Davie Provan: Eighteen Months And Counting

[ian1964 10,409]

EIGHTEEN months and counting. A year and a half left of this one-horse race before we have a proper championship again.

Assuming Ally McCoist gets Rangers back into the top flight on schedule.

 

He had better deliver, an extra year of the current nonsense and we?ll need chloroform.

 

On occasions I?ve found myself at English grounds where everyone in the media centre was glued to the lunchtime Old Firm game. Southern journalists couldn?t get enough of it.

 

Last Thursday at Newcastle, one of them asked me which division Rangers are in right now. That?s the extent of the interest.

 

If the essence of any sporting contest is uncertainty, the wise men of the SPL gave our top flight a lethal injection two summers ago.

 

Under the guise of ?sporting integrity? they sentenced Rangers to three years hard labour and killed their own competition while they were at it. Clever, eh?

 

It was arguably the most idiotic decision in the history of Scottish football.

 

Boycott threats from the anonymous halfwits of cyberspace saw our Premier League chairmen fold, condemning our biggest league to three years of decline.

 

SFA chief executive Stewart Regan was ridiculed for predicting ?Armageddon? in Rangers? absence. He wasn?t far wrong.

 

Why did every club in the league have to pay the price of Craig Whyte?s ransacking of Ibrox? Did Rod Petrie and Co really believe that ?Sell-out Saturday? nonsense?

 

Did they believe the internet eejits who promised they?d turn up every week to fill club coffers?

 

So much for the moral high ground. Sporting integrity has put Scottish football up against the wall.

 

Yeah, Celtic have been insulated from the fallout by reaching the Champions League proper in successive seasons.

 

But as the growing rows of empty seats prove, Hoops punters are bored stiff with the extent of their domestic dominance.

 

Trust me, if it was Neil Lennon?s call Rangers would be back in the top flight next season.

 

Likewise, I?m told Peter Lawwell wanted to keep Rangers in the big league with a points penalty, before he too bowed to the mob.

 

Thanks to Lennon?s European success, Celtic?s balance sheet is in good nick but defeat in next season?s Champions League qualifiers will have accountants reaching for the valium.

 

Elsewhere the rest of the SPFL is suffering. Rangers? demotion saw every budget in the top flight slashed.

 

When costs have to be cut, youth development is the first casualty.

 

At a time Dundee United are producing a special crop of youngsters, who would vote to shut down the production line?

 

Some silly people have suggested Celtic?s recent hammering in Barcelona was no reflection on the standard of Scottish football. Really?

 

Celtic won the league by 16 points last season without breaking sweat, yet they managed just three points from 18 in the Champions League. What does that say for the rest of the league? Our other European representatives? Scottish Cup finalists Hibs got a crack at the Europa League and lost 9-0 on aggregate to Malmo. Motherwell lost 3-0 over two legs to Kuban Krasnodar, currently ninth in the Russian league.

 

Thankfully, St Johnstone flew the flag briefly with a great win over Rosenborg before losing in the third qualifying round to FC Minsk.

 

Putting Rangers in the poorhouse gave a lot of people satisfaction but was the price worth paying?

 

Under the yoke of the Old Firm, attendances were better, sponsors easier to find and the league table was worth looking at every weekend.

 

With the pair at each other?s throats for Champions League cash, both had to spend to stay in front.

 

A lot of that money went to fellow SPL clubs. Dundee were weighed in for Rab Douglas, Nacho Novo and Gavin Rae.

 

Hibs got an Old Firm auction going for Scott Brown and Kevin Thomson. Kilmarnock punted Kris Boyd and Steven Naismith. Dundee United got a million plus for Barry Robson, while Celtic outbid Rangers for Motherwell?s Scott McDonald.

 

That Old Firm arms race kept both clubs on their toes and helped subsidise the rest of the league.

 

Now we?ve got Celtic trying to get through the entire season undefeated while the rest play for second place and a brief skirmish with the Europa League qualifiers.

 

League One is no less of a freak show where you can watch Rangers playing keepie-uppie with their part-time opposition.

 

Eighteen months and counting.

[RANGERRAB 3,254]

I'm shocked. Thats actually a decent article by Davy 'Provo' Provan.

[Blue Moon 1,113]

I'm shocked. Thats actually a decent article by Davy 'Provo' Provan.

 

If he and his fellow journalists hadn't jumped on the bandwagon of pillorying Rangers then things would have turned out differently. He's too late with the common sense.

[Chibmark 15]

Provan's always been a fair minded writer IMO.

[RANGERRAB 3,254]

The big problem heading for Scottish football is when/if Whyte's Rangers takeover is declared fraudulent meaning Rangers were indeed the victim of a crime. The SPL clubs who voted Rangers out of the SPL at the time may have cause to regret this if legal proceeding against them are taken.

[Max Rebo's Big Blue Nose 0]

Provan's always been a fair minded writer IMO.

 

I have to agree. Always seems more balanced than most tbh

[the gunslinger 3,366]

Provan's always been a fair minded writer IMO.

 

he's also a good commentator or sumariser or whatever it is he does. isn't he a prod which would explain the fair mindedness.

[RANGERRAB 3,254]

he's also a good commentator or sumariser or whatever it is he does. isn't he a prod which would explain the fair mindedness.

 

Rangers supporter as a boy. Went to Gourock HS as far as I know

[bossy 0]

They say hindsight is 20-20.

 

But, at the time, the media was as bad as the rest of them glorying in the general blood lust. Now the chickens are coming home to roost ... tough shit.

[ian1964 10,409]

Rangers is missing no-one, everyone else is missing Rangers,it will be a long 18 months for them all.