Sticking up for Scottish Football

[Northboy]

23 minutes ago, Hampden Diehard said:

Do people in, say, Slovakia, complain about their game and whimper that across the border in Germany it's so much better?

Apologies for the pedantry but Slovakia doesn't have a border with Germany.

[Les Westander of County]

I wonder if the EPL bubble will actually burst at some point, or slowly deflate.

In England a discourse has managed to get established that assumes its the best place to play, and also that the national team is a top contender in international football. This superiority complex appears to have been taken in by the rest of the world too. But it is kind of self-fulfilling when the top wages are in England so the top footballers go there.

It seems to me, without hard research evidence, that other big European countries produce relatively technically better players on average than England or indeed Scotland.

A good example was the Women's Eufa. Everyone, including the Netherlands team, seemed to believe what Mark Sampson was telling us. They were there to win it and had the team to do it. Yet if you watched all the England and all the NL games leading up to them meeting at QF stage, you would have to recognise the better standard of football on offer was from the NL team.

To put it another way:

Hoi England - Y'er Shite!

[forameus]

The quality of the players down south is obviously streets ahead, but that doesn't necessarily - and demonstrably doesn't - lead to better games.  For a couple of seasons now, I've watched games on cooncil telly - mostly Scottish Cup - that were far more enjoyable than any English (or European for that matter) game.  It didn't matter that the players were worse,or that the standard was lower, it was just a better and more entertaining game to watch.  

A lot of people are never going to give the Scottish game a chance.  That's fair enough.  But it's unforgivable that it's not marketed better.  Just because some people aren't going to like it doesn't mean no-one will.  

1 minute ago, Les Westander of County said:

I wonder if the EPL bubble will actually burst at some point, or slowly deflate.

In England a discourse has managed to get established that assumes its the best place to play, and also that the national team is a top contender in international football. This superiority complex appears to have been taken in by the rest of the world too. But it is kind of self-fulfilling when the top wages are in England so the top footballers go there.

It seems to me, without hard research evidence, that other big European countries produce relatively technically better players on average than England or indeed Scotland.

A good example was the Women's Eufa. Everyone, including the Netherlands team, seemed to believe what Mark Sampson was telling us. They were there to win it and had the team to do it. Yet if you watched all the England and all the NL games leading up to them meeting at QF stage, you would have to recognise the better standard of football on offer was from the NL team.

To put it another way:

Hoi England - Y'er Shite!

But it's not really as complex as that.  They're just very good at marketing their product.  It's by no means a bad product, but the marketing lifts it up to the levels we see now.  When you add in the fact that they are up to their foie-gras holes in money, it's easy for most people to just swallow the line about the best/most competitive/most exciting league in the world.  

That's what's so annoying really - some decent marketing could probably work wonders for our game.  I'm not expecting them to start spouting lofty pish like they do down South, but something more than "ooooh, look at what they're doing" would go a long way.

[HaikuHibee]

1 hour ago, Highlandmagyar 2nd String said:

Been to a few Ipswich games and seen a lot of awful stuff. Championship isn't what it's cracked up to be.

Rangers proves that point. They signed half that division. They were atrocious.

[RussellAnderson]

Scotland doesn't have a sports television broadcaster, meaning our games will always be second fiddle to the companies responsible for showing them. Until we have a broadcaster which puts our games first over the English and overseas leagues then we'll never get treated like the main event in the media. 

[DublinMagyar]

Apologies for the pedantry but Slovakia doesn't have a border with Germany.

Czech mate

[EdTheDuck]

A substantial percentage of Scottish fans slag our game, never mind the media. We continually see dimwits on here complaining Dundee and Dunfermline aren’t getting to European semi-finals like they did in the early 1960s apparently blissfully unaware of what has transpired and changed in the intervening half century.

Having said that, the media frenzy re the OF(deceased) and abominable dismissal of The Rest over the last 25 years by SKY, aided and abetted by our “national broadcaster” certainly has had an effect; time was the OF represented between 20%-25% of the attendees at our football. Last season that had risen to over 47% and I’ve no doubt the media’s constant bias has had an effect (yes, the complete domination has too – but that domination has been fed and nurtured by said bias and of course we also have UEFA complicit in creating monsters in most of the small leagues in Europe)

SKY cannot see beyond big bucks so as long as they’re selling our game they’ll be selling it short (badum ching) and the BBC are frankly incompetent – their next original idea will be their first.

BT show some promise but let’s wait and see – the next round of EPL sales isn’t far away and I fear they’ll become a mirror image of SKY if they succeed in getting a sufficient number of those games to show, our fitba would be relegated to filler status there too.

As Russel Anderson says above until we get a genuinely independent broadcaster and a means of addressing the overwhelming imbalance in our league I don’t expect the media to do much of anything to sell our game better.

[HAMLISCH]

3 hours ago, scottmcleanscontacts said:

 

There's probably other threads related to this kind of topic but here goes....

 

Already this season in Scotland there has been some tremendous goals scored, through individual brilliance etc that if they were scored at Anfield or The Emirates folk would be salivating over them for yonks.

 

In the two competetive games I've been to I've witnessed three fantastic goals - Spoony and O'Halloran for us at Killie and Edwards brilliant strike against us for Thistle.

 

Seen highlights of the Tierney goal against Killie and the Dee player against United whose name i can't spell ha.

 

What I'm saying is we really need to talk up our game....It's not nearly as bad as it's made out to be. I've been at enough games both sides of the border to have an imformed opinion that the difference in 'entertainment value' is negligible. It's certainly shinier down there, bigger crowds and in some cases a better atnosphere and there's obviously a gulf in skill levels etc but there's tonnes of tedious games in England as well.

 

 

 

Was in total agreement up until your last line. Am all for talking up our game but that  doesn't need to include talking down their's. 

[Les Westander of County]

1 minute ago, HAMLISCH said:

Was in total agreement up until your last line. Am all for talking up our game but that  doesn't need to include talking down their's. 

Not to talk down the game in England /Wales, but there have certainly been a good few, if not tonnes of tedious games, even in the EP.

[HAMLISCH]

Of course there are....same for ANY league. What's that got to do with talking up Scottish fitba? 

[LondonHMFC]

1 hour ago, TheScarf said:

Comparing Scottish and English football directly is of course the mark of a massive simpleton. 

Was going to post something similar, original post was stating about talking up the Scottish game, and straight away it has descended to comparing the standard against sides South of the border. 

It is virtually impossible to compare the two due to money, population etc etc. 

Scottish football in it's own right is a good enough standard, of course people down South who watch the likes of Chelsea play Man United on TV are going to think watching Hamilton V Motherwell in comparison is a bit shit. 

Some of the most exciting games I have watched have involved Junior league sides in Scotland, as Hampden Diehard mentioned, as long as you go home thinking "that was a decent match" for me personally, is what it is all about.

[lanky_ffc]

I think another issue is that it's become fashionable on social media to bash our tinpot/mickey mouse/diddy league. You get Paddy Power sharing videos like that one from Aberdeen-Celtic where the ball doesn't touch the ground for about 2 minutes and the EPL fanboys pile in with their superiority complex. That was actually a really enjoyable game (with a belter from Hayes IIRC), but your average armchair fan only saw the worst part of it and will happily assume that's the standard of our game because they've been spoon-fed the narrative that they watch the best league in the world.

From a business point of view, I can't really blame PP for sharing that sort of content as it generates traffic for them and they don't have any to loyalty to one particular league. But it is frustrating how hard it is to counter that negativity and change peoples' opinions. I'm not overly bothered what some plastic Man Utd fan from middle England thinks about our game, but it's infuriating to see the amount of Scots that also buy into this mindset.

FWIW, I do actually think the SPFL have been making a more sustained effort recently. The improved content on their Facebook (classic matches, throwbacks, etc.) has been really positive so far this season.

[Northboy]

1 hour ago, RussellAnderson said:

Scotland doesn't have a sports television broadcaster, meaning our games will always be second fiddle to the companies responsible for showing them. Until we have a broadcaster which puts our games first over the English and overseas leagues then we'll never get treated like the main event in the media. 

Genuine question - where do you think such a broadcaster is going to come from? The BBC is haemorrhaging sports coverage year on year and any future, publicly funded Scottish alternative would probably be the same. Scottish football is well down the list of priorities for commercial pay to view broadcasters.

[RussellAnderson]

Genuine question - where do you think such a broadcaster is going to come from? The BBC is haemorrhaging sports coverage year on year and any future, publicly funded Scottish alternative would probably be the same. Scottish football is well down the list of priorities for commercial pay to view broadcasters.

I have no idea. It's a byproduct of essentially being a regional league. It makes complete sense for the broadcasters to focus on the league with the potential market of 50 million rather than 5 million.

I don't want to sidetrack the debate but I'm of the opinion that while we're part of the UK, we'll always be treated as such. While we're still being sold a tv product for a UK market, Scottish football won't get the coverage it deserves. BT Sport do a better job than Sky, but like others have said, I don't fully trust them to keep it up while they continue to try and compete for the big contracts.

There are so many other factors.

[Northboy]

24 minutes ago, RussellAnderson said:

I have no idea. It's a byproduct of essentially being a regional league. It makes complete sense for the broadcasters to focus on the league with the potential market of 50 million rather than 5 million.

I don't want to sidetrack the debate but I'm of the opinion that while we're part of the UK, we'll always be treated as such. While we're still being sold a tv product for a UK market, Scottish football won't get the coverage it deserves. BT Sport do a better job than Sky, but like others have said, I don't fully trust them to keep it up while they continue to try and compete for the big contracts.

There are so many other factors.

Honestly, I'd rather we forget about chasing the TV millions and focused on getting punters through the gates to watch live football at whatever level. Those who follow football through TV will always be dazzled by the 'glamour' leagues.

[scottmcleanscontacts]

Honestly, I'd rather we forget about chasing the TV millions and focused on getting punters through the gates to watch live football at whatever level. Those who follow football through TV will always be dazzled by the 'glamour' leagues.

That's absolutely the truth. Nothing can beat the feeling of being there when your team, no matter what league or level, scores an unexpected late winner or a wondergoal from nowhere.

From a Saints perspective the utter disappointment of a trip to Vilnius to watch 90 minutes of tripe was made all the better by the late winner on Saturday past.

Equally getting a deserved gubbing on Tuesday brought me back to earth. Tomorrow might be the tonic to that and if not maybe the week after (seeing as it's Thistle at home probably not ha ha).

That's the beauty of actually following your team rather than watching overpaid, overhyped Prima Donna mercenaries from other leagues on the telly.

[EdTheDuck]

Just now, Northboy said:

Honestly, I'd rather we forget about chasing the TV millions and focused on getting punters through the gates to watch live football at whatever level. Those who follow football through TV will always be dazzled by the 'glamour' leagues.

I could be wrong but I don't think anyone believes we can chase TV millions, more like using TV to sell and promote our game better than it is now to get more folks into the grounds.

[RussellAnderson]

8 minutes ago, Northboy said:

Honestly, I'd rather we forget about chasing the TV millions and focused on getting punters through the gates to watch live football at whatever level. Those who follow football through TV will always be dazzled by the 'glamour' leagues.

 

Just now, EdTheDuck said:

I could be wrong but I don't think anyone believes we can chase TV millions, more like using TV to sell and promote our game better than it is now to get more folks into the grounds.

 

Yeah this. 

The tv brings in cash for the clubs but it also acts as an advert for the game as a whole. You think the English grounds are packed out because of each supporter's passion for the club? It's because the game has been properly advertised as a quality entertainment option. Compare MOTD to Sportscene. It looks great! They big up the players to the heavens, and they edit out the garbage. The people paid to talk about our game only focus on the shite. If we had a comparable amount invested in our highlights package, to make it slick and shiny like MOTD, then more people who tune in just because its football will be likely to chance a return to the ground they've forgotten about just down the road. 

[The DA]

4 hours ago, SaintDougie said:

TBF, Boyd's was a stonker as well.

Entirely agree with your sentiment though, as said above the product is good in comparison to nations of similar size and population (people that compare our game to that of down south need to think a little) but the marketing is awful, That though lies directly at the feet of the hierarchy in charge that are only there to pick up a tidy salary and do nothing for the game.  

As was United's goal against Dundee. A well-worked interchange and a cracking ball low to the back post.  None of this Narey-esque toe-poke stuff from 30 yards out - United's goal was proper football. 

And, to add to the general thread, I've got a massive hard-on for Scottish football.  When the big tournaments are on, the World Cups and European Championships, I get fed up after the first week or so and can't wait for them to be over and the Scottish season to begin.  Proper grass-roots football. 

[Hampden Diehard]

Apologies for the pedantry but Slovakia doesn't have a border with Germany.

They will if the Germans start invading their neighbours again.