Today’s big story in the tabloids; Sevco’s narrow win, secured in the last minute, and with the aid of a penalty kick, over Kilmarnock, a team so absolutely dreadful they went into last night’s game without a manager, just weeks after suffering a 5-1 hiding from the worst team in the SPL.
The other big story was Hibs beating Hearts by a single goal, to likewise book a place in the next round of the Scottish Cup.
These scorelines were immediately seized upon by the press, always eager to paint something involving Sevco in the best possible light, as the “proof” that there is nothing to choose between the top flight and the second tier.
It gets tiresome this, doesn’t it?
For openers, Hibs beating Hearts isn’t a great shock. Hibs are an SPL team playing in the lower league, and everyone pretty much acknowledges that. They’re in one domestic cup final already and this result puts them on the cusp of another one. Hearts have had a good season, but Hibs were always capable of winning this tie.
To suggest it shows some similarity between the SPL and the second tier is sheer nonsense.
In a cup tie anything can happen.
When Inverness knocked us out and ended the career of John Barnes, did anyone suggest that the First Division, as it was then, was the equal of the top flight?
No, they didn’t.
This kind of thing happens every year and not just in Scottish football but in domestic cup competitions all over the world.
What they’re really asking is this; “Can Sevco really get promoted and ease their way back to the top?”
This is what this idiotic assertion is based on, more wishful thinking from a tabloid press that never stops slobbering over the people at Ibrox.
Sevco fans, with their own typical arrogance, are gleeful about this result, ignoring the fact they were playing against a team in disarray matched only by that at Tannadice. If Dundee Utd look suitably doomed then I don’t see how Kilmarnock avoids a play-off spot. That, ironically, might put them up against the Ibrox club again before the season ends, and once Lee Clark has got his ideas across to his players you might well see a very different game.
The same people who are asking this ridiculous question were asking it last year, when Sevco had just beaten another hapless Kilmarnock side, by 3-0.
By the end of the season their limitations had been starkly realised, even before Motherwell destroyed them over two legs and showed them just how far from the SPL standard they actually were.
St Johnstone have already handed them a lesson – at Ibrox no less – during this domestic campaign.
It’s true to say that sometimes sides come up from the second tier and surprise people but it’s rare. Hearts have had a heck of a season, which makes Hibs win over them all the more impressive, but they are a club who consistently did right the things Sevco has consistently done wrong. They have a fantastic young manager who plays good attacking football and they’ve focussed on the fundamentals; developing talent and spending only what they can afford.
They behave like a serious club, and they deserve to be treated as one.
Sevco fans think they behave like a big club, but this constant screaming for the attention of the world and this continuous quest to stay “current” shows that deep down they know their own limitations. The flap, this past week, over this European Super League nonsense was framed as being bad for Celtic; in fact, the press was grievously concerned because the whole “Dave King plan” is predicated on European football income.
This notion that there’s nothing between the two leagues is ridiculous.
A lot of the Championship teams still play in run-down stadiums.
Three of the clubs are only part time sides.
The SPL is where the action is and where access to Europe is.
Over the course of a season, the fundamental things do tell.
Sevco would be a middle table team at best.
Beating a dreadful Kilmarnock team doesn’t make them world beaters.