calscot

Sorry, didn't realise you actually wrote it. Thought it was from a newspaper site, otherwise I'd have been a bit more tactful. Humour is very difficult to write well which is why you can pay a lot of money to see a top comedian in the country and be very disappointed.

The point is, it's not really good writing and even the greatest writer lowered himself to it - it's pandering to a section of the audience and their egos. They only laugh because they get it rather than its humour, thereby showing those around them how smart they are and making them feel good. An example is when the gravedigger in Hamlet mistakenly uses the word, "argos" instead of "ergo". That would have all the Latin speakers, especially those in law, guffawing. Thing is, now people will just think of the shop.

I can see why Dunfermline don't want to be relegated but it's nothing to do with what is the most meaningless phrase of the century. Pure self interest, nothing else.

I can honestly say I've never seen anything like a Protestant identity at Rangers. There is very little sign of Christianity and I'd say with a lot of the behaviour a person coming from another planet would probably best guess our religious identity as devil worshipping diabolists (apologies for the tautology). I also have no idea why good Church of Scotland members would be unable to help themselves from singing songs about a small order that they have nothing to do with and no little about. In fact sometimes I don't even know how that applies to any SANE person. You even get people going on about being "proud to be Protestant" without even knowing that pride is a sin in that religion. It's a complete oxymoron. People should be humble to be a Christian and have a lot of other virtues. If you want to sing Christian songs at the top of your voice why not just join the Salvation Army and perhaps do some good in the name of your religion? Why do people instead bastardise and usurp a religion as an excuse to be bad instead of good - and sometimes pretty evil? If people want a Protestant Christian identity so badly they would be best joining a church, worshipping God and Christ, and applying the teachings of the bible to live a life where you do good things in your community to make it a better, more spiritual and more enlightening place. I think that would be something far better to aspire to than putting all your energies into insulting and offending a different branch of what is pretty much the same religion. I have no protestant identity, but try to be a half decent person, and would like to escape life's troubles by strangely being absorbed by a bunch of guys kicking a round thing around with enough rules to make it a decent sport. Please let me follow my team without all this absolute twaddle about which school people went to.

When it got to the fourth division I thought, "April fool" and waited for the humour. Unfortunately it didn't really come and just wasn't funny. At all. It was one of those where you want to find it funny because you "got it". It's a very old writer's trick that even Shakespeare used.

We could resurect the nine in a row team and still win the third division -judging by the masters results. Could really draw in the fans watching the likes of Gazza, Laudrup, Gough, Goram etc...

I know it's Switzerland but shouldn't we release a statement about how we pay "most" of our trasfer fees so why are Central European clubs such a bunch of tight twats?

Tell that to a player with a contract. You can't have your cake and eat it.

PS Perhaps if your kids are leaning towards an English team you should steer them towards the likes of Real Madrid and Barcelona. For a start it's cheaper to see them live on telly at the moment in this country. Secondly, it's cheaper to go and see them play in the flesh - including travel and hotels. And thirdly, it's less damaging for Scottish football. Every time a Scot subscribes to Sky to watch the EPL, it's another nail in Scottish football's coffin.

I chose Rangers independently of anyone else and think all kids should do so. My younger brother is a bit of a glory hunter. He started off with Kilmarnock because they were local and his best mate supported them. He then realised they were rubbish and moved on to Aberdeen who were winning stuff under Alex Ferguson. Then they went rubbish so he dabbled in supporting Celtic due after they won the league under Jansen and the fact his long term girlfriend supported them (well she was a Catholic wasn't she). But that obviously didn't last long and so he switched to Man U, who he's supported ever since. I think if youngsters are going to support top English teams (and it will only be the top ones), then that will happen regardless. They may get bored when they realise that going to a game takes quite a bit of travelling and about fifty quid a ticket. Unless they are just TV fans. It's kind of a different issue. I think that maybe we should look at a well supported team like Third Lanark and ask where the generations of fans from the south of Glasgow went...

I can't see how they can go on about sporting integrity and us paying footballing debts while allowing our players to transfer for free. Even if the law says that they can move, it is still NOT sporting integrity. Rangers a being unfairly disadvantaged and the signing teams are gaining an unfair advantage.

When did Michael Laudrup go to Swansea (what a dump too). I'm getting very jealous of that club.

I think a lot of those will now be on cushy wages that they will not get elsewhere. Many will stay for the money as they have a contract.

That already happens and is why Scottish teams receive so little from Sky. It adds little to their income as Scots are already paying them. I couldn't believe the number of Scots who had Sky Sports but no Setanta.

PS In that scenario, the next generation of Dunfermline's fans may end up supporting Raith or Dundee Utd or Hearts - which could boost the numbers of those teams' supporters and make them stronger.

I really can't see how. The quality is not really there in the first place and there are too many small clubs close to each other that share the same pot. I can't see how we'll lose the likes of Dunfermline players to the game - where will they go? England? I doubt it. They will go to say Dundee or a newly promoted Raith Rovers. The quality cannot be diluted in what is effectively a closed system.

PS I think that INTEGRITY also requires us to not reward other clubs who have treated us badly. You don't teach people how to treat you by letting them off with giving you a kicking. You at least need a deterrent but also need to mete out justice. If you think we've been treated fairly then let them off. If not then justice needs to be done and needs to be seen to be done.

I think change was always needed; however, I think we ourselves were actually empathetic sentimentally to the survival of other clubs and so did not want the scalpel to be wielded in a cold, businesslike way. Now I'd say that empathy has evaporated and the sentimental feelings quashed. It's not revenge I'm seeking, it's a better, future footballing nation and I'm no longer bothered about the collateral damage or hurt feelings. It's now time to break a few eggs and make a tastier omelette.

PS Three years without Celtic and Rangers in the same league may allow some of our fans to get off the bigot box and start support a football team. They won't change but I hope we do - and they are shown up for what they are.

I used to think that way but now think that Scottish football is so rotten it needs knocking down and starting again. It needs a catharsis where badly run clubs who are parasites on the Old Firm have to justify their existence. Scottish football is bloated with too many tiny clubs who are intent on being tails that wag the dog. We have 42 clubs in a nation of 5m people while England have 92 from a population of over 10 times that amount. It is not right that 40 of those clubs have 40 votes that have the power to kill a club with almost as many fans as them put together but only receive 1 solitary vote. It's not fair that clubs with less than a one percent of the support of Rangers want about 5-10% of the TV and sponsorship money that is given to the ibrox club. Maybe that sounds like making the leagues fairer by decreasing the gap between the rich and poor but when you have too many mouths to feed, everyone goes hungry. What we need is less mouths. We need to reintroduce survival of the fittest and allow the weak to fall by the wayside and re-invent themselves at their real level in a non SFL competition. There is something rotten in the state of Scottish football and I'd like the stench to be expunged. We need to cut out the diseased parts and allow the rest to thrive with a larger share of the available resources. I want us to go to division three and I want the financially weak teams who can't cope with the harvest they have sown by lack of financial sense, to go to the wall and present us with a smaller, leaner and ultimately healthier league to play in that recognise that decisions have to be made for the game as a whole rather than pure self interest and greed. I want us to come back to a proper democracy where every fan has one vote rather than some who have far more clout per head than others. I'd like to see a maximum of two leagues of 16 which maybe follow the Belgian model and have relegation and promotion at the bottom via a competition for the best of the non-league sides and the worst of the second division. The whole game needs an overhaul and watching a few well known clubs disappearing from existence my just give the motivation for real change for the better for the whole of Scottish football.

I'd imagine Queens Park could make a huge amount from us with their games at Hampden. Should be 20k crowd easy.

I think they would struggle to say no to Celtic as the club would pull out the Irish-Catholic discrimination card...

I can see why he was scathing. Green needs to read the Setting the Standard report to see a report that sets the standard...

I think part of the problem is that it's a bit like a run on a bank. No-one wants to put their money in and then find the club has gone bust again for them to get pennies in the pound back. Add to that there are people wanting a reduction for a lower league - which I think is ludicrous as you're paying for going to the same Ibrox and your money reflects the quality of our team, not the opposition. You pay peanuts, you get a team of monkeys.