The SRU Is Trying To Make Things Better - When Will The SFA Do Likewise?

THE esteemed Aristotle Armstrong, my old sparring partner here in the Sports Philosophy department, within the Scottish campus of the School of Hard Knocks at the University of Life is, as I have mentioned before, currently engaged in a guerrilla war with the “suits” at BT Murrayfield. The “suits” have embarked on a power grab which will, Aristotle tells me, have disastrous effects on Scottish Rugby.

The Scottish Rugby Union, (SRU) , like the Scottish Football Association, (SFA), is supposedly a collective of like-mined individuals and clubs, whose aim is the promotion of their particular code of football. In respect of this, the world governing bodies of each of the footballing codes, has devolved local governance of their code of football to the respective organisations – the SFA and SRU.

Apart from the shape of ball and goals, the marking-out of the playing area and the number of players per team; not forgetting the fact, football is 11-a-side and rugby 15-a-side: one major difference is the over-riding ethos of the two governing bodies. From the outside, looking-in, it seems Murrayfield is obsessed with the national team, as the font of all the goodness, and the money, while Hampden, from the outside looking-in, appears to be all about creating a climate whereby two clubs can pretty much fuck with the rest and the game as they like.

It's an ill-divided fitba world

The playing field in Scottish football is an uneven one, particularly in terms of finance and influence. For instance, last weekend (7-8 April), there were the usual six fixtures in the Scottish Professional Football League's (SPFL's) Ladbrokes Premiership. There were more spectators (49,142) at Ibrox for the Rangers v Dundee game than at the other five grounds – the combined attendance for the other five being 24,932.

The previous weekend (31 March-1 April), with Celtic attracting 58,765 to their home game against Ross County, the other five games attracted a total attendance of 50,741.

Take Motherwell for instance: “the best of the rest, i.e. the clubs who will be outwith the top six in the league, and the battle for European football next season, at the end of the current campaign. They are, if you like, the “par” team in the division; beat them, you are in the mix, below them, you are in trouble.

They have played seven home games in 2018, their meeting with Rangers attracted 8915 fans to Fir Park, their game against Celtic pulled-in 8717. That's 17,632 fans for two games, an average of 8816 fans per game. The other five games, against Ross County, Partick Thistle, St Johnstone, Kilmarnock and Aberdeen – admittedly including two midweek matches (Aberdeen and St Johnstone) attracted a total of 20,479 spectators, an average of 4096 per game.

So, not only does the Big Two's huge fan base give them a financial advantage at home, their away following provides a boost to the other clubs. It is therefore in everyone's interest to maintain a situation whereby these two clubs can dominate. In a way, the relationship between the Big Two and the rest is symbiotic, in fact, in some ways it is parasitic. Just as oxpeckers live on the backs of wildebeests and other African mammals, or Remora or Pilot Fish live off sharks and other larger marine life, so, the smaller Scottish clubs live off the Big Two.

Drawing either one in the Scottish Cup is a Godsend to the lower league clubs, while the three or four visits per season, plus the TV money for a live game, is a boost to the finances of the struggling Premiership sides. OK to host them, they have to put-up with a degree of offensive behaviour, but, since behaving offensively at football is no longer a criminal act – why bother trying to change a system, even a discredited one, which works to the satisfaction of the clubs.

The great European downhill slide

The guys running the clubs might be happy with things, but, are the fans? For instance, Scotland was one of the pioneers of European football. When it all started back in the mid-1950s, while the (English) Football Association leant heavily on League champions Chelsea to stay out of the new European Cup, Scotland, although champions Aberdeen couldn't enter, due to the lack of floodlights, Hibs stepped in, and reached the semi-finals. That was the first of 63 years of constant European competition for Scottish clubs and, in the early days – we did well.

Hibs, semi-finalists in 1955-56, the inaugural season. Rangers, semi-finalists in 1959-60, Celtic, let us never forget, WINNERS in 1966-67, finalists again in 1970. In the lesser competitions, the Cup-Winners Cup, Rangers reached the inaugural final in 1961, were finalists again in 1967, before winning it in 1972. Aberdeen won it in 1983. Dundee reached the European Cup semi-final in 1963, Dundee United have also reached the last four, and been in the final of the UEFA Cup.

Will we ever see their likes again?

But, these relative successes were back in the 20^th century. Since the Millennium, we had Celtic – as any of the estimated 5,000,000 fans who travelled with them will tell you – were in the UEFA Cup final in 2003, as were Rangers in 2008. Let's just draw a veil over the last decade, during which Scotland has slid from being the 10^th ranked European footballing nation, to being ranked 25^th.

That doesn't stop the fans from turning out, apparently. We are still, the best attenders of football matches, per head of population, in Europe apparently. A wee question then, given the dominance of the so-called Old Firm, how many of these fans turn-up for football reasons, and how many for other reasons?

Should we maybe not be doing something, to try to get us back to being one of the top nations? Are we happy to see just two clubs being so dominant? To return for a moment to our European record: in those 63 seasons, 21 Scottish clubs have featured in Europe, half of our senior number. They have played 1195 games against European opponents, with the Old Firm participating in 628 of those games - 52%.

Shouldn't we be levelling the domestic playing field, and coming-up with a system whereby more of our clubs might enjoy more success in Europe? It might bridge the gap between the two Haves, and the other 40 Have Nots.