Old Firm Colts in L2

[Sao Paulo]

21 minutes ago, Doonhamer doon south said:

One of the points raised in favour of the colt idea is that Celtic and rangers youth will be playing in a sustained league campaign and some could one day end up as Scotland caps. 

Well that's great if all 11 were Scottish. We have Myles beerman on loan from rangers and he would likely be one of the colts in the rangers set up. He will never represent Scotland as he has been capped by Malta but he would likely take the place of a "highly promising" young Scot. This is probably not the only example but it's a cheeky lie to say the colts will improve the young scots trying to break through when it will not be 11 young scots on the pitch. 

Again, make it policy that you can't look worldwide for players and you've set an artificial ceiling.

Maybe 5% of Colts players are not eligible to play for Scotland. Our youth ranks are one of the most homogeneous in Europe. We pinch other nations players for our national team every year; that's where it's at.

I'll worry about those meddling Maltese later.

Edited January 23, 2018 by Sao Paulo

[selfassemblyshire]

In my opinion it comes down to one thing. Is my club willing to sell out our fans for £15000?
I hope not.

Berwick have released a statement which suggests they may back the colts purely due to financial reasons.

Might not be the only club as there are several L2 teams struggling for cash.

[sammyreidloyal]

Doesn’t mean to say the Berwick fans agree

[Cowden316]

4 minutes ago, selfassemblyshire said:

Berwick have released a statement which suggests they may back the colts purely due to financial reasons.

Might not be the only club as there are several L2 teams struggling for cash.

Totally understandable of any club in League 2 supporting the proposed pilot. 

Finances are seriously limited in League 2 due to low attendances, final league position payouts being relitevley smaller than the tiers above and more difficult to attract investment. 

If it is crystal clear that there is to be increased financial benefits to league 2 clubs then for financial reasons basically potentially 30k better of during the two year period it makes business sense to accept the proposal purely based on looking after your own respective club in the first instance. 

Whether it does prove to develop players or not I guess will be established at the end of the proposed pilot. 

My only concern is that I do not agree the colt teams would not have to enter a pyramid playoff but the team above them would. This clearly is against any integrity of the league structure and unfair to other clubs in that league. 

Personally think they should scrap a tier in Scottish Football altogether and introduce a 12 14 18 league structure. With 2 coming up from the either the Highland League or Lowland League automatically or the Highland League vs Lowland league playoff to see which two come up. 

 

[JakeSAFC]

Berwick have released a statement which suggests they may back the colts purely due to financial reasons.

Might not be the only club as there are several L2 teams struggling for cash.

If the Berwick support are against it and let the club know exactly how they feel theres no way they can vote it in. Unless they're willing to lose some die hards for some petty cash.

[selfassemblyshire]

If the Berwick support are against it and let the club know exactly how they feel theres no way they can vote it in. Unless they're willing to lose some die hards for some petty cash.

Yeah I would hope they see sense. Yellow Feet crunched some numbers a few pages ago and it's no real financial advantage. Fans need to boycott.

[Cowden316]

Playing devil's advocate if there is talk of diehard fans turning their back on their respective clubs what good is that to their respective club? 

Everyone including fans, directors etc need to have full dialogue with one another to assess together the pros and cons of accepting or rejecting the proposal. 

Also whether you like the old firm or not should not come into the decision making process it should purely be based on the factual information which is presented and for everyone to take a step back and look at the bigger picture whilst ensuring what is best for your club. 

Just my own personal thoughts and every fan, director etc  of any club is fully entitled to their own opinion and stance. 

Edited January 23, 2018 by Cowden316

[Clyde01]

Let’s pilot replacing Doncaster and Reagan in their jobs with a couple of chimpanzees. We can review after 2 years and see if Scottish football is any worse off. I’m guessing the opposite will happen.

[JakeSAFC]

Playing devil's advocate if there is talk of diehard fans turning their back on their respective clubs what good is that to their respective club? 

What good is the club going against the people that make it money and follow them through thick and think?

If Stirling had been for it, despite the fans not wanting it, I wouldn't be returning to Forthbank. Thankfully we are 100% against it. I will boycott the "colt" games if it happens but will still attend the proper games against proper senior sides.

[ShiPi]

It probably has been covered elsewhere but my concern would be "fairness". If the Colts cannot be promoted or relegated, what is their incentive? Would there be a consistency of selection i.e. would they always play their strongest team? Or would they use it for example balance game time across the squad, or play younger player against certain teams etc. 

[Cowden316]

2 minutes ago, JakeSAFC said:

 

What good is the club going against the people that make it money and follow them through thick and think?

If Stirling had been for it, despite the fans not wanting it, I wouldn't be returning to Forthbank. Thankfully we are 100% against it. I will boycott the "colt" games if it happens but will still attend the proper games against proper senior sides.

 

A lot of this information is hearsay on here. 

What clubs need to do is present to them the information they have then share their view as a football club on what decision they feel is best then ask for fans input and views. 

There is no point in coming with an already half empty glass approach without fully understanding the proposals etc. Just my opinion. 

Don't get me wrong I personally think from a footballing point of view Colt teams being in our league doesn't excite me and think they should just compete in the development leagues and the challenge Cup etc  but I support allowing to test  something different in Scottish Football whilst hopefully helping the likes of Cowdenbeath financially in the the process 

[David W]

4 minutes ago, Cowden316 said:

A lot of this information is hearsay on here. 

What clubs need to do is present to them the information they have then share their view as a football club on what decision they feel is best then ask for fans input and views. 

There is no point in coming with an already half empty glass approach without fully understanding the proposals etc. Just my opinion. 

Don't get me wrong I personally think from a footballing point of view Colt teams being in our league doesn't excite me and think they should just compete in the development leagues and the challenge Cup etc  but I support allowing to test  something different in Scottish Football whilst hopefully helping the likes of Cowdenbeath financially in the the process 

I think that's unfair. There's plenty of accurate information on here, including the proposal booklet as sent to Elgin City. I don't think there are many people at all who don't "understand" the proposal.

 

[Cowden316]

4 minutes ago, David W said:

I think that's unfair. There's plenty of accurate information on here, including the proposal booklet as sent to Elgin City. I don't think there are many people at all who don't "understand" the proposal.

 

I wasn't aware of such booklet. 

Then if you have that level of information I personally would want dialogue with my own club to hear their stance on it whilst weighing up the risks and benefits for the good of whatever club you support 

[DA Baracus]

Any miniscule sum of money that League 2 clubs may make from the bribe is comically short sighted. It's actually mental that folk would be so greedy for a (in the scheme of things) small sum of money that, given everything in question, is not guaranteed to even be a single penny of profit. It's even more mental that anyone would be so greedy to grasp for this small sum, that isn't guaranteed to be a net profit, for only two seasons when the cons of the whole scheme will most likely see clubs lose money due to loss of fan revenue, which after 2 seasons won't be offset by the bribe.

Frankly you're a fucking dribbling dunce if you think this is a good idea, and a comically dense cretin if you think League 2 clubs will benefit financially from it.

[DA Baracus]

21 minutes ago, Cowden316 said:

I wasn't aware of such booklet. 

Then if you have that level of information I personally would want dialogue with my own club to hear their stance on it whilst weighing up the risks and benefits for the good of whatever club you support 

It's here; http://www.elgincity.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Colt-teams-Jan-18.pdf

[Cowden316]

13 minutes ago, DA Baracus said:

Any miniscule sum of money that League 2 clubs may make from the bribe is comically short sighted. It's actually mental that folk would be so greedy for a (in the scheme of things) small sum of money that, given everything in question, is not guaranteed to even be a single penny of profit. It's even more mental that anyone would be so greedy to grasp for this small sum, that isn't guaranteed to be a net profit, for only two seasons when the cons of the whole scheme will most likely see clubs lose money due to loss of fan revenue, which after 2 seasons won't be offset by the bribe.

Frankly you're a fucking dribbling dunce if you think this is a good idea, and a comically dense cretin if you think League 2 clubs will benefit financially from it.

If your club was in survival mode and at the bottom of League 2 with a fanbase of 250 to 300 coming to your games each home game  whilst no longer having the luxury of owning your ground I am sure you would have a different viewpoint. 

Believe it or not the prospect of 15k more each year can lessen the pressures for clubs like ours. 

 

[DA Baracus]

1 minute ago, Cowden316 said:

If your club was in survival mode and at the bottom of League 2 with a fanbase of 250 to 300 coming to your games each home game  whilst no longer having the luxury of owning your ground I am sure you would have a different viewpoint. 

Believe it or not the prospect of 15k more each year can lessen the pressures for clubs like ours. 

 

But the net will almost certainly not be £15k. In fact it's debatable if there even will be a profit. Even if there was any profit, it will only be for 2 years. What then? The damage has been done, and revenue will most likely have fallen and there won't be any cheap bribe to offset that fall in revenue

[Karpaty]

Clyde’s SLO has directly emailed the chairman asking his stance on the matter and another Clyde supporter branch (well over 100 active and vocal members of matchday fans) have all but one vote against the proposals. When the vote amoungst us has concluded (already a majority) a strongly worded email will be be sent to Norrie Innes (Clyde chairman). Despite the shite written earlier in the thread and perhaps in the media about Clyde being a “supporter” of this shite, Clyde supporters are completely against this pilot and rest assured we’ll do everything that takes to prevent this from happening. 

[RandomGuy.]

I can't believe we've reached this stage in the "destroy the lower leagues to benefit the Old Firm" strategy. Its absolutely mind boggling that anyone actually backs it. 

Three years down the line you'd have disillusioned supporters of clubs finishing third from bottom but still facing relegation, colt sides filled with players the Old Firm have simply sucked up and stored in those squads "just incase" and averaging supports of 150 folk, and we'll all be a lot worse off.

Edited January 23, 2018 by RandomGuy.

[Pride Of The Clyde]

3 hours ago, Sao Paulo said:

Rory McAllister's a tradesman. He's better than just about anything Celtic or Rangers have in their colts. Peaso, McGovern, Goodwillie, Templeman, Dillon, McGuigan, Dunlop. How many names do you want? The colts don't get that kind of challenge every week. Only an arrogant Old Firm supporter would think they might.

Charlie Adam's spell at St.Mirren - competing with our squad of rejects - was foundational to his success at Rangers, Blackpool and wherever he is now. Wouldn't have happened to a reserve-league idler. If you made the Colts teams part-time, they'd take doings from teams down here. Their full-time fitness is the only thing that'll make it interesting.

You'll recall that Ross Perry, Kyle Bradley and Jack Breslin are/were 'Old Firm Colts', aye? Bad examples though: most of them haven't learned a thing, though to see them play you know they could.

We will just need to disagree on this then, what are they going to learn that they can run the legs off of McGovern, Dunlop etc, that will not make them better players.  Charlie Adam was playing against mostly full time players 2 divisions above the level they want to join now in competitive matches not the glorified friendlies that is being suggested.