The 4-1 defeat of Rangers at the hands of Romanian champions Unirea Urziceni last night was the second 4-1 defeat Walter Smith has had to endure in this seasons Champions League campaign and leaves the Ibrox side firmly rooted at the bottom of their group, with only an outside chance of qualifying for the next stage; a victory away in Romania in the next game is an absolute requirement.
The Romanians, managed by former Chelsea player Dan Petrescu had a fair slice of luck (a Lee McCulloch own goal, two deflected goals of Kyle Lafferty and Stephen Naismith and a missed first half penalty) but the manner of the result is irrelevant – quite simply, this is the best Scottish football can muster at the moment.
The shock at this result is not so much in the scoreline, but rather in the way that Rangers showed such ineptitude in all areas of the field so as to be overturned by an obscure side from an equally obscure league.
The defeat comes at a time when newspapers, pod casts and blogs have been full of talk of the Old Firm leaving Scotland to join some kind of EPL2 or an Atlantic League. At Inside Left we feel that either of these moves is not only inevitable but also necessary for the long term survival of the game north of the border.
While the bodies that run the game in Scotland acknowledge that drastic change is needed to revive the fortunes of our club sides as well as our national sides, those same authorities have so far been largely impotent in their desire to force through change.
The report that Henry McLeish is currently putting together will be largely forgotten once it sees the light of day sometime around April 2010, with many of the fans who attended last months debate into the state and future of the Scottish game believing that McLeish report will do little to force through change that the game desperately needs.
We where somewhat surprised then – and not to mention disappointed – to hear of the latest initiative from the SPL.
The league, under the stewardship of former Norwich Chief Executive Neil Doncaster, has launched the “SPL Family Champions” program, aimed at getting families to return to our grounds. In essence, the league are sending in undercover families to each of the 12 SPL grounds, who will then:
“report back on such things as the initial enquiry and booking the tickets, the journey to the match, the club shop, refreshments, stewards and other club personnel, the match itself and the extent to which the family is engaged by the experience. Once the report is in, the club that has performed best throughout the season will be announced as ‘SPL Family Champions’”.
The result of getting more families into the ground is an increase in gate receipts which will be invested into players and, hence, making our clubs more competitive on the field of play. Or so the theory goes. Doncaster has tried this method at Norwich, where he managed to treble the number of season ticket holders, despite, as Doncaster himself puts it, very mixed results on the pitch.
While we welcome any initiative which helps to bring much needed income to our clubs, it is disappointing that Doncaster’s first real move is this well intentioned, but ultimately misplaced initiative.
The problem with Scottish football goes way beyond small attendances, the quality of the half-time pies or the glossiness of the match-day program
When Inside Left first starting watching football, it was not the cleanliness of the toilets that brought us back to Pittodrie week on week. Rather, it was the thrill of seeing an excellent team playing in a competitive league.
And those last two factors are key to not only getting people back to the stadiums, but also to keep them coming back week after week. Doncaster’s initiative, laced with marketing terms such as “quality of the family experience” and “best practice guides” will not deliver that, until – to use his own language – the quality of the product on the pitch improves.
And that quality is currently at a very low level, as evidenced by the performances of our teams in Europe this season. The Scottish Football Blog has summarized the situation very accurately in his posting today; it makes for depressing reading.
One has to wonder if, based on the display by the Scottish champions last night at Ibrox, the 1200 Armed Forces personnel given free tickets for the game would ever return. One has to wonder if Doncaster’s undercover army of families would return every week to half empty stadiums; or games played in the middle of winter; or to pay the best part of £100 it would cost to see a team ship 8 goals in two games, or to be knocked out by a team from Liechtenstein; would they return to be intimidated by bigotry and sectarianism (irregardless of the origins); or to be ever mindful of a flying bottle or even fights outside the ground.
Scottish football and Scottish society is in crisis, and Doncaster’s initiative is nothing more than re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.
While we support the SPL Family Champions initiative, until the authorities in the shape of the SFA, the SPL, the SFL and the Scottish Parliament have the courage to face the real problems affecting the game and the country, things may not get worse – but they certainly wont get any better.
Related posts:
- If only we’d gone with Sky…
- Damn you Andrew Little! (or: “The Scottish Fitba Review”)
- Arse has collapsed, again…
- The continuing saga of Scottish football
- More losers in Europe?
Tags: Atlantic League, Celtic, Rangers, Scottish football, Scottish Premier League, SPL