw but I'd still be surprised if Celtic don't win this one.

This, however, has been a season of surprises.

As the dust settles on the Old Firm game our attention can turn once again to the relegation travails of Hibs and Dunfermline.

Hibs fans are doing a fair impression of Michael Corleone at the moment. Just when they think they are out of the mire, Dunfermline pull them back in.

So it proved yesterday. A 3-0 win over Aberdeen was enough to give the Fifers their first home victory of the season, cut to three points the lead Hibs enjoyed and even make something a dent in the goal difference imbalance.

If Dunfermline wanted to switch the pressure back on to their fellow strugglers then yesterday was mission accomplished.

Hibs and pressure. What does manager Pat Fenlon see when he looks around the side that he's cobbled together with less than convincing results?

A team that can turn up Paisley today and deliver the riposte needed to halt any Dunfermline revival before it has properly begun?

Or a team that, like so many before them, St Mirren will see as easy touches, a welcome home three points to inject some fun into the dying embers of the season?

Hibs fans will hope he sees some resolve, sees the realisation dawning that his team have it in their gift to save themselves.

But those fans have been looking for the right answers to those questions all season long. Too often they've been disappointed.

Hope rather than expectation has guided emotion in Leith this season.

That continues today.

Another commanding performance from James McPake in defence, some incision from Garry O'Connor and Leigh Griffiths, something more cohesive from a misfiring midfield.

Deliver that and three points can be within reach today.

Fail - and they've failed a lot this year - and St Mirren have quality enough to prolong the suffering.

The stakes are high.

Time for the Hibs players to take a gamble and believe in themselves.

Even that might not be enough.

But they have to hope that it will let them crawl over the finish line.

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Rangers: Enemies at the gate

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Hall) — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Ally McCoist is annoyed.

Mark Hateley is annoyed.

The Rangers supporters are so annoyed that they've reached a hysteric stage of fandemonium.

Yes, there's been a lot of rage flying around Scottish football this week. Most of it emanating from an enfeebled Ibrox.

An SFA Judicial Panel, basing their decisions on the evidence provided by an independent inquiry, went after Rangers in a big way.

Some of the financial punishments dished out were the maximum allowed in the SFA's own guidance.

The additional punishment of a 12 month transfer embargo stopped short of the maximum sanction - expelling the club from the SFA - but it remained surprisingly punitive.

The sanctions were aimed at both Craig Whyte - banned for life from any involvement in Scottish football - and Rangers, the club he has helped on the road to ruin.

One of the things that so annoyed McCoist was that Rangers were punished alongside Whyte.

In these things the club and the owner - and Whyte is still, to the best of anyone's knowledge, Rangers' biggest shareholder and the man with the keys to both Ibrox and Murray Park - are indistinguishable.

That's a hardship for the club but a reality. It's how these things work.

McCoist is naive and disingenuous to believe otherwise. Apart from anything else Rangers enjoyed an artificial advantage because the club - even if this was at the sole direction of Whyte - were able to sign, retain, pay and play players by completely bumping the tax man.

Not only should the club be punished for that but a transfer embargo actually seems a reasonable enough fit for the crime in question.

You can be sure that if - or when - UEFA come sniffing around this particular mess they won’t make the distinction between fly-by-Whyte and Rangers and they’d not look kindly on the SFA's panel making the distinction.

McCoist, Hateley and many fans have also argued with a certain vehemence that the Judicial Panel issued the punishments with a complete disregard for the future wellbeing of Rangers or the Scottish game.

Which is exactly as it should be.

The remit of this investigation into the gross mismanagement of a football club could not and should not have been:

"Go easy lads, Rangers are in a bit of a fix."

Doesn't work like that.

I can accept that these SFA sanctions don't help Rangers and that it would be easier if both the SFA and the SPL were able to deliver verdicts and punishments simultaneously, rather than this gradual drip-drip of bad news, of Rangers driven to financial insanity by a Chinese water torture of fines and sanctions.

But such is the football environment that Rangers helped create. And, on these particular charges, it wasn't for the panel to make life easier for Rangers or for potential new owners like Bill Miller or Paul Murray's Blue Knights.

The SFA, and any disciplinary procedures it has, should serve the game, not serve Ally McCoist, Rangers' administrators or the Rangers Supporters Trust.

But, say some, whither the SFA when Craig Whyte took the reigns?

An absurd revisionist history is growing up that suggests the SFA could and should have stopped Whyte from taking over.

It's true that the SFA's fit and proper procedures are shambolic, setting an honesty threshold that would shame a bad online dating site.

But the SFA can't stop someone buying shares. Whyte - encouraged by the warm backing of Rangers supporters - wanted to buy the club, Sir David Murray and Lloyds TSB were absolutely desperate to get a financial Titanic off their hands.

Even if they'd raised objections the SFA would have been powerless to stop Whyte paying his pound and installing someone like Gary Withey as chairman and perhaps someone from Duff & Phelps as company secretary.

And, you know, if they'd done that at the time I'm fairly certain that a number of Rangers fans would have lost their heads over unfair interference in the commercial interests of their club.

So Ally McCoist is wrong. And those who have backed his stance are wrong.

The Judicial Panel acted within their remit and handed out a punishment that was certainly remarkably stringent but quite within their power.

As is correct Rangers, who were represented at the hearing, will have a right to appeal.

That is how the SFA's disciplinary procedures work. It was the system voted on unanimously by all clubs - including Rangers - just last summer. A new process that, at the time, appeared to create an unusual but welcome unity and cohesion in the Scottish game.

And it was a system that had the anonymity of panel members at its heart. A mechanism required, we must concede, because of the schism in Glasgow football. An assurance that the game remained governable.

If I'm allowed to jump on the bandwagon of rage, what's left me seething is the way that McCoist, egged on by cheerleaders in the press, has decided that it's a process that's not fit for purpose if it delivers a verdict that Rangers don't agree with.

I'll accept that it was nothing but anger that led McCoist to call for the anonymity of the three panel members to be lifted.

Anger at the predicament his club finds itself in, frustrated rage at the dying of the Ibrox light, at the realisation that this is a club which, even if they had the money, simply cannot buy a break at the moment.

An anger that led him to a moment of gross irresponsibility, an unreasonable demand supported by a sneering and misguided dig at the independence of the panel.

It didn't take too long for his words to have an impact.

The names were posted across the internet, the police raised concerns about the safety of the three men, the SFA issued the following statement:

"The Judicial Panel consists of volunteers from across the spectrum of sport and business in Scotland. They are appointed on the basis of anonymity yet all three panel members have reported intrusion into their personal and work lives, including abusive and threatening communication.

"This has been extended to directors of the Scottish FA, whose private details have been published on internet sites and who have, themselves, been victims of abusive communication.

"This culminated tonight in a visit by Strathclyde Police, who are taking seriously the threats made towards the individuals involved. We are thankful for their advice and support in these matters."

A couple of weeks ago the Daily Record’s Jim Traynor was ruminating on the awfulness of Twitter:

“Too many halfwits with twisted agendas are attracted to these sites but if these very platforms allow people to let off steam and expound their half-baked theories they probably are of some use to the rest of society. They probably cut down on the number of nutters roaming the streets muttering to themselves.”

That was very good of Jim. Because it offers a wonderfully lucid description of the “half baked” rant that passes for Mark Hateley’s column in today’s Record.

Mark even names the three members of the panel. Proving that where Twitter leads the Record’s nutters will follow.

The Telegraph pitched in with an odd Roddy Forsyth article that not only named the men but apparently felt the need to offer up some sort of half hearted attack on their suitability for the job.

I would agree that there should have been more transparency. The reasons for the decision should have been delivered at the same time as the judgements.

But there was no need to name names. No need to essentially destroy a new disciplinary system before it had been properly evaluated.

No need to make it even more difficult for the game to attract knowledge and expertise from across society - the sort of people we need to clear up myriad messes caused by the "football men" that Hateley seems to think should be left in glorious isolation to ruin the game as they see fit.

No need to take Scottish football another step on this destructive path, this hysterical belief that if you don't agree with something you're perfectly within your rights to leave the game all but ungovernable.

All of which could have been avoided if McCoist had slowed down, taken a breath and, if he didn't already know, asked a colleague who was on the panel.

He chose not to, jumping instead on his soapbox for a bit of rabble rousing.

Maybe he thought the fans needed a rallying cry, maybe he thought there was danger of administration fatigue setting in and an injection of passion was required.

Maybe, and this is the worst possible scenario, he thought that such callous treatment of the original panel would ensure that an appeals panel would be fearful enough to treat Rangers leniently.

Maybe he wasn't thinking at all.

Whatever the reason, his misjudgement was huge.

What now?

Rangers will appeal.

I don't think the SFA should agree to hold that appeal before they've properly investigated any disciplinary issues that need to be addressed following McCoist's comments.

I don’t think they should agree to an appeal until after they have properly investigated who leaked the names of the original panel.

Those issues need to be resolved because there are those - inside Ibrox, in the press and in the Rangers support - who have gone out of their way to ensure that an appeal cannot be held without “fear or favour.”

If these things are not addressed then each individual on the SFA’s list of potential panellist must surely consider disengaging from the organisation and refusing to sit in judgement of an appeal hearing.

If that prolongs Rangers' agony then so be it. The SFA need to show a commitment to their own procedures and their own panels before they commit to the future of one club. And Rangers won’t need to look far to apportion blame for any delay in the process.

Would the end of Rangers also kill Scottish football? Possibly. But almost certainly not.

Still Rangers people - supporters and those within the club - seem to think they qualify for special treatment, that they are above normal standards because they “are” Rangers, that they can bully and threaten now because if Scottish football doesn’t do what Rangers want then Rangers will make Scottish football pay at some unspecified date when the club is not a financial basket case.

"The whole world's agin us, but we will rise and smite our enemies."

It’s a position that relies on the brassiest of brass necks and a tenuous grasp of just how deep in the mire Rangers find themselves.

I’ve said before that a little humility would go a long way. This week it was sadly lacking as McCoist flew off the handle, as Hateley launched his rant or as Sandy Jardine promised "sanctions" against those teams who don't respect Rangers the way they should.

They are doing their club no favours.

Faced with this kind of backlash it’s hard not think that the other clubs should just take the risk and give them no special treatment at all.

Maybe, as the Gurkha motto has it, it's better to die than to be a coward.

The sad thing about this week, and the long-term damage it might still do to the governance of the Scottish game, is that it's all something of a storm in a teacup.

Maybe a welcome one for Duff & Phelps, those beleaguered administrators at Ibrox, a deflection from their own travails.

Four days on from the deadline they set we still wait patiently for the announcement of a preferred bidder.

And wait and wait and wait.

Where do we stand?

Who knows? The longer it drags on the more convinced I am that Bill Miller's interest will fizzle out and that Paul Murray's Blue Knights can't gather the cash they need to satisfy the requirements of the administrators.

A sorry mess and one that must now mean liquidation is the by some distance the most likely outcome.

The Judicial Panel's appeal hasn't changed that one way or another. I doubt it will even speed up or slow down a process that is now surely geared to simply getting Rangers to the end of the SPL season.

Given the way a number of people have behaved this week it's likely that any sympathy for that predicament has sharply receded.

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Albion Road: Risk and opportunity

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Hall) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 22:52:00 +0000

As promised I've made a swift return to the halcyon pages of Albion Road.

This week I'm taking a look at the outstanding SPL issues of the season as four go mad for Europe and two are driven crazy by relegation pressure:

Just five games left now in the 2011/12 SPL season.

The rather artificial construct that sees the league fracture into a top and bottom six clubs just a few weeks from the finish line runs the risk of creating something of an anti-climatic SPL conclusion.

That risk is heightened when, as with Celtic this year, the title is done and dusted with a handful games to spare.

We're left searching for alternative distractions. This season an intriguing battle for Europe and a prolonged relegation struggle should be enough to keep interest alive.

At the bottom we wonder just how good a season could this yet be for Hibs?

Remarkably it could be one of their best since their league-winning glory days in the 1950s.

Remarkable because for the largest chunk of this season Hibs have been a weak impersonation of a top flight football club.

Read the whole article here

I'll be back on Albion Road in May with a round-up of the SPL season. And I might even take a look back at the Scottish Cup final.

albionroad.com
@albion_road

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Talking balls

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Hall) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 17:35:00 +0000

Delighted to be back on theFootypod this week with host Scott Johnston, regular guest Brent Artema and indefatigable blog/pod main man Simon Furnivall.

Topics included the Champions League semi finals, cups north and south of the border, Saturday night's El Clasico and some brief thoughts on the long, drawn out saga of league reconstruction in Scotland.

We also took the chance to pick our all time English Premier League XI which, in my case, owed much to Denis Law, alcoholism and an erstwhile member of Girls Aloud.

Get your ears on it through iTunes or have a listen right here

Find Scott @thefootyblognet and www.thefootyblog.net
Brent tweets @GFT_Brent and takes control of www.globalfootballtoday.com
Simon is on Twitter @SFurnivall and is the creative mind behind lovelyleftfoot.com and www.hamiltoncrescent.net

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England: 20 years of riches

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Hall) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 22:47:00 +0000

It's 20 years now since football started.

That seems to be the unspoken claim amid the marketing hype marking two decades of the English Premier League and TV revolution ushered in by Rupert Murdoch's Sky.

While the English top flight celebrates like history never existed before 1992, our own game is down in the dumps, mired in debt, penury and recrimination.

So here's a timely infographic looking at turnover, debt and income in the English Premier League.

Interesting stuff.

Full size

Infographic courtesy: www.trophystore.co.uk

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Scottish Cup: Edinburgh's big day

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Hall) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 00:27:00 +0000

As Craig Beattie set off on his mad celebratory dash around the Hampden track on Sunday the realisation dawned: not without controversy, perhaps, but Hearts were on their way to an unlikely all-Edinburgh Scottish Cup final.

Unlikely because Hearts went into the semi-final against SPL champions Celtic as underdogs. Unlikely because Hibs have suffered such misery and woe over the course of this long, hard season.

Unlikely but now very, very real.

Hibs v Hearts in the Scottish Cup final. The first Edinburgh derby Scottish Cup final since 1896.

I was asked a lot in the hours between Hibs’ 2-1 win over Aberdeen and the second semi final if I’d prefer Hearts or Celtic in the final.

“I’d rather just enjoy the moment and worry about the final later” was my standard response.

How do I feel now?

Nervous. Already. The minute Hearts’ win over Celtic was confirmed I felt as nervous as I would have if the final had been half an hour away rather than five weeks away.

I can’t remember feeling like that so far in advance of any game. Maybe before the Scotland v England clashes of 1996 and 1999 or when the draw for the 1998 World Cup pitted Jim Leighton against Ronaldo.

But even those games were different. Because this is Hibs and Hearts in a Scottish Cup final.

It’s been playing on mind since. On the train today I found that “Garry O’Connor, he’s one of our own” ditty trapped in my head. Those of you have charted my relationship with O’Connor over the course of the season might realise that sort of behaviour is out of character.

Predictably we’ve already had a full airing of the “Murrayfield or Hampden” debate. Murrayfield’s size and location offer benefits.

But have many Hibs fans dreamt, over the course of this tortuous 110 year Scottish Cup jinx, of seeing a green and white clad captain raise the old trophy at the home of Scottish rugby?

Probably not.

So Hampden it is. The chance of a first ever Scottish Cup win for Hibs at the “third Hampden.” Their 1887 win came at the second incarnation of the national stadium while the 1902 victory over Celtic came at Celtic Park with a new Hampden being built on its current site and Ibrox out of use following the disaster of April that year.

The 1896 “Edinburgh” cup final was played in the capital. But Hearts won that day at Logie Green so I’m unimpressed by the precedent.

Oddly enough the club’s had fought against that decision and lobbied for a switch to either Hampden or Ibrox because:

"It was accepted that the 22,001st man who entered the ground would stand an even-money chance of being crushed to death. The man in the street was in no hurry to die at one shilling admission."

Changed days.

With the venue debate dismissed by a cursory SFA statement - actually a rehash of a statement made on the very same issue at the end of last week - we can concentrate on the build-up.

Sort of.

Along the way Hibs need to confirm their SPL status and Hearts will still fancy a run at the vacant Champions League spot.

Yet even such important matters of league housekeeping are unlikely to dampen enthusiasm for the cup final. Nor will they distract the queue of Hearts fans itching to tell me the game is already won or their equally bombastic brethren among the Hibs support prematurely claiming bragging rights.

I’d prefer it all to be a bit calmer. In fact, I’d love to disappear for a few weeks then magically reappear in Glasgow at about 2.55pm on Saturday 19th May. Not least because five weeks of nervousness is likely to leave me with a ticker too dicky to cope with the strains of the game.

But that’s not an option.

So I’ll need to embrace the Edinburgh Evening News - current cup final state: feverish - and the TV and radio chats, the stories of derring-do as sons and daughters of Leith and Gorgie abseil down Kilimanjaro and cross the Andes on a yak to get back for the greatest game these two clubs haven’t yet seen.

I might as well enjoy it.

A lifetime of supporting Hibs is a vicissitudinous enough love affair to allow one to build the resilience to cope with whatever is flung at us on this day of destiny.

No point, then, worrying about a defeat that might never come.

Not when there are dreams of glory unsurpassed to be dreamt, not when there are hats, wigs and commemorative t-shirts to be bought, tickets to be queued for, travel plans to be finalised and a few more dreams of glory to be dreamt.

Edinburgh might never have seen anything like it. Who knows, maybe at 4.45pm on that Saturday in May even the Jenners tannoy will burst into life and tell any straggling shoppers that the “champions of Edinburgh are...”

Ninety minutes from immortality and joy unconfined. Or an hour and a half from infamy.

And five weeks before all that to revel in it, to soak it all up, get picked up and carried along on a wave of enthusiasm.

It’s going to be quite something. And, if all else fails, drink will probably take care of those lingering nerves.

Source:

The Scotsman, 27/03/2006

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Scottish Cup: Aberdeen v Hibs

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Hall) — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 06:36:00 +0000

After a week of shrieking SPL outrage, the weekend positively bristles with anticipation and longing.

All eyes are on Hampden.

All stout Scottish footballing hearts are surely longing for an outbreak of football amid the stressful stramashes of the last couple of days.

I imagine there are but few people in Scotland who don't share the view that the ideal scenario for this season's Scottish Cup is for Hibs to beat Aberdeen today before going on to beat Hearts in May's final.

There's the romance you need right there. The magic potion to salve the wounds of a game that has been left feeling distinctly grubby.

110 years of of anguished despair ended by a ragbag collection of loan stars and short-term contracts.

Hollywood would come knocking for the film rights. Hibs and the Scottish Cup meet The Mighty Ducks.

Or maybe that's just me.

The reality is that Hampden is not a happy hunting ground for Hibs.

On my first visit to the national "stadium" - please note, young 'uns, that misty-eyed nostalgia about the Hampden of old ignores the shithole it had become by the 1980s - Alex Ferguson's Aberdeen demolished Hibs 3-0 in the 1985 League Cup final.

Sort of set the tone.

In 2000 a Scottish Cup semi-final took the two clubs to Hampden for a 6.15 kick-off one Sunday evening.

A crowd of little over 20,000 saw a Hibs team featuring the masterful Franck Sauzee and the majestic Russell Latapy undone by Andy Dow, a man who was typically neither masterful nor majestic.

Memories are made of this.

Fair to say that this Scottish Cup semi-final glistens in the gloom of the season so far for both Hibs and Aberdeen.

If SPL life has been uninspiring at Pittodrie it's been woefully incompetent at Easter Road.

That makes this a rather unlikely semi-final and certainly not one that you would have predicted after watching the three previous games between the two this season.

A Scott Vernon penalty - a disputed penalty at that - is all that separates them after 270 minutes of mediocrity.

Mediocrity might in fact be a charitable description of the 0-0 draw at Easter Road in September, a game that will fancy its chances in the always hotly contested "Worst SPL Game of the Season" award.

So there it is: Hampden history suggests an Aberdeen win and recent history suggests a game that will live short in the memory.

It probably won't be as simple as that.

Hibs discovered a hitherto unseen resilience to beat Inverness a couple of weeks ago and improved on that performance in drawing with Motherwell last Sunday.

Aberdeen stopped a run of seven league games without a win last weekend as they secured a clean sweep of SPL victories over Dundee United.

Fluctuating form makes this a hard one to predict. Toiling in the league, both clubs have plotted and plugged their way through the cup draw.

A semi final is a nice bonus, a Scottish Cup final has the potential to turn a poor season into a good one.

Right now I'd take an 89th minute winner being deflected into Aberdeen's net off Garry O'Connor sizeable rump.

That's the fan talking though.

Searching for some vestige of neutrality I have to say this one looks too close to call.

Hibs have looked like a shadow of a football team at times in 2012 but they've still managed to get the job done in the cup.

Aberdeen, slightly fully figured but not in the most robust of footballing health, have struggled to make the most of any superiority they have over Pat Fenlon's team.

Fag paper margins, the difference between a cup final - and possible European qualification - and the anonymity of being losing semi finalists.

A big day for the managers. As Craig Brown has strived to find a working formula at Aberdeen he's been forced to watch the Motherwell team he deserted thrive.

Pat Fenlon has found the misery at Hibs seeping like damp through the fabric of the club. It can't have taken him long to realise that he needs to transform the whole attitude of Easter Road as much as he needs to transform the team.

Both will know what a big deal a Scottish Cup final or, whisper it, a Scottish Cup win would be for their clubs and what a boost it would be for their standing among supporters.

Oddly Fenlon, the younger man by close to three decades, has more experience at the business end of tournaments and more of a track record in sealing the silverware deal.

Will that mean anything on Saturday?

Probably not.

But woe betide any player on either side who doesn't grasp just what this game will mean to his manager or the fans.

There's of a throwback feel to a Hibs v Aberdeen semi final. A big chance to recapture a hint of past glories in forgettable seasons.

May the best team win.

Or, of course, Hibs.After a week of shrieking SPL outrage, the weekend positively bristles with anticipation and longing.

All eyes are on Hampden.

All stout Scottish footballing hearts are surely longing for an outbreak of football amid the stressful stramashes of the last couple of days.

I imagine there are but few people in Scotland who don't share the view that the ideal scenario for this season's Scottish Cup is for Hibs to beat Aberdeen today before going on to beat Hearts in May's final.

There's the romance you need right there. The magic potion to salve the wounds of a game that has been left feeling distinctly grubby.

110 years of of anguished despair ended by a ragbag collection of loan stars and short-term contracts.

Hollywood would come knocking for the film rights. Hibs and the Scottish Cup meet The Mighty Ducks.

Or maybe that's just me.

The reality is that Hampden is not a happy hunting ground for Hibs.

On my first visit to the national "stadium" - please note, young 'uns, that misty-eyed nostalgia about the Hampden of old ignores the shithole it had become by the 1980s - Alex Ferguson's Aberdeen demolished Hibs 3-0 in the 1985 League Cup final.

Sort of set the tone.

In 2000 a Scottish Cup semi-final took the two clubs to Hampden for a 6.15 kick-off one Sunday evening.

A crowd of little over 20,000 saw a Hibs team featuring the masterful Franck Sauzee and the majestic Russell Latapy undone by Andy Dow, a man who was typically neither masterful nor majestic.

Memories are made of this.

Fair to say that this Scottish Cup semi-final glistens in the gloom of the season so far for both Hibs and Aberdeen.

If SPL life has been uninspiring at Pittodrie it's been woefully incompetent at Easter Road.

That makes this a rather unlikely semi-final and certainly not one that you would have predicted after watching the three previous games between the two this season.

A Scott Vernon penalty - a disputed penalty at that - is all that separates them after 270 minutes of mediocrity.

Mediocrity might in fact be a charitable description of the 0-0 draw at Easter Road in September, a game that will fancy its chances in the always hotly contested "Worst SPL Game of the Season" award.

So there it is: Hampden history suggests an Aberdeen win and recent history suggests a game that will live short in the memory.

It probably won't be as simple as that.

Hibs discovered a hitherto unseen resilience to beat Inverness a couple of weeks ago and improved on that performance in drawing with Motherwell last Sunday.

Aberdeen stopped a run of seven league games without a win last weekend as they secured a clean sweep of SPL victories over Dundee United.

Fluctuating form makes this a hard one to predict. Toiling in the league, both clubs have plotted and plugged their way through the cup draw.

A semi final is a nice bonus, a Scottish Cup final has the potential to turn a poor season into a good one.

Right now I'd take an 89th minute winner being deflected into Aberdeen's net off Garry O'Connor sizeable rump.

That's the fan talking though.

Searching for some vestige of neutrality I have to say this one looks too close to call.

Hibs have looked like a shadow of a football team at times in 2012 but they've still managed to get the job done in the cup.

Aberdeen, slightly fully figured but not in the most robust of footballing health, have struggled to make the most of any superiority they have over Pat Fenlon's team.

Fag paper margins, the difference between a cup final - and possible European qualification - and the anonymity of being losing semi finalists.

A big day for the managers. As Craig Brown has strived to find a working formula at Aberdeen he's been forced to watch the Motherwell team he deserted thrive.

Pat Fenlon has found the misery at Hibs seeping like damp through the fabric of the club. It can't have taken him long to realise that he needs to transform the whole attitude of Easter Road as much as he needs to transform the team.

Both will know what a big deal a Scottish Cup final or, whisper it, a Scottish Cup win would be for their clubs and what a boost it would be for their standing among supporters.

Oddly Fenlon, the younger man by close to three decades, has more experience at the business end of tournaments and more of a track record in sealing the silverware deal.

Will that mean anything on Saturday?

Probably not.

But woe betide any player on either side who doesn't grasp just what this game will mean to his manager or the fans.

There's of a throwback feel to a Hibs v Aberdeen semi final. A big chance to recapture a hint of past glories in forgettable seasons.

May the best team win.

Or, of course, Hibs.

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Ross County: Job Done

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Hall) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 22:30:00 +0000

Purple-faced and incandescent, a collective paroxysm settled on Scotland this week.

Faced with a big decision the SPL scurried to find solace in their default selfishness and proposed voting to save their own souls, even if it meant trampling over the women and children in the rush to the lifeboats.

The result was a set of SPL proposals that pleased nobody and sent blood pressure soaring across the country.

Oddly, for an organisation so hellbent on maximising its commercial potential, the SPL's approach to marketing borders on the masochistic.

You'd kick them even harder and more often if you didn't suspect they must secretly enjoy it.

Sadly our preoccupation with who may or may not be playing in next season's SPL risked overshadowing the achievement of a team who most certainly will be playing SPL football next season.

Congratulations, then, to Ross County.

It's 18 years since County joined the Scottish Football League.

18 years. It's not been a meteoric rise. It's been steady: progress, the odd setback, a Scottish Cup final. All building towards the ultimate goal of promotion to the SPL.

A goal achieved this year by the simple expedient of having the strongest squad in the First Division.

And, in Derek Adams, a manager who could get the best out of them.

A second chance for Adams and one that he's grabbed.

It wasn't that long ago that he was leaving Dingwall and heading for Leith, unveiled as Colin Calderwood's assistant at Easter Road.

Eyebrows were raised and the union proved a brief marriage of inconvenience.

If it was remarkable that the teetotal Adams wasn't driven to drink in the Easter Road madhouse it seemed even stranger that he should return to Dingwall so quickly.

Clearly, however, chairman Roy MacGregor liked what he got with Adams and absence - and travails under Willie McStay and Jimmy Calderwood - made the heart grow fonder.

Derek was back and this time there was going to be no messing about. Promotion, the unfinished business, would be delivered.

And so it has been.

County are now 30 games unbeaten. On Wednesday a 3-1 win at Ayr put the seal on a title that had been delivered by a Chris Higgins equaliser for Queen of the South at Dundee 24 hours earlier.

18 years is a long time. The last eight years must have felt even longer, with Inverness beating County to the SPL punch.

The waiting's now over.

New blood for the SPL and another widening of what used to be quite a constrictive Scottish footballing geography.

A time for rejoicing?

In Dingwall certainly.

Elsewhere?

It appears not everyone is in the party mood.

The litany of gripes grows: finances (I'm not currently privy to the information but the ascent seems less dramatically funded than, say, Gretna), attendances (actually very consistent - small, yes, but steady enough to plan a budget), tactics (30 games undefeated isn't to be sniffed at and success is never that dull for supporters); travel times (a bind for visiting fans, of course, but this is Scotland not Russia); they've not got a proper ground (they do, but the SPL has daft rules and a brief groundshare with Inverness, while not ideal, will allow them to satisfy the bureaucracy).

The list will lengthen.

Some of the moaning will come from aggrieved First Division rivals.

Some of it will come because many of us like a good moan more than we like a good news story. We want to be upset, it's a football thing mixed with a Scottish thing to create a thrawn contrariness that defies one to be impressed by anything. It's a common type of fitba' prickery.

And, who knows, some of it might be entirely justified, grounded in reason and fact and allowing for a good old case of "told you so" when Dingwall dreams become northern nightmares.

All that's for the future.

Right now we've got Ross County proving, while other areas of the game crash and burn, that clubs can progress through our system.

They've done that with community support, a dedicated chairman, an eye on development, a young manager who has grown in the role and some decent players. They've even given the SPL a brand new derby to look forward to.

We need more stories like this.

So congratulations and good luck to the Staggies.

Find out how promotion was won with the excellent Ross County Tactics

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Albion Road

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Hall) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 20:39:00 +0000

After a hiatus caused by nothing more serious than my own predilection for procrastination, I'm delighted to be writing for the fantastic Albion Road again.

We're starting off with a look back at the SPL title race and the contrasting fortunes of Celtic and Rangers in this strange season:

So this has been a season like no other for Rangers and, by extension, for a Scottish game that has been dominated by Glasgow's big two for so long.

Imponderables lie ahead for the Ibrox faithful and for Rangers' competitors in the SPL.
None of that should detract from the present.

The SPL has shown that, if nothing else, it can still just about function as sporting competition: the best team have, deservedly, won the league.

Next week I'll be taking a look at the relegation and European battles ahead as the top six and bottom six head their separate ways.

Thanks, as ever, to Jeremy at Albion Road.

www.albionroad.com
@albion_road

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SPL: Fair or foul

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Hall) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 18:03:00 +0000

The tranquility of my holiday haven on the Solway Coast is shattered as we come closer to answering a question that has vexed us for weeks:

What would the SPL do if Rangers took the ultimate plunge into liquidation before emerging on the other side as a "newco?"

Today an SPL statement regarding 'Financial Fair Play' shed some light on the issue:

On 30 April 2012 the SPL Clubs will consider a range of proposals to amend the Articles and Rules of the SPL. A brief description of the effect of adopting the Resolutions is provided below.

Resolution 1 proposes an increase in the sporting sanction (points deduction) on any Club which suffers or is subject to an Insolvency Event from 10 points to the greater of 15 points and 1/3 of the Club’s SPL points in the preceding season.

Resolution 2A proposes further sporting sanctions in the event that any Club undergoes an Insolvency Transfer Event (i.e. transfers its share in the SPL to a new company where this occurs because of the insolvency of the transferor) of 10 points in each of two consecutive seasons from the Insolvency Transfer Event.

Resolution 2B proposes revisions to the fee payment arrangements i.e. SPL fees to any Club which has undergone an Insolvency Transfer Event will be reduced by 75% in each of three consecutive seasons from the Insolvency Transfer Event.

Resolution 3 proposes extending sporting sanctions where an Insolvency Event is suffered by a Group Undertaking of a Member Club of the SPL (Group Undertaking is defined in Section 1161(5) of the Companies Act 2006).

Resolution 4 proposes updates and extensions to the definition of Insolvency Event in the SPL Rules.

Resolution 5 proposes updates and extensions to the definition of Insolvency Event in the SPL Articles and clarifies the process in the event that a Member which is the subject of an Insolvency Event is required to transfer its share in the Company.

Resolution 6 proposes a specific requirement in the SPL Rules that Clubs must pay their Players in terms of their Contracts of Service on due dates and places a duty on any Club to report any failure to pay its Players in a timely manner to the SPL. Failure to pay Players and / or to notify such failure to the SPL would be a breach of SPL Rules.

Resolution 7 proposes a requirement in the SPL Rules that Clubs report to the SPL any failure to make payments to HMRC in respect of PAYE and NIC (a Default Event). Any Club suffering such a Default Event will be subject to a Player Registration Embargo. Any failure to report a Default Event shall be a breach of the SPL Rules.

Resolutions 2B and 5 require the support of a minimum of 11 Clubs to be adopted; all other Resolutions require the support of a minimum of 8 Clubs to be adopted.

If adopted the amendments to the Articles and Rules will have effect from and including 14 May 2012 (the day after the last day of Season 2011/2012).

No further comment will be made in respect of these proposals until after the General Meeting on 30 April at which they will be considered by the Clubs.

So there we have it. On April 30th the 12 SPL clubs - Rangers will be represented by their administrators - will vote on the framework that would let "Rangers 2012" begin life in the SPL.

Shocked?

Perhaps.

Perhaps not.

I've argued since this whole affair blew up that the SPL - a league founded on greed and self-preservation or, if you prefer, a league founded to maximise commercial revenues - would likely find more solace in keeping Rangers close.

That has led them to this point. Of finding a way to keep Rangers in the SPL while still being seen to punish them.

The sort of compromise that Neil Doncaster will be well used to, the sort of compromise that he was an architect of when a Leeds United newco was admitted to the English Football League.

Hence a three season deduction in revenue and a two season points deduction of ten points.

Given the SPL's silence as they've ferreted away on these changes we might expect them to have been better. Immediately there appears an inconsistency in the severity of punishments being handed out for administration and liquidation.

And a ten point deduction for two seasons doesn't seem much. Half-hearted to the point of being meaningless.

It's a bad idea for the SPL to give the impression that Doncaster's drafted these changes on the back of Ralph Topping's cigar packet. But that's the impression that will linger.

Things to remember: these rule changes still need to be passed by the SPL's 12 men in suits. And Rangers are not yet liquidated, they might never be liquidated.

Still the Scottish football public is agog and aghast.

"Too lenient" cry the massed ranks of non-Rangers supporters.

"Too harsh" cry the Rangers fans.

"Badly timed" say Ibrox administrators Duff and Phelps while announcing a delay to their announcement of the preferred bidders. The interested parties are given time to digest the proposed rule changes and how they might affect their plans for the club.

Anecdotally I'm hearing a lot of people saying they'll be finished with the SPL if a new Rangers are allowed a place in the SPL under new rules.

I understand that argument but my own view will always be that I support my team not the league they play in and I will continue to do so.

I've also heard from Rangers fans arguing that they should say "screw the SPL" and join the SFL in a fit of pique.

With your club in something of a fix some humility would not go amiss. But there is an interesting theory wrapped up in the outrage: Rangers spending three seasons fighting through the league structure might actually reinvigorate the whole of Scottish football.

What we have learnt throughout this process, however, is that putting a 'For Sale' sign up outside Ibrox does not spark a rush of bargain hunters. The SPL might be flawed but I'm not sure all those interested in trying to clean up Rangers' mess would trade the top flight for the Third Division on a point of principle.

For prospective buyers it might really be a case of "SPL and sort of bust" or "SFL and completely bust."

It is likely that clubs will be voting on these changes with certain issues remaining unresolved.

The SPL will - rightly or wrongly - shrug off Rangers' outstanding tax issues by saying such matters should be dealt with by the relevant authorities not a football league.

They'll try and body swerve the morality of liquidation, of the businesses left out of pocket through Rangers' mismanagement, in much the same way.

The results of investigations carried out by the SFA and the SPL themselves might be harder to dodge.

But, if nothing else, the SPL is a refuge of the brass necked and the two faced. They'll sit out those controversies and say "actually those investigations are only relevant to the old Rangers, not this shiny, new mob we've let in to the league."

Those riders again: liquidation might not happen, the SPL clubs might not vote in favour of these proposals.

Liquidation might happen though, it might be unavoidable whatever the demands of the fans and whatever the intentions of the new owners. And the SPL might vote "yes."

We've seen today the ill feeling that will bring. And the damage it will do to the game.

I've said all along that the SPL decision makers were going to have a decision to make. A hard decision.

A decision that would cause a rammy like none we've seen before.

Nothing was decided today. But we got a glimpse of where we're headed.

That nobody is happy suggests we're on the road to a very SPL-like resolution. Please none of the people all of the time.

It's hard to see how, in the view of the paying public, the SPL can emerge from April 30th with anything other than an even more damaged product.

There remains a future for Scottish football.

It just doesn't look very bright right now.

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Hibs: A sorry saga

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Hall) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 17:45:00 +0000

Little by little, inch by inch, Hibs are moving towards SPL safety.

Three points salvaged from a poor performance in Inverness were followed by a single point in an encouraging display against Motherwell on Sunday.

These are not earth shattering displays. But they are enough to edge further from a poor Dunfermline side who have not yet enjoyed the bounce they might have expected when unveiling Jim Jefferies as a managerial Red Adair.

A seven point advantage with 15 points to play for doesn't represent safety for Hibs. But it's going to take something special to condemn them to the First Division.

So it should be an optimistic sunshine that settles on Leith in the run up to Saturday's Scottish Cup semi final against Aberdeen on Saturday.

Is it?

I'm not so sure.

While tickets for that Hampden clash have been described as steady, cup fever has yet to grip the club.

An attendance for the Motherwell game of just over 7000 points to a supporter base that is being reduced to a rump.

The deadline for season ticket renewals has been extended. The official reason for this, to compensate for the increased demand on the clubs resources caused by the sale of semi-final tickets, should be treated with care.

Such is the concern within the club at falling attendances and poor sales that chairman Rod Petrie was forced into a public statement last week.

For those of us who watch events at Easter Road with an interest bordering on obsession any breaking of Petrie's silence is a major event.

This is a man who seems to think of himself as the mute force of good sense and benevolence at Hibs, the moustachioed Buddha of Albion Road.

So a Petrie statement is unusual. A Petrie apology is even rarer. But here it was:

"We made mistakes - I made mistakes. I am sorry. We have paid for these mistakes. That was then, this is 2012."

He went on to praise manager Pat Fenlon - "a tough competitor and a winner" - and quote statistics to illustrate the team's progress since Fenlon took over from Colin Calderwood. He even name checked the previous manager when acknowledging the decline in attendances.

The problem for Petrie and the Hibs board is that we've heard all this before.

In July of 2011 the chairman was making a stout defence of Calderwood, backing that up with illustrative statistics and pinning the blame on John Hughes.

For all the solace he takes in silence, Rod Petrie is running the risk of becoming the SPL chairman who cried wolf.

And that is leading to a deficit of trust.

The fans would react to a more successful team. But they don't trust the current board to furnish that ambition. That makes season ticket sales a hard sell.

It's an even harder sell if you present frozen ticket prices as some sort of victory for people power. It's not if people already think those prices are too steep.

It's doubly hard if you slip through an announcement that interest will now be charged on your "pay monthly" season ticket deal.

And it's even harder if you start selling season tickets when there remains a chance you'll be playing lower division football for the season in question.

These were a series of marketing decision that fuelled the idea that the Hibs board either have no cognisance of the feelings of fans or no regard for those feelings.

When a board appears to be navigating blindly through modern football there is very little chance of them being able to rely on the blind faith of supporters.

The bloody-minded player's coup that Petrie allowed to triumph over John Collins, the unsatisfactory reign of Mixu Paatelainen, the gradual descent of Hughes' stewardship into verbose madness, the mistake of first appointing Calderwood and then standing by him during a summer of rumour and indecisiveness.

Rod Petrie and his incoming chief executive Scott Lindsay have been around for these misjudgements, unsteady hands on the tiller during ever stormier weather.

The result is the current league plight. And a fans that have gone through rage and settled on detached apathy.

Apathy should be the thing that a football club fears the most.

"Please play your part and do whatever you can to help Pat and to support your team.

"By working together we can bring success to the Club. We are Hibernian!"

That was Rod Petrie's closing plea to supporters last week.

I agree with him. I'd love fans to renew season tickets, to see them queue round the block for semi final tickets, to throng the turnstiles for the league challenges ahead.

But I won't blame for them not doing that. Money's tight, people aren't daft. There are only so many times you'll let the club you love smack you in the face before deciding the pain and the hassle are not worth it.

And it's Rod Petrie and his board, the directors he has hand picked, who are largely to blame for that.

It will take more than statements, retrospective apologies and selective statistics to right those wrongs.

So this is a big week for Hibs. A strong performance against Aberdeen, the promise of a Scottish Cup final to come. These are things for fans to get enthused about.

An emphatic run in the bottom six of the league would also help, a run to quell those rebellious Fifers and give a hint of the sort of team Fenlon hopes to mould over the summer.

That would help confirm the view that buying a season ticket won't be an expensive form of masochism next season.

I hope the players and Fenlon can pull it off. And I hope the fans respond if they do.

Still though I can't shift the conclusion that it's the board not the fans or the manager who should be contributing more to the well-being of the club.

The days, weeks and months ahead might represent a defining moment for Hibs.

It's time for Rod Petrie to realise that actions speak louder than words.

> Cup or survival?

That question's been asked a lot of late among Hibs fans. Petrie's statement spoke of the fans helping the team achieve both. Ian Murray is quoted as saying the "romantic" notion for fans and players would be a cup triumph over SPL survival?

I don't remember Hibs winning the Scottish Cup. I do remember the anguish of relegation.

So depressing would the act of relegation be that I don't see how Hibs could win the cup after being dumped into the First Division.

It's survival and the chance of a cup win or nothing for me.

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Celtic: Sealing the deal

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Hall) — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 01:17:00 +0000

After a shaky start to the season and having already been denied a couple of cracks at sealing the SPL was there a danger that Celtic would stutter to the finish line?

No.

A 6-0 thumping of Kilmarnock and that was that. The title done and dusted by 2.45pm on the 7th of April. Efficient.

That the championship champagne has popped so early is in no small part to the bonfire of the vanities that is being played out at Ibrox.

Are Celtic supporters being pulled three ways at the moment?

Celebrating a title. Taking more than a little joy in the Rangers implosion. Feeling the need to justify the former in light of the latter.

They shouldn't be.

This league championship should be celebrated without caveats. It's a triumph that has been both hard earned and deserved.

The ten points that a succession of crooks have cost Rangers might have allowed the victory party to kick off early.

But it was the way that Celtic reacted to their own bad start that mattered.

That brief but very real 15 point deficit. That moment at Rugby Park - and how fitting it was that an emphatic win at Kilmarnock should seal the title - when they found themselves 3-0 down and staring infamy in the face.

The reaction was magnificent. Celtic bulldozed their way through the SPL, overhauled Rangers and nabbed control of this league season. And they did all that before the administrators finally neutered their only real rivals as a competitive force.

An achievement that will mean a lot to Neil Lennon. Maybe only he will know just how much.

I've said before that you don't need to like Lennon. Football fans tend not to like opposing managers. That's football.

Two idiots sending a football manager a bomb in the post. That's something else.

To have stuck at the job so single mindedly and to have secured the trophy he so desperately wanted represents a very personal triumph for the Celtic manager.

His players will likely dominate the various awards shortlists this season. Lennon has the most talented squad in Scotland at his disposal.

He's used it wisely. He seems to have kept the players happy, he's shown the confidence to change things to meet immediate challenges, he's fielded sides strong enough to win games when not at their best.

Those are essential ingredients for a title winning side. Lennon's Celtic have been the only club in the SPL to have come close to meeting those challenges this year.

That's why they've won the league. It must also be heartening for Celtic to see the way in which players have improved over the course of the season.

I found Charlie Mulgrew's brace in yesterday's clinching win fitting.

The modern Celtic manager is charged with two important tasks: win titles, of course, but also take players that aren't yet the finished article and turn them into the sort of players that can deliver those titles.

That's the rider that goes with Lennon's dream job. He's pulled it off with aplomb this season even if it's a boardroom approach that might yet rob him of the chance to build a side to compete with the vintage Celtic teams of old.

Mulgrew's season has perhaps been a vindication of both the club's approach and the manager's ability to meet the full remit of his role.

Football historians will one day devote chapters and chapters to this strangest of Scottish football seasons. Humble chroniclers of the game will be musing on the fallout for years to come.

But we are all still here for the football. And the only thing that matters right now is that Celtic are the SPL champions and they've achieved that by having the best team and a manager able to give that team the platform to realise its potential.

A shot at a double lies just around the corner. There might be a golden opportunity to turn this Celtic side into the catalyst for a dominant domestic dynasty. European tests await.

That's the future.

For now we can acknowledge that Neil Lennon's Celtic are the best team in the country and the league champions.

Even in the dysfunctional world of Scottish football that is exactly how it should be.

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Hibs: That's Fife

noreply@blogger.com (Tom Hall) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 18:52:00 +0000

Confirmation this week that Fife Hyland, Hibs' managing director, is to stand down at the end of the season.

Few tears will be shed in Leith where rumours of a parting of the ways had been gathering pace for a week or more.

I'm often told that Hyland's real strengths lie on the commercial side of Hibs' operations.

That's a nice, convenient excuse trotted out by those who seem to have forgotten that Hibs remain, first and foremost, a football club where the most important victories have to be won on the pitch.

Since Hyland took over the role last spring Hibs have enjoyed more SPL wins in Inverness than they have at home.

On Hyland's watch they've had more managers than they've had home SPL wins.

They're currently embroiled in a relegation battle. Season ticket sales have fallen, attendances have dropped and the annual accounts are losing the prudent sheen that Hibs have long held so dear.

It's been a disaster, although any joy at his departure must be tempered by the news that he is to be replaced by Scott Lindsay as chief executive.

As executive director in charge of football affairs, Lindsay has mirrored Hyland's annus horribilis - a year described by chairman Rod Petrie as "catastrophic".

Hibs stood firm in the face of overtures from Birmingham City to retain Colin Calderwood as manager in the summer. Inevitably the detached, struggling coach then had to be compensated following his early season dismissal.

Players have come and gone, contracts have been terminated, money has been lost and the team has continued to struggle.

If the role of chief executive is a promotion then Scott Lindsay is being rewarded for abject failure: a state of affairs that pretty much confirms how slowly lessons are learned among the powerful at Easter Road.

Before these boardroom changes are made Hibs still have to negotiate their way to survival in the league and play a Scottish Cup semi-final.

The SPL's post split fixture times have thrown up two home games and three away games.

An oddity of the schedule, perhaps a predictable oddity, is that Hibs have five different kick off times across that quintet of destiny.

Five games. Five kick off times.

On this issue I can admit to a certain sympathy for Hyland.

I wrote about it just a couple of weeks ago and Stuart Bathgate covered the same subject in The Scotsman:

Even a quarter-hour here or there can make a difference to some fans as they try to make childcare or travel arrangements. And, perhaps more importantly, the fact is that they often do not know until a relatively short time before the game when the kick-off will be.

There are probably not too many other industries which sell customers a product while refusing to let them know when they can use it, but that is what football clubs are essentially doing these days when they put their season tickets up for sale. When you buy a ticket you know it will entitle you to a seat for most if not all of your team’s home games – but you don’t know when those games will be. And often, once kick-off times are announced, they get changed nearer the time.

Hibs reckon they get close to four times as much money from matchday receipts as they do from TV. It is therefore easy to understand why Hibs managing director Fife Hyland insists that supporters, not TV, are the lifeblood of the game.

A bad situation has got even worse.

By the season's end Hibs will have endured 16 different kick off times across the three domestic competitions.

The only day of the week they'll not have played is a Thursday. They'll have had six different kick off times on Sundays alone.

There's no longer even the consolation of home and away fixtures, which would at least give the season ticket holder some semblance of a fortnightly structure.

As a TV viewer would you stick with a 44 episode series if the scheduling was as scatter-gun as that?

Probably not. You'd be pissed off, you'd drift away and you'd conclude that the schedulers had no faith in the programme and little respect for the viewer.

The SPL is denied the chance to carve out any real TV identity while at the same time slapping the more valuable paying punter about the face so often that there is an increased risk of them turning away from the game.

That won't have made Fife Hyland's job any easier, dropping another problem in his lap to go with all the others caused by the failings of the corporate structure at Easter Road that he was an integral part of.

Maybe Hibs can put some of those failings right. But the scheduling horse seems to have already bolted.

That inevitably means more fans will make like Hyland himself and scramble through the stable door.

Sweet sixteen:

Monday 12.15 pm
Monday 7.45 pm

Tuesday 7.45 pm

Wednesday 7.15 pm
Wednesday 7.45 pm

Friday 7.45 pm

Saturday 12.15 pm
Saturday 12.30 pm
Saturday 1.30 pm
Saturday 3 pm

Sunday 12 pm
Sunday 12.15 pm
Sunday 12.30 pm
Sunday 3 pm
Sunday 3.15 pm
Sunday 3.45 pm

Sources:

The Scotsman, Clubs and fans being messed about by the power of TV, 29/03/12
HibernianTV interview with Rod Petrie, 04/04/12

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