Wee Jock Poo Pong McPlop football thread

[Jonny Vegas]

It's a hugely underestimated and overlooked achievement to those predominantly in England because there's a lazy and inaccurate opinion that it's easy.

It's the minimum requirement for the fans of each because of the bitter rivalry and the bragging rights.

As stubomir says, football particularly in the PL is an absolute shit show nowadays. All season there's been videos taken by fans of teams Southampton have been playing of James Ward-Prowse free kicks against them. It's a tourist league and 90% of the games are meaningless.

The clubs with the bigger budgets win the league in every country in the world 9 times out of 10 and have done for decades.

Keith - Gretna & Hearts are examples of money pushing them way past what they otherwise would have achieved. Gretna were an absolutely miniscule team and money took them to the top division and a Scottish Cup final.

Hearts if they hadn't have had a crazy owner who sacked George Burley and wanted to pick the team himself may well have won the league.

The minute the money got took away they both went back to usual business.

 

[Bettencourt]

The quality on the pitch may be absolute shite. But everything else about Scottish Football is entertaining as fuck. The Sevco Banter Years. The Covid vote scandal. Cinched It! Speak about Sports Entertainment!

[bAzTNM#1]

Gretna would make an absolutely fascinating documentary. Brookes Mileson must have been a mad man if he thought a place the size of Gretna could eventually finish third in the SPL. 

It all went to shit after that Scottish Cup Final, then they got hammered out the UEFA Cup by, I think, Derry City. Gretna still have the lowest crowd of the SPL years. Played Caley Thistle at Fir Park and got 430+ fans. Mileson was found dead in his garden pond a few months after it went to shit. It's a fascinating story.

ADDED: I remember Division 1 (now the Scottish Championship) team chairmen basically saying "don't let these fuckers into the SPL as they'll crash and burn". 100% right. I remember St. Johnstone's Geoff Brown being extremely vocal as were others.

ADDED AGAiN. Not sure of the timing of their absolute collapse, but I think them being chucked out allowed Rangers back in. Not sure on that one.

Edited May 28, 2022 by bAzTNM#1

[westlondonmist]

10 hours ago, bAzTNM#1 said:

Gretna would make an absolutely fascinating documentary. Brookes Mileson must have been a mad man if he thought a place the size of Gretna could eventually finish third in the SPL. 

It all went to shit after that Scottish Cup Final, then they got hammered out the UEFA Cup by, I think, Derry City. Gretna still have the lowest crowd of the SPL years. Played Caley Thistle at Fir Park and got 430+ fans. Mileson was found dead in his garden pond a few months after it went to shit. It's a fascinating story.

ADDED: I remember Division 1 (now the Scottish Championship) team chairmen basically saying "don't let these fuckers into the SPL as they'll crash and burn". 100% right. I remember St. Johnstone's Geoff Brown being extremely vocal as were others.

ADDED AGAiN. Not sure of the timing of their absolute collapse, but I think them being chucked out allowed Rangers back in. Not sure on that one.

Nah Gretna went tits up in 2008, Rangers 2012. Rangers were allowed to stay in the league because the SFL always would have taken their application to play in the league ahead of Leith or Bonnyrigg Rose (examples only). At that time there was no relegation into the highland/lowland leagues. 

[ElCece]

2 hours ago, westlondonmist said:

Nah Gretna went tits up in 2008, Rangers 2012. Rangers were allowed to stay in the league because the SFL always would have taken their application to play in the league ahead of Leith or Bonnyrigg Rose (examples only). At that time there was no relegation into the highland/lowland leagues. 

As a Bonnyrigg local I can tell you our ground didn't hit the league specs until a couple of years ago. 

I know that isn't your point but I am heavily invested in them.

[David]

Cutting through all the nonsense, the Scots can at least rest easy in the smug satisfaction that the league isn't being financed by Arab oil money. Some clubs, such as mine, are financed and run exclusively by the fanbase. You don't get much purer than that.

We all know that it won't be long before the English Prem is basically a sportswashing contest between Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi being played out in soulless stadiums in front of tourists with their half & half scarves, prawn sandwiches and selfie sticks.

The top flight down south is gone. It's no longer football. It's a TV product to be sold to the highest bidder. Each game on a weekend is a "fan experience" wrapped up in a nice Amazon Prime or Sky Sports package. The fans are an after thought, and in a few more generations they won't even exist. There's already evidence that modern football fans are moving to supporting favourite players rather than a particular club. Fans will migrate from club to club depending on who their chosen superstar is. 

The worst thing is? Clubs down south won't care. The pandemic showed that they could survive financially even if not one paying punter walks through a turnstile. If you continue acting up, chanting horrible things and generally being unmarketable toerags they'll just remove you from the equation altogether. Use some CGI jiggery-pokery to make it look like there's thousands of smiling faces in the crowd, and pipe in acceptable crowd noise.

Meanwhile us up north will be sliding through the creaky metal turnstiles that have been in place since the 90's after a few rounds in the pub, sitting in uncomfortable plastic seating while munching down a hot-on-the-outside-but-freezing-in-the-middle pie, all safe in the knowledge that while what we have isn't much, at least it's still football.

The above will be done while sporting the kind of knowing, superior smirk that wee Sturgeon has across her coupon whenever news of the next Boris fuck-up is reported. 

 

[westlondonmist]

On a different note, Celtic win the Women's Cup, giving them the Cup double. Rangers won the league making it the first trophyless season for Glasgow City since 2003. 

I feel bad for City, they provided coaching for young girls while SFA did nothing for the women's game. Due to this they got most of the best youngsters and dominated. With Celtic and Rangers now being pro they will start to struggle to compete I feel. 

[RedRooster]

On 5/27/2022 at 4:13 AM, MrK said:

Surely the above would be the same for Cowdenbeath or Albion Rovers also?

Well...no. Even if these clubs were in the unlikely scenario of receiving 5-years of Premier League money, neither of these clubs are from a city in which the population would make competing at that level completely unsustainable. The population of Cowdenbeath, is around 12,000; the population of Coatbridge (where Albion Rovers is based) is around 43,000. 

Glasgow is (I think) the third biggest city in the UK by population size. Hibs and Hearts (in Edinburgh) are a better example, but even then, people in Edinburgh don't live and die for football to the same extent that they do in Glasgow (nor should they). 

In addition, the popularity of Celtic and Rangers exists outside of Glasgow. You'll find large supporters clubs everywhere from Aberdeen, to the Western Isles. And that's not taking into consideration the supporters clubs that exist outside of Scotland. 

If Rangers and Celtic ever were to move to England, it's very likely that someone would see them as an extremely profitable venture. And that doesn't necessarily mean top-of-the-table success. But it certainly could. And, frankly, fans would demand it. So I'd be inclined to think this would eventually happen. 

[Keith Houchen]

12 minutes ago, RedRooster said:

If Rangers and Celtic ever were to move to England, it's very likely that someone would see them as an extremely profitable venture

Obviously I really really hope they never do. Been reading a book lately about how when you normally have two teams from a city in a competitive league, you have fluctuations of dominance over crosstown rivals. So it would probably be one over the other. 
 

The thing with the bigot brothers having support in England is that they tend to be someone’s second team, if they were in the same association as the team they actually support, they’d quickly stop supporting their second team. 

[SuperBacon]

44 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

Been reading a book lately about how when you normally have two teams from a city in a competitive league, you have fluctuations of dominance over crosstown rivals.

What book is this please?

[Keith Houchen]

3 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

What book is this please?

Soccernomics

[SuperBacon]

26 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

Soccernomics

Time for a re-read I think!

[Keith Houchen]

3 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

Time for a re-read I think!

Sure it was you who recommended it to me!

[MrK]

17 hours ago, RedRooster said:

Well...no. Even if these clubs were in the unlikely scenario of receiving 5-years of Premier League money, neither of these clubs are from a city in which the population would make competing at that level completely unsustainable. The population of Cowdenbeath, is around 12,000; the population of Coatbridge (where Albion Rovers is based) is around 43,000. 

I don’t think there’s any correlation between size of surrounding area/attendances and success. Of the top 4 average attendances in the Premier League in 21/22, only one of them (Spurs) qualified for the Champions League and none of them have won a league title in the last 9 seasons.
 

The prize money in the Premier League is such that ticket money is almost irrelevant anyway. 
 

And if you think Cowdenbeath or Albion Rovers’ support would only be from the immediate area if they were hosting Premier League football and suddenly turning over £200m a year then I think you’re mistaken. Infact, the teams left in Scotland that would suffer the most in lost attendances and support would probably be Rangers and Celtic. 
 

17 hours ago, RedRooster said:

If Rangers and Celtic ever were to move to England, it's very likely that someone would see them as an extremely profitable venture. And that doesn't necessarily mean top-of-the-table success. But it certainly could. And, frankly, fans would demand it. So I'd be inclined to think this would eventually happen. 

Likewise, this would be the same for any single club that was suddenly parachuted in to the riches of the premier league. I don’t understand why Rangers and Celtic fans think we’d be so unique. 

[David]

2 minutes ago, MrK said:

Likewise, this would be the same for any single club that was suddenly parachuted in to the riches of the premier league. I don’t understand why Rangers and Celtic fans think we’d be so unique. 

Most likely due to the size of their respective fanbases, no? I mean, they could parachute Luton Town, Venezia, Malaga or Vitória de Guimarães into the English Premiership, but I doubt they'd be seen as an extremely profitable venture. Certainly not in the same way as Celtic, and to a slightly lesser degree Rangers are. 

The difference between the old firm and most other clubs, and it surprises me that you don't see this when you're a fan of one of the Glasgow giants, is that they both have massive built-in supporter bases.

Celtic alone boasts almost 500 supporters clubs worldwide, in places ranging from Trondheim to Honolulu, and Singapore to Shanghai. That's not normal for a club from a country and league the size of Scotland.

If you don't see how that potential would be more attractive were the club playing in the most lucrative football league in the world than "any single club" parachuted into said league then I don't know what to tell you.

I know this and I'm not even a supporter of either club.