What a disaster for Motherwell last night, to lose at home, in Europe, to a League of Ireland team. The epic humiliation to our national game whenever we have a result like this reverberates outside of the team who were affected by it. It hits us all.
It comes on the heels of the ever-evolving disaster at Hibs, a club now stuck fast in the Danger Zone and heading for crisis at warp speed. Their League Cup performances would have been bad, and worrying, enough for the fans … the calamitous administration which led to the fielding of an ineligible player is proof of how dysfunctional they are.
This is not good for Scottish football, that two of its top flight clubs are in this state so early in the season. The Hibs news is especially worrisome. Because to put it bluntly, Celtic needs competition. We need some semi-competent level of football going on around us, or we’re going to go backwards as a club no matter what the manager might achieve.
Hearts are talking big about winning the league. Good for them. Aberdeen talked that way not that long ago before a series of terrible decisions did for them. I still don’t know what they expect from Jim Goodwin, but it won’t be a Premiership title. Hearts, at least, matched the rhetoric with a third place finish and a Scottish Cup final place.
I take zero satisfaction from Motherwell’s result last night; I know there are people out there who simply wish every other Scottish club but their own ill when they play in Europe but I am not one of them. Whilst my goodwill does not extend to a certain club across the city, it does extend everywhere else. I want these clubs to succeed.
I want these clubs to have access to additional revenues. I want to see them be able to sign, and keep, a better class of footballer. I want them to be able to invest in youth development. Instead they seem locked into a permanent spiral of decline.
And eventually, no matter our own successes, this will drag us down. We need these teams to be stronger. We need them to be better. We are a long way from that.
If that’s Lee Griffiths in the picture he’s certainly let himself go.
Leigh wouldn’t wear a blue shirt and his pal beside him, with his boaby on display, should have been arrested.
I want any Scottish club to do well in Europe apart from the obvious
Anything as corrupt as Scottish football should never thrive but should,in fact, fester and die.
My sentiments exactly re: supporting other Scottish teams. I always root for them, even feckin’ Hearts, as they are representing our game…just consistently poorly. I wouldn’t support the huns even if the fate of the planet depended on it.
Nothing will ever change in Scottish football as long as it’s us and the scum as two monolithic institutions and the rest of the diddies run by the same narrow-viewpoint parochial wee bowling club committee-types with the all the vision of Stevie Wonder. It’s going to take a lot more than big words and good intentions to restore Scotland to any kind of respectability in European footballing terms, more than the “decent run with maybe a final” every decade or so from our sides since the 1980s.
Benjamin, could you give us a “back of envelope” economic analysis of the benefits to all clubs in the SFA for a more exciting, high quality, competitive competition. James, very timely blog. Right on the button.
I’m old school, and it’s not easy for me to wish any other Clubs in Scotland well as they have always in the past made life difficult for our Club and our fans whenever they have had the chance, Their fans also being mostly huns who cannot afford the bus fare does not endear them to me either. However, wishing them well in Europe is something I can just about manage to do as it ultimately helps Celtic with the coefficient factor, It would be be nice to enhance that on our own every season but assistance from elsewhere has got to be appreciated.
The Motherwell’s, Hibs, Hearts ,Dundee Utd’s of Scottish football are spoken by the SMSM as being vitally integral to the whole set up of pro football in this country. Nothing ever changes with them! Out of Europe before the season has begun! It’s a merry go round , a cycle of underachievers.There are plenty of people out there earning money from this chronic ineptitude, and the governing bodies continue with the Ostrich syndrome as an answer!
This would actually be a decent league if Aberdeen hearts and hibs were punching their weight an pulling average crowd of above 15k all at the same time.. for a city of a quarter of a million people with one club in to be pulling crowds of 11k is laughable , only hearts are pulling decent crowds out of the 3
We need sevco to die FACT everything else will fall into place no dirty heathen In terbreeding zombie orange loyalist vermin scum the total eractication extermination and extinction is the only acceptable to all decent christians
Been like this for years. Although we cannot complain our performances have not been sterling off late.
Motherwell et al represent all that is wrong in scottish football. Smaller clubs becoming smaller. SFA no vision on how to improve. Scottish football needs changing but with dinosaurs in charge and bending over to a certain club it will never change.
Ii know I may be out of order but a british or european set up is a must for celtic to survive and the motherwells can fight it out with the Doncaster Rovers off the world.