Watching Billy Connolly make the draw for the third round of the William Hill Scottish Cup on Monday, it was tempting to suppose that the 71-year-old Big Yin – lately diagnosed as suffering from both Parkinson’s disease and prostate cancer – had renewed his interest in football on the principle of the old Scots saying: “There’s aye somebody worse off than yersel.” True, Celtic this week came third in a survey of financially healthy European clubs but, as the authors felt they had to add, the ranking was no gauge of match performance. Just ask Hoops fans who watched their side against Hamilton on Sunday. The Accies, though, are an exception. The game north of the border badly needs the sheen of success and it is sadly indicative that even Gordon Strachan’s adventurous Scotland side, whose progress has been a pleasure to watch over the past 18 months, had – at the time of writing – persuaded only around 33,000 fans to buy tickets for their meeting with Georgia at Ibrox on Saturday evening. No doubt the crowd will have swollen by the 5pm kick-off but after a summer and autumn of tremendous spectacle in Scotland – Commonwealth Games, independence referendum and Ryder Cup – one might have supposed that the resurgent national side would provide another focus for the energy that brimmed over during all three events. The sad reality is that the domestic game in Scotland is in its poorest state for very many years. Strachan’s squad selection for the Euro 2016 double header provides a formidable indictment – three home-based players in a 27-strong pool. Bought and sold for English gold, as Robert Burns observed about other events, though it was ever thus in football. There have been many Scotland squads in which the Anglos, as they used to be called, riled some of their home-based team-mates by bragging about their wages. However, there was usually a core of Old Firm representatives who could hold their own in that debate and who would throw in exploits in the Champions League which could not be replicated in the lower reaches of the English Premier League or in the Championship. But Celtic, in the absence of pressure from Rangers, have had to subsidise their own support to turn up to what is frequently no more than a half-full stadium. The Hoops board should not be condemned for prudence in outlay on players, since the domestic title is a stick-on and the quarter-finals of the Champions League virtually out of reach. As for events at Ibrox, the sheer weariness of following a team which has been tramping up through the lower divisions for three seasons against a backdrop of poisonous boardroom politics was summed up in the words of a long-time season- ticket holder who confided, prior to kick-off in the Hibs game last week, that “there’s no joy in being a Rangers supporter any more”. Observers of the Scottish game and supporters of teams outside the Old Firm lamented the overwhelming dominance of the duopoly, but at least the Glasgow pair acted as an economic dynamo within the domestic set-up, even if that sometimes amounted to not much more than buying the best of their rivals’ talent and contributing towards the largest attendances at many away ground. Their perennial rivalry lured sponsors and broadcasters, all willing to pay for a genuine rivalry involving both clubs. Again, that was a cash source which was distributed – after Celtic and Rangers had exacted the greater part of it, to be sure – throughout the rest of the top division. Hamilton made for wonderful copy on Sunday and it warms the heart to see Alex Neil and his players rewarded and lauded for a commitment to attractive football, but nothing can make up for the loss to the top division of the Old Firm and Edinburgh derbies and the absence of three of the five biggest clubs in the land. Even assuming Rangers make it to the Premiership this year, how long will it take them to get into shape as genuine title contenders? If and when they do haul themselves back into the ring, Rangers – one hopes – will have been as sobered by their experience of debt and the attention of corporate vultures as Celtic were by their near-death experience in 1994. Should that be the case, the knock-on effect will be the reduction of their incidental subsidy of other areas of the domestic game. And that is not allowing for the prospect of a Mike Ashley takeover which the Ibrox support fear would end up alienating them in the same fashion as has happened to their Newcastle United counterparts. Be all of that as it may, one swift antidote – a partial one, yes, but welcome nonetheless – would be for Scotland to mount a successful Euro 2016 qualifying campaign, with lift-off at Ibrox on Saturday. Meanwhile, in respect of the above summary of the domestic scene it is always worth remembering another of Billy Connolly’s favourite phrases: it’s being so cheerful that keeps ye going.
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 12:30:09 +0000
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