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Leggat - SFL Clubs Show SPL Bigots The Way


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IT is interesting to see the different way Scottish Footbapll League clubs have responded to Dunfermlineâ??s plight, to how the bigots in the Scottish Premier League reacted to Rangers problems last year.

 

A number of cash-strapped Dunfermlineâ??s fellow-First Division outfits have announced that they will try to cut a deal with the Fifers over cash owed in order to help them survive.

 

The very idea that SPL clubs would have tried to come to some form of accommodation with Rangers last summer in order that the 54-times Scottish champions could have remained in the top flight is too preposterous to consider.

 

These clubs were all to happy to be driven towards an angry bloodlust by the bigoted rantings of their supporters, a fact that was never more vividly illustrated by the way Dundee United behaved.

 

All of which was what prompted Rangers chief executive, Green to talk at the time about the bigotry which Rangers faced from the SPL and which led him last week to re-state his view that in Scotland, Rangers are not liked and not wanted.

 

But what Green said on Talksport is only half correct. That is the bit about Rangers not being liked and not being wanted in the Scottish Premier League.

 

They are not liked and not wanted by the Scottish Premier League, but the overwhelming majority of the member clubs in the Scottish Football League were only too happy to accept Rangers into their family.

 

Which is why I would like to see Rangers do their utmost to give something back to the SFL. Starting, perhaps, by some gesture towards Dunfermline. The offer of a match to which Rangers supporters could go to in numbers, with the Fifers keeping the gate money.

 

However, as far as those SPL clubs who stood out against Rangers last summer, my hope is that the new regime inside the Blue Room never forget and never forgive and continue to take a hard line against them for the foreseeable future.

 

If Dundee United, Hearts or Aberdeen hit the skids then Hell mend them, as my old Presbyterian granny used to say when she saw evil get is just desserts. She was Old Testament was my old Presbyterian granny.

 

Of course there are plenty of people out there who will snipe at Rangers and aim lowlife blows at everything Charles Green says and does. But Green, despite not having been in Scotland for a year, has learned that comes with the Blue Room territory.

 

The Stewart Regan, Peter Lawwell, Rod Petrie dominated Scottish Football Association, along with the Neil Doncaster, Peter Lawwell, Eric Riley and Stephen Thompson dominated Scottish Premier League have demonstrated their anti Rangers bias over and over again.

 

But, as I have stated, not everyone in Scotland, or throughout Scottish football, hates Rangers. The honest burghers of the Scottish Football League, an organisation which is better run and better led by David Longmuir and Jim Ballantyne than the Celtic-Lawwell dominated SFA and SPL, give the impression of trying to do the right thing for the overall good of Scottish football, while attempting to maintain a level of honesty and decency which is missing in much of the Celtic-Lawwell dominated SFA and SPLâ??s actions and plans.

 

The Scottish Football League may not get everything right. But their motives are beyond reproach. The SFA and SPL get nothing right and they often appear to many to be motivated by blind hatred towards Rangers and their supporters, a vicious bigotry immediately apparent to an in-comer to Scotland.

 

However, while agreeing with much of what Charles Green says, I counsel him to be careful and to differeniate between the bigots and Rangers haters in the SFA and SPL and the sound, sensible and decent burghers of the Scottish Football League.

 

Offering to do something to help out Dunfermline would be a step in the right direction.

 

.....

AND....

 

 

THE SCOTTISH FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION is so skint that it cannot afford goal-line technology.

 

That is a terrible indictment of where Scottish football stands three years after Stewart Regan arrived from England to become the chief executive of the SFA , a new chief executive whose first act was to parachute his pal, Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell into a seat at the governing bodyâ??s top table inside the Hampden boardroom.

 

Regan has only one competitor for the title of the worst man to be seen in Scottish footballâ??s corridors of power. That is, of course, Scottish Premier League head honcho, Neil Doncaster, another who is keen to parachute Peter Lawwell into powerful positions and another man whose organisation is so skint under his leadership that the SPL donâ??t have the cash to help the SFA fund goal-line technology. Some may believe both the SFA and the SPL are bankrupt, fiscally and morally.

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DL has his moments and he is pretty correct in the way he see's the SFL. Still, I for one vividly remember the SPL-club that was Dunfermline laying into us when we hit admin, their boss making his reasoning clear in no uncertain terms. Hence, while one could see it as a great gesture if e.g. Rangers give the Pars a helping hand here, I doubt that many Bears would fill the stadium (whichever it would be) and give their money to them.

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Fuck them:

 

 

Dunfermline chief John Yorkston: Rangers can't be given same punishment we got for admin error

2 Jun 2012

 

DUNFERMLINE chief John Yorkston says the SFA have no choice but to boot Rangers out of the game because a Scottish Cup ban is too soft.

 

DUNFERMLINE chief John Yorkston says the SFA have no choice but to boot Rangers out of the game because a Scottish Cup ban is too soft.

 

The Pars chairman saw his club kicked out of the cup in 2010 for clerical mistakes that saw them field the suspended Calum Woods as a sub in a 7-1 win over Stenhousemuir.

 

They are far from the only ones with Spartans, Brechin City and East Stirling all having been expelled from thecompetition for fielding ineligible players through honest mistakes.

 

So Yorkston insists it would beludicrous to deal Rangers the same punishment for dodging taxes and putting the nation’s football future in jeopardy by pursuing the SFA through civil courts.

 

While he doesn’t want to see Rangers die, Yorkston believes that in a stark choice between terminating the club’s SFA membership or letting them off with a cup ban, there really is no alternative for the game’s bosses.

 

Because the lesser punishment simply does not fit the crime.

 

Yorkston said: “Most of us feel that because they are who they are, Rangers would get away with the lesser sentence but a cup suspension is not enough. This is more than a small administrative error that saw us and other clubs expelled from the Scottish Cup.

 

“None of us want to see Rangers go out of business but given the choice between the options available to the SFA, there is only one decision.

 

“I always thought relegation was the appropriate measure but I don’t know if they can find a middle ground any more because they tried that already with the transfer embargo.

 

“That’s what makes Rangers’ decision to go to the courts so foolish. They were badly advised because everyone knows you don’t go to court. People will blame the administrators for that but there are still folk at Rangers who should have known you just don’t do that. You don’t go to court unless you know all the facts and not enough research was done to check what the consequences would be.”

 

If Rangers were to pay the ultimate sanction, the additional place in the SPL could see either Dunfermline spared relegation or Dundee promoted as last season’s Division One runners-up.

 

Either way would be less than ideal, Yorkston argues, as both sides have signed and released players based on the assumption they’ll be playing in the lower league.

 

A sudden rise into the top flight – with all the additional costs involved and uncertainty over the TV deal they would need to fund it – would pose a massive headache. Yorkston added: “There are so many ifs, buts and maybes that there’s no sense in speculating too much.

 

“But safe to say it’s not as straight-forward as just getting back into the SPL and everything will be rosy.

 

“Whether it was us or Dundee, it would throw plans into turmoil because both clubs have beenbudgeting for the First Division.

 

“All of our players’ contracts have wages agreed for when they play in the SPL and a lower wage for the FirstDivision, so those still with us have taken a cut and others have moved on.

 

“My fear is that the new season will probably have started by the time this comes to a conclusion, which will bring even more chaos to a situation that has already dragged on for too long.”

 

Rangers hopes of getting away with a Scottish Cup ban seem even more remote when you consider that one of the men due to sit in judgment was the last club chairman to suffer the same sanction.

 

Spartans’ chief Craig Graham was dismayed when the East of Scotland League side were thrown out for the crime of using a player whose new contract had only been dated once.

 

The SFA demand contracts are dated twice and therefore ruled that striker Keith McLeod had been ineligible to play in Spartans’ 2-0 win over Culter.

 

That cost the Edinburgh club alucrative third-round tie with Partick Thistle plus a £4000 fine – a heavy price for such a small administrative error.

 

Graham oversaw Gers’ original appeal against the 18-month transfer embargo along with Lord Carloway and former Partick Thistle chairman Allan Cowan.

 

Their decision to uphold the embargo meted out by the SFA’s judicial tribunal (comprising Gary Allan QC, Raith Rovers director Eric Drysdale and journalist Alastair Murning) led to Gers ill-advised approach to the Court of Session.

 

Now they’ll have the whole sorry mess dropped back in their laps again and are expected to sit within the next two weeks to assess what little options remain at their disposal.

 

If Yorkston represents the majority view in Scottish football then there is no decision to be made. And if Spartans chief Graham felt his club were harshly treated to be kicked out of the Scottish Cup for an honest administrative slip-up, there seems little chance of him approving the same sanction for blatant, pre-meditated deceit.

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While he doesn’t want to see Rangers die, Yorkston believes that in a stark choice between terminating the club’s SFA membership or letting them off with a cup ban, there really is no alternative for the game’s bosses.

 

That is just looking out for his own club. It's a tough one. I hold no malice to Dunfermline at all and I hope they survive. Not sure about actively helping them, but if it was something all SFL clubs were doing then fine with me.

 

SPL clubs are different. Again, I don't want to see any club die, that would be horrendous, but no I wouldn't offer support to Hearts. Their fans were vociferous in their hatred of us when we struggled. Let them sort their own out, like we have done.

 

Does he have to say 'Presbyterian' granny EVERY time he mentions her?

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On a sidenote, on FF they mentioned the slow and sluggish revival of Third Lanark ( The Hi-Hi Newsletter 2013 opens as PDF). Now that would be a team and place many would like to go to or a team they'd invite to Ibrox for e.g. a fund-raising pre-season game.

 

Third Lanark

 

Our reformed Football & Athletic Club is run by a small Committee of dedicated 'Thirds Men.' This Committee is made up of former players, club historians, fans and businessmen all of whom bring a wealth of experience in various fields to the table. We are guardians of the Club name and history as well as the limited company and are totally committed to restoring Third Lanark to the Senior ranks of Scottish football once more. This runs hand in hand with our bid to return to Cathkin Park and to restore the ground to a professional sports venue again.

About Third Lanark Athletic Club

 

Third Lanark have recently moved into new offices in Daisy Street, Govanhill from our base in Victoria Road and are delighted to be back in the heart of the area in which we were formed. For the past two years The Committee have met once a month at Lesser Hampden and we would like to thank our friends & near neighbours Queens Park Football Club for their generous hospitality and use of their Boardroom for all of our meetings.

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I think Leggo's senile dementia is getting worse. Help Dunfermline? You have to laugh otherwise you'd cry.

 

Rangers fans helped Dunfermline while our club was in administration and they turned round and used the money to join the "no to newco" campaign.

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