Humphrey Plugg

Psyched already for Saturday Sportsound featuring Dave Cormack, Mike Mulraney, Allan Preston and obviously chief epidemiologist Willie Miller. Don’t be shy, lads.

Just listening to Saturday’s (quite short) podcast and was surprised to hear Craig Levein and Michael Stewart palling it up on the airwaves together. Bit weird that innit??

You could argue, given the main problems you point out, that any league reconstruction would just be window dressing in comparison. And you'd probably be right. The question, I think, though would be if jigging the leagues about a bit could make the, er, product *better*....rather than dismissing some kind of reconstruction because it obviously isn't the answer to all of the deep rooted problems Scottish football faces. The kind of 'ach, what's the point?' attitude is quite pervasive - amongst fans and in boardrooms - which acts to maintain the stodgy status quo and stops things at least beginning to move in the right direction, imo. Like most, I find playing clubs 4 (sometimes more) times a season year in-year out pretty tedious and repetitive and it'll continue to be a main bugbear for a lot of supporters until something changes - if it ever does. In the context of Scottish football, I think over familiarity has absolutely bred contempt, stagnancy and a large degree of boredom between fans, players and everyone else involved. I can obviously only speak for myself, like, but it has been the deciding factor on not attending (away games especially) on numerous occasions - never mind, there'll be another identical game on in a couple of weeks etc - and I think a slightly bigger league (if done right obv) would help to improve attendances and rivalries for this reason. I'd definitely agree though that the current set up is far from the worst we've had and it has been proven to generate meaningful, exciting games towards the end of the season. Aye, there's a danger of ballsing that up with league tinkering but I personally cant get away from really wanting rid of the 4+ games a season with Hamilton (sorry Hamilton) yawnfest. Unfortunately the 1980's-esque splitting of funds isn't coming back for the reasons you point out, but Scottish football shouldn't continue to cut its nose off to spite its face in other areas because of that.

Anything over 40 games max is apparently a deal breaker though. I remember reading, er somewhere, that the clubs don't want to go over that mark again. The jessies. *edit - although that would be alright for yer 14 team league, at 39 games. Obv. **relearns basic maths

Just gonna type out the 16-10-16 to see what it looks like. I'm bored, like. PREMIERSHIP CHAMPIONSHIP LEAGUE 1 1. Celtic 1. St Mirren 1. Brechin 2. Rangers ---------------------------------- -------------------- 3. Aberdeen 2. Dunfermline 2. Alloa 4. St Johnstone 3. Livingston 3. Stirling 5. Hearts ---------------------------------- 4. Stranraer 6. Hibernian 4. Queen Of The South --------------------- 7. Dundee United 5. Raith Rovers 5. Albion Rovers 8. Partick Thistle 6. Airdrie 6. Peterhead - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 7. Dumbarton 7. Stenhousemuir 9. Ross County 8. Ayr United 8. Arbroath 10. Motherwell ---------------------------------- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 11. Dundee 9. Clyde 9. Forfar 12. Falkirk ----------------------------------- 10. Annan Athletic 13. Kilmarnock 10. East Fife 11. Montrose -------------------------------- 12. Queen's Park 14. Morton 13. Edinburgh City 15. Hamilton Acc. 14. Berwick ------------------------------- --------------------------------------- 16. Inverness CT 15. Elgin 16. Cowdenbeath Premiership - everyone plays home and away taking it to 30 games before splitting into 8/8 ....then play an extra round of fixtures with 1st playing 2nd, 3rd playing 4th etc all the way down. An extra set of '6 pointers' for everyone and, 9 times out of 10, it would give the OF their extra game which they insist upon. ...then just play the other teams in your half once...7 more games, taking it to 38 games for the season. Obviously everyone is going to end up playing 6 other teams 3 times a season so there's a fixture imbalance but that would just have to be balanced out as much as possible overall. Worth it for a bigger league, imo. - 3rd bottom and 3rd top of Championship go into a 2 leg play off and 2nd bottom and 2nd top go into a separate two leg play off for the two spaces in the Premiership -10 team Championship and another 16 team league below that with play off places for both Highland and Lowland Leagues at the bottom I think that'd be great. Have that with summer football blah and you'd be onto a winner, imo. Pretty much every club in that Championship is of a big enough stature to play in a 16 team Premiership....it's not like 15-20 years ago when a lot of the stadia wasnt up to scratch. I reckon we DO have enough clubs for it - it's just about finding the right set up to get enough games and make it work.....then persuading the OF (and a couple of others). I'm oversimplifying things, aren't I??

Look, all I'm saying is if appointing Jim Duffy finally gets us back in Chick Young's good books after sacking his BFF Gerry Collins, then it's worth doing. ALRIGHT?

'Safe pair of hands' mentality innit. I'm not saying I want his baldy coupon in the Firhill dugout, just that he would be preferable to some of the other jibbering fools that always get touted for jobs by their media pals. Yer Terry Calderwoods, Kenny Butchers etc. Set yer sights low and be pleasantly surprised. That's my motto. Anyway, I've been to Swindon. It's a shitehouse. Archie's staying.

Might be a bit pessimistic discussing this already but if Archie does feck awf, I don't think Duff Jimmy would be the worst option. I've just depressed myself.

Got a suspicion that the current set up is the best fit of a bad bunch. Like most people, I'd love a bigger league with less games against the same teams but there's always a fundamental, cant-get-past-it problem with all the suggestions I've seen... Either not enough league games (16 team league) or not enough clubs (18) or kerazee divide the league into 4 groups after 15 games type suggestions (a lot of the 14 team league proposals). I think most people accept that there's no perfect answer to the league set up and, given that a 10 team league (bores the arse off everyone) and an 18 team league (not feasible) are off the table, there's always going to be a slight mismatch and compromise between matches played during a season by each club to get the right number of fixtures. The downside of the current set up is that we've still got the yawnsome prospect of playing a lot of teams 4 times a season (which unfortunately is back to being a prerequisite for the OF - opportunity missed there, imo) and there's a slight fixture imbalance. I reckon most on here would grudgingly admit the split has been a success though - especially now with the play off place. The system has generated a lot of meaningful, exciting games towards the end of the season and there's obviously a danger with league reconstruction of bollixing that right up. The thing I don't like about most of the 14 team league suggestions is that most of them have a split after 26 games. One of the reasons why the current split works is that it comes really late in the season. Splitting after 26 is too early, I think - it'd be more balanced with everyone playing each other home and away but it would be tedious and interminable post split, I reckon. Much better to keep the slightly unbalanced, more exciting 12 team Premiership than that, imo. The other problem with the 14 is that a 7/7 split means one team has got to sit it out for each round of fixtures and an 8/6 split means there's a fixture number imbalance between top and bottom So aye. 10 team Premiership .....with everyone playing each other home and away twice. 36 games. .....Been there, done that. Unanimous NAH. 18 team Premiership.....everyone playing home and away once. 34 games.......Would be nice but I think 99% accept there are not enough clubs to sustain it. Compromise options then.. 12 team Premiership............current set up. Not perfect etc but pretty good. Been shown to work quite well. 14 team Premiership.............not as good as the 12 team option for the reasons explained above. Think it'd be a mistake to ditch the 12 for a 14 team league. 16 team Premiership............unfortunately doesnt generate enough fixtures at only 30 for cash strapped clubs. .....If there was league reconstruction, a version of a 16 team league is the one I'd be tempted to go for and it could work with a bit of jiggery pokery. It'd be great to have a bigger league but it'd take a fair bit of compromise with regard to fixture balance etc to get the required amount of games. Given the amount of conspiracy theories already, I can see why it'd be a step too far for some but I really wouldnt mind an 8/8 split after 30 games and then just 1 round of fixtures against the other 7 teams in your half of the split. There would obviously be more of a fixture imbalance with a good few teams playing each other 3 times a season but I think it'd be worth it for a bigger league. It would just have to be evened out as much as possible between seasons and also if you got Celtic at home twice, you would get Rangers away twice in the same season (same deal with Hearts and Hibs etc). To balance the league games up you could have one extra round of fixtures to take it up from 37 to 38 games (19 home and 19 away for everyone) which would take place as the first games post split, with 1st playing 2nd, 3rd playing 4th and so on. That would be an extra round of '6 pointers' all the way down the league, balance things up and, let's face it, 9 times out of 10 it would give Rangers and Celtic their 4 OF games a season which apparently they need. Even if Aberdeen or Hearts did manage to split them on occasion, then you'd think that'd be a marketable story from a telly perspective anyway. A 16 team Premiership would be borderline pushing it with the amount of clubs in Scotland so I would keep it as a 10 team Championship below it to try an conserve the 2nd tier at a certain standard and keep it at one club promoted/relegated between the Championship and Premiership (with another 16 team 3rd division below that = 42 clubs altogether). I would have 2nd top and 2nd bottom going into a two leg play off tie but also 3rd top and 3rd bottom going into a separate 2 leg play off tie for the two places in the Premiership. Having the 3 bottom Premiership places with the jeopardy of relegation would be the same as the EPL but with 14th and 15th going into play offs, it would help to solve the issue of a limited number of clubs for a bigger league and make it so it wasn't too easy to get into the top league. If you can't be ersed reading all that (dont blame yer)...then it's basically keep it the same at 12 or possibly go to a 16 team league if you dont mind more fixture conspiracy theories.