Extra Time – A Scottish football round-up
Ah, another week in the wonderful world of Scottish football lies ahead. Generally at this time of year, football bloggers take a break from the keyboards and enjoy a well-earned break from the cut and thrust of blogging about the round ball game, but the close season so far has been anything but closed.
Thankfully as a Scottish football blog we didn’t have to spend too much time talking about all the nonsense surrounding Ronaldo, the most expensive man-child in the world as he finally fecks off to chase his dreams in Madrid or the way he’s spending a lot of time in Paris these days. Neither do we have to waste any column inches to the unfolding fiasco at Newcastle, formerly the biggest club in the north-east of England, and now just another Championship side with hee-haw chance of getting sold or back in the EPL anytime soon, no matter how funny it might be. And as for England and their World Cup qualifying campaign, who gives a good fart if they beat Andorra (the world’s only international pub team) or Kazakhstan, whereverthehellthatis. Not us, that’s for sure.
Up here in Scotland, within hours and days of the end of the season, we had three clubs without a manager, one club losing nearly all their players (retaining only enough to field a 5-a-side team plus 1 reserve), two clubs battling to stay in existence and one television station within days of going under, taking all their revenue, and possibly one or two SPL clubs with them. And we’re only half-way through June!
Yes, no time was lost getting rid of the deadwood. Or to be more precise, Jimmy Calderwood. The Aberdeen manager was sent packing right after he managed to secure European football for the second time in three years as well as finishing in the top four for the fifth time in six years.
If that’s the kind of form that gets you fired in Scotland, there’s going to be a lot of managers changing jobs up here soon.
Calderwood committed the cardinal sin of not winning any silverware (i.e. domestic cups) all of which is bad enough, but ‘not winning silverware’ translates roughly to ‘going out to lower leage opposition twice in a row’ which is unforgivable. The perma-tan former Dunfermline manager was sent packing, along with the rest of his backroom staff. Not many tears where shed by the Aberdeen faithful, his obvious Rangers bias coming through more often than not (and we’re not just talking about his orange hue).
Meanwhile, across the country, Gordon Strachan (aka ‘Wee Gordon Strachan’) threw in the towel at Celtic after he narrowly missed out on winning the title for the fourth time in row. It would have taken a minor miracle for Celtic to have won the league on that final day, requiring Rangers to lose to United and Celtic to score, oh, a whole bunch of goals against Hearts. Unlike Calderwood’s sacking, Strachan’s departure surprised few, but delighted many. But like Calderwood, Strachan was never hugely popular at the club. A man not of the Celtic tradition and a man once attacked on the pitch at Celtic Park whilst he was still playing for Aberdeen, he didn’t get off to a great start with that shocker of a result against Artmedia Bratislava all those years ago, but nevertheless he still managed to win the league three years on the trot, the League Cup twice, the Scottish Cup once and pick up three SPFA Manager Of The Year gongs
Not to be outdone, Mixu Paateleinen decided enough mid-table mediocrity was enough, so he too decided to call it a day over at Hibernian. The big Fin, a player managed to get the team into the top half of the table, but that early exit in the Inter Toto Cup (a 4-0 aggregate defeat to IF Elfsborg), together with getting knocked out by Morton in the League Cup made his tenure a long hard slog, much like the football he was accused of getting his teams to play.
So with all the commotion, no time was wasted finding replacement gaffers before the players come back from their short break at Butlins.
Mark McGhee was quickly drafted in to take over at his former club. Well, only after Celtic wouldn’t give him the job that is. To be fair, McGhee never denied that Aberdeen was his second choice after Celtic (a club he played for previously) and who could blame him. As was so delightfully put on BBC Scotland’s Footloose program the other day, if you had the choice of managing your local corner shop or Harrods, you’d not be long deciding.
Hibernian appointed Falkirk manager John ‘Yogi’ Hughes to be the man to take Hibs from 6th to 5th next season. A good choice we reckon. Falkirk have played some really nice attacking football over the last season, and you’d think that with the likes of Fletcher, Nish and Riordan up front, Hibs and Hughes could be quite a quite a threat next season. Or maybe not, if history is anything to go by.
Speaking of Hibs, Celtic are on the verge of bringing Tony Mowbray up north from West Bromwich Albion. Celtic had tried to get Burnley’s Owen Coyle, who clearly fancies a season of getting thumped every week to winning silverware in Scotland as well as Swansea’s Roberto Martinez, a man who would rather manage mid-tablers Wigan in their half empty stadium every week. At the time of writing, the websites where already starting to fill with former WBA players saying they fancy a year north of the border, so clearly the Mowbray deal is now at the personal terms stage, the sticking point now being around whether or not Celtic will agree to the bowl of M&M’s with the blue ones taken out being provided before every game.
We’ve gone on record on this site how we feel about former players returning to manage their former clubs so we’ll not delve into it again here, but good luck to them all we say. Just don’t say we didn’t warn you when we get to Christmas and your team is out of every competition going …
Unfortunately, it’s not all glitz and money in Scottish football. Throughout the season we’ve seen and heard reports about trouble in the lower divisions. Livingston have had problems paying players, while Stranraer (who amassed debts of over £250,000 last season) and Stirling Albion are both launching bids to raise money from the supporters in order to save their respective clubs.
News this week came through about the goings on at Clyde. The ‘Bully Wee’ where relegated from the First Division and this week announced another 12 players who agreed to have their contracts terminated in order to avoid bankruptcy; this follows on from the 13 out-of-contract players already released previously. Manager John Brown has announced open trails next Saturday (June 22nd) to restock the club and secure survival.
While money has always been too tight to mention for the teams in the SFL, it’s not always been a land of milk and honey for the top flight teams either. The threatened demise of Setanta has caused quite a stir north of the border. While the amount of money that the SPL received from the troubled Irish broadcaster is small change compared to the mega-deals on offer to the Barclays Premier League, the £125m investment the Setanta deal promised, represented a sizable chunk of income for many SPL sides. One SPL chairman was quoted as saying that his club’s entire wage bill of £1.5m is paid for by the money from the broadcaster. It’s a situation that is probably echoed at a number of clubs, including Kilmarnock, reputed to have a £12m debt, and Hearts, currently the club in Scotland with the largest net debt, estimated at some £37m. For clubs like St Mirren, Motherwell, Falkirk and even Dundee United, the Setanta money represents about 20-30% of their income.
Last week the Scottish Premier League stepped in to pay the £3m Setanta owed the 12 clubs in the SPL, after Setanta defaulted on the payment. The SPL clearly expect this money to be repaid, and good news arrived when it emerged that a Russian-born billionaire was preparing a £20m takeover of Setanta. However, even if Setanta was to survive, there are doubts about the continuity of the existing deal that Setanta has with the SPL. Clearly, whatever deal the new owners strike with Setanta will involve a reappraisal and renegotiation of the deals already in place. The SPL would be foolish to assume that the new owners are going to carry on with the deal, which would have seen Setanta broadcast live coverage from 2010 onwards.
But the SPL are not in a strong negotiating position. Scottish football – as we’re continually being told, is not an attractive proposition – and interest in the game outside of Scotland is minimal at best. In the interest of the clubs they represent, the SPL would do well to accept whatever deal it gets from the new Setanta, because there simply are no other parties interested in taking over live coverage of Scottish football.
What it means for our clubs is not yet clear, but one thing is for sure: the shockwaves from the Setanta deal could rumble on for seasons to come.
Punditry