calscot

The reason we have 12 is historical and due to greed of the middling teams. I don't think we should have accepted it and how do you kick two teams out? Where would those votes come from in an 11-1 voting system? Scottish football is driven by self interest and never for the good of the game. Rangers recent punishments being a massive case in point.

There is no leaving Scotland - don't know where people get that from. Ibrox will stay where it is. It's no different than playing in Europe or joining a European league. We play an English team four times this season. Can't see anything wrong with a British league for British teams. Scotland didn't need it before but we do now - even if the English don't.

I think we do know and the answer appears to be, "worse". The management make their decisions and for me it's best they do some of them on the training pitch than putting a player on that they think isn't good enough and being found out there. If you want to know what the squad players are like, maybe there are training sessions and bounce games you can attend. There's plenty of young players I thought look great on Rangers TV and who were let go. They didn't do much elsewhere. Ashikodi is one I remember. You have to give the management team a bit of trust...

You know for me this the kind of snide comment that lowers the standard of the forum. If you're going to make a point, make it decently. This kind of stuff is a waste of time and bandwidth.

Must admit it would be hugely funny - even better if we go first while they prevaricate due to CL money, and they then join the conference later while we're in a higher league than them. The irony would be sweet. This could also massively reduce the impact of our demotion to div 3.

Why not give a few plausible options, include the status quo and let the fans decide?

Firstly, the biggest salaried team ALWAYS won then football would be very boring and cups would be irrelevant. Secondly, if it were true then currently Celtic would definitely win both the cups and SPL with Hearts being runners up and second. Basing the rest on attendances, Hibs would be third, Aberdeen fourth and Dundee Utd fifth. Hearts have an £8m wage bill and so considering their league position this logic is poor and shows a lack of understanding of football. ICT are SEVEN places ahead of Hearts and so shows that a defeat to them was not as big a shock as some would like to think. Motherwell are just behind Inverness and so it shows that was a decent win. But in the end it's all about how you play in one game on the day which is what the romance of the cup is all about and there are many lower league clubs with far lower salaries that have done well over the years. There are plenty of cup "upsets" or "shocks" to show that it happens frequently. As for saying we only play ONE youngster, someone has obviously not being paying the slightest attention to the Rangers team sheets.

Just thinking that as this season's rankings are still in progress perhaps they are using the actual current standings that go up to the end of last season and DO include our UEFA run. That would put our Euro ranking at 18 and perhaps there are only six South American and other countries that are also above us when the whole world is taken into account. That means we'll drop at least another six places next season going on current standings.

Isn't this just the UEFA rankings (although this only goes up to 53)? If that's the case then even without Rangers, our current season is the best for five years due to Celtic's results in the CL. I do think that is a one off - like the sporadic previous qualifications by either team, and normal service will be resumed next year - except even more so now that we now have one roll of the dice instead of two. One of the reasons for a drop there this season is that Rangers UEFA final run will no longer count in the current standings using this season's scores.

PS Even a joint national team could get a strong backing eventually - just look at Europe in the Rider Cup.

If we really wanted to we could take it to the European court and the House of Lords with the risk of smashing the special case of the home nations. How can UEFA stop us from competing in our own country? I don't really care much about the Scotland team now; it's severely tainted by the current SFA. The way things have gone in football with TV money, our national game is moribund with no way back. It's time to join them when you have no hope of beating them. Scottish football needs a British league with half our teams starting a regional league. It's all very well protecting our identity - but it will be that of a minnow swimming alongside the great white shark of English football. It's rare we benefit as part of the union, it's time to take advantage of it.

From Talksport The Scottish clubâ??s chief executive Charles Green told talkSPORT last week that he would be prepared to quit Scotland and relocate his club to England if plans for a reform of the game north of the border goes ahead. An exclusive talkSPORT poll has revealed clubs in the Blue Square Premier Division would be in favour of the switch, and Lee insists it would not be impossible. He told Keys and Gray: â??On Monday [January 21] we have a mid-season meeting of clubs so that is a topic for conversation. Itâ??s up to the clubs to make rule changes. â??There are one or two problems, of course. Itâ??s up to FIFA whether a club can change countries or not, so thatâ??s the first issue. And the second, and probably the most important, is the problem it would create with promotion and relegation and having an uneven number of teams. â??It would be wrong if the Football League would not take Rangers as part of the promotion and relegation system. Otherwise they would be in the Conference keeping out a team who might have the wherewithal to go higher in the pyramid. â??But they are not insurmountable problems. You will have to have the co-operation of a lot of different organisations to make it possible, but where there is a will there is a way.â? talkSPORT polled 14 of the 24 clubs in the Blue Square Premier League to ask if they would support a move to introduce Rangers into the league. These are the resultsâ?¦ Barrow â?? MAYBE Braintree Town â?? YES Ebbsfleet â?? MAYBE Forest Green - NO Gateshead â?? NO Hyde - MAYBE Macclesfield â?? YES Mansfield â?? YES Newport - NO Nuneaton â?? YES Southport - YES Stockport - YES Tamworth â?? YES Wrexham - YES Read more: http://www.talksport.co.uk/sports-news/football/130115/exclusive-conference-chairman-brian-lee-refuses-close-door-rangers-189293#ixzz2I2xgF5o0 Follow us: @talksport on Twitter Read more at http://www.talksport.co.uk/sports-news/football/130115/exclusive-conference-chairman-brian-lee-refuses-close-door-rangers-189293#3gq0OVh7xtufFuCU.99

Other sites have Celtic's average as 42.5k - and I think that's still counting season ticket holders who don't turn up, and a bit of massaging of the figures as Celtic have been giving out round numbers that obviously have a lot of rounding up.

The strange thing was allowing expansion to 42 in the first place from the 37 in '75. The lower divisions could save running costs and that of the fans if they split into two regional leagues. The bit that always got me is that I could understand the top two divisions being of 10 teams each in order to lower the differential of standard and make them more competitive, but why do that with the bottom two divisions that are more much of a muchness and so could benefit from more diversity from playing 19 teams twice instead of 9 teams four times?

There would be no need to go down to the 10th tier of English football. I can't imagine much protesting to parachute them into the Conference as they are top professional teams and the lower leagues are semi-professional and amateur. The point of promotion and relegation is to get teams to the right level. Why hinder clubs by putting them well below their level? I would argue that our point of entry should be League two although it does mean that two team lose their place which is the bit that is unfair. Whereas the Conference North could expand from 22 to 24 teams to absorb us. Not only that, they have joining criteria which knocks back potential promotees from the lower tier.

Some people are weird about collecting stuff and numbers of things in a row to the point they get obsessed and anal retentive about it. I can imagine some OCD guy not being able to stand the fact that he can no longer say "I've never missed a Rangers game in my life." The point they they miss is nobody else cares. I think you'd actually sound better and more loyal by saying, "I never missed a game except the Dundee Utd one - I wasn't going to go to that one was I?" Sequences are easily broken, there's no point getting precious about them. It's more healthy (but still obsessive) to count the number of games you've been to, rather than the number in a row.

How does it do that? How do they know what channel you watched? The only people that count there are the one's that have the special box to monitor what they watch. There is also a lot of simplicity here, Dundee Utd have stated time and again that they don't like us, don't want us and don't need us - why would you want to pay them to step into their stadium after that? That's a massive difference to walking into your own livingroom - or stadium. For every Rangers ticket sold, they will be gleeful and rubbing it in our faces - why give your enemies that pleasure?

I'm sure Harry was against us before...

Winners and playoff winners between the 2nd to 5th placed clubs.

I would happily accept the Blue Square Conference North to get out of the rotting Scottish system. The Premier would be better but let's be realistic about turkeys voting for Christmas - and they'd all want a slice of our pie. I'd even be able to get to some games. Northern Games I'd definitely go to: Brackley Town Oxford City Corby Town Histon Possibly: Worcester City Solihull Moors Gloucester City Bishops Stortford Hinckley United Premier Definitely: Luton Town Cambridge United Nuneaton Town Barrow Possibly Forest Green Rovers Kidderminster Mansfield Town Dartford Woking Alfreton Town Tamworth Braintree Telford Utd Ebbsfleet Utd

Sometimes you have to spend money on a loss making venture just in order to keep pace with your commercial rivals. Presence can change your public profile.

How can you be "promoted" and still be playing the lowest ranked teams? Seems like and oxymoron to me. It's like being given a "promotion" at work where you earn no more money and have no more responsibility but your designation is changed to something fancier. Imagine getting that when you had already qualified for a real promotion...

Man U may be disliked because they are the biggest and the best but I don't really see any real hatred towards them and I'm pretty sure they are generally respected by other clubs despite some of the dodgy stuff they get up to and the searing remarks given out by the manager. I can't see them being treated the same way as us. Leeds have never been a popular club with other teams' fans and their downfall was far more to do with overspending to bring success at the expense of others than us, and yet they seem to have been treated reasonably fairly. But then they don't have the unique baggage we have or the rabid enemies. I think that although we'll be disliked for our success, we could manage that more as a banter thing were people want us to lose but don't want to give us a kicking. Our fans play a large role in achieving that as well as good PR by the club. But it's got to be more than PR, it can't just be bluff and bluster. We have to BE what we say we are. I think there is somewhere at least we have to start. Like the Billy Connelly joke where there are two guys filming a documentary about a lion. The lion notices them, starts to become aggressive and looks like it's going to charge. One guy starts to change into a pair of running shoes, the other says, "What are you doing that for, you'll never outrun a lion?" The other replies, "I don't have to outrun the lion, I just have to outrun you!" Our first task is to outrun Celtic. We at least need the other clubs to hate us both, but hate them more; however, right now they are the ones wearing the running shoes...

Thanks. That is probably the hardest part of the objective. How do you remain the best AND popular or at least well respected? Well, lots of people have achieved it to a certain extent. Examples are the likes of Alan Sugar who is even on television highly criticising people, but he still receives an amazing amount of respect and is very well liked. Simon Cowell can be a bit of a hate figure who is scathing of people but still is the one everyone listens to and is the box office draw - he carries a lot of clout. However you can imagine if he had his fortune and living taken away, declared bankrupt, and somehow had entertainment industry sanctions against him, he might be in the same position as us. In sport (albeit a less parochial one) there is Roger Federer who has been number one for most of a decade but is highly popular with most tennis fans as well as his fellow competitors. He is incredibly competitive and has drive and determination to win, but he doesn't come across as arrogant in the slightest. While Murray is immensely popular in the UK mainly just due to his nationality and the craving for a British, world class tennis hero, still has a large proportion of people from his own country who struggle to like him. I really don't know how Celtic do it but they seem to have a strategy that mesmerises the rest of the clubs into a dumb stupor. They should be the hated ones for all the real reasons as their fans sing hate songs about our country and they claim to be from another and glorify terrorists who murder our citizens and defile our war dead, while we stand for Scottishness and Britishness and support our armed forces. Somehow they manage to turn it around while we put our proverbial foot in our collective mouths time and again. Most of us aren't bigots or Irish/Catholic bashers but that's how we are seen. It's time to change that dramatically and to stand for the good things we believe in that doesn't offend others. They still may not like us but at least they will have nothing tangible to hate us for. That is something we really need to do. Celtic go on and on about doing what's right for Celtic - how narrow minded, self centered and narcissistic is that? When you're at the top you have at least appear benevolent, caring and interested in everyone else's well being. I think that's what the likes of Lord Sugar excel at. We have to drop our silly superciliousness and lack of respect for the "diddy" teams and treat them more like we're a kind, well off benefactor giving them a hand up not as a hand out, but sending a bit of good business their way and sharing some of the gravy at the top table. Can't disagree with that and when you're put on the floor, you initially have to come back up fighting fiercely. Maybe the time is not yet right to show the mellower side. You have to scrap when you're at the bottom, but it's a different strategy the further towards the top you go, hence the invention of diplomacy by Kings of the past.

The trouble with our PR is that their is are two different parts: that of rallying the support of your own fans and then the winning the hearts and minds of other clubs and their fans. For decades the owner concentrated on the former while being completely absent in the latter (unless he himself was attacked) and the fans subscribed to the "no-one likes us we don't care" philosophy. But where has that got us? We've somehow become incredibly unpopular and the scenario now is like being the biggest, toughest guy around who no-one likes who. Then, after being knocked out and mugged, finds himself with ball and chain and powerless against the one other (nasty) tough guy and the other 40 eight stone weaklings who have it in for him. So while we can be as belligerent as we like to please our fans and stick up for ourselves from our position of weakness, there has to be an underlying strategy to regain an important place in the group where we are again able to influence our environment and our future. If sticking up for ourselves and threatening to leave works towards this strategy then fair play, good job; but if it doesn't help now or in the long run we have to rethink it. I don't personally know but I'm hoping we have expert minds on the subject that do - and some of that stuff seems to have worked for Celtic. I think we need to become popular - not in a sniveling, grovelling or even jolly or matey way, but instead the way that gets you respect and admiration, where the majority look up to you for leadership and where if there was one you'd most likely win the election. That's when Rangers will be great again.