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Reinstate Elgin as Highland League champions 1992-93


Alex

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This is sure to stimulate some debate on here, particularly now the season is over.

Twenty-five years ago with my Dad, I first embarked on the father-and-son ritual of going to watch our local football team, Elgin City, every Saturday. The night they won the league and captain Russell Mackay lifted the cup, in the first season we began supporting them, is a treasured childhood memory of mine. Being eight years old at the time, I don't remember much about the ensuing controversy, whereby the players had to give back their medals and the club were stripped of the title on the basis of an indiscretion (still not proven) relating to one match.

I'm now a freelance journalist and, having researched the whole affair thoroughly in the last two years, spending hours trawling through newspaper cuttings at Central Library in Edinburgh and interviewing fans, players and officials of my team and rival clubs, the penalty they faced back then seems ludicrous to me - and everyone I've interviewed, regardless of allegiance, agrees.

That's why I'm looking to the Scottish Football Association to review the decision and, hopefully, put things right for the players of that brilliant team.

Anyone who agrees can sign and share the petition here: https://tinyurl.com/Elgin93

Please discuss.

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1 hour ago, Alex said:

This is sure to stimulate some debate on here, particularly now the season is over.

Twenty-five years ago with my Dad, I first embarked on the father-and-son ritual of going to watch our local football team, Elgin City, every Saturday. The night they won the league and captain Russell Mackay lifted the cup, in the first season we began supporting them, is a treasured childhood memory of mine. Being eight years old at the time, I don't remember much about the ensuing controversy, whereby the players had to give back their medals and the club were stripped of the title on the basis of an indiscretion (still not proven) relating to one match.

I'm now a freelance journalists and, having researched the whole affair thoroughly in the last two years, spending hours trawling through newspaper cuttings at Central Library in Edinburgh and interviewing fans, players and officials of my team and rival clubs, the penalty they faced back then seems ludicrous to me - and everyone I've interviewed, regardless of allegiance, agrees.

That's why I'm looking to the Scottish Football Association to review the decision and, hopefully, put things right for the players of that brilliant team.

Anyone who agrees can sign and share the petition here: https://tinyurl.com/Elgin93

Please discuss.

It seemed ridiculous at the time and still feels a total nonsense.

Many a happy day as a youth spent on the concrete box in Borough Briggs shouting abuse at the likes of Billy Urquhart.

Signed. 

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2 hours ago, Muzza81 said:

What was the actual punishment for moving the game?

Twenty-five years ago, Scottish football club Elgin City were crowned Highland League champions - during the centenary season of the club and the league - before being stripped of the title for "bringing the game into disrepute". The charge brought by the Highland Football League, an affiliate organisation of the Scottish Football Association, was that Elgin's motive for seeking to bring forward a Saturday afternoon fixture to Friday night was that players suspended for the Saturday could play in the game. 

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So the charge was purely stripping them of the title and awarding it to someone else? I assumed it was a hefty points deduction and someone else won it that way? The league literally just decided to award the title to someone else? Surely not. 

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5 minutes ago, Muzza81 said:

So the charge was purely stripping them of the title and awarding it to someone else? I assumed it was a hefty points deduction and someone else won it that way? The league literally just decided to award the title to someone else? Surely not. 

The title was withheld, no other team was awarded the title.

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As I observed elsewhere: lobbying SFA is an odd approach. It's appeal committee, which no longer exists, only acted as an appellant tribunal (and - vitally - upheld their punishment).

It'd be for HL to announce they now recognise Elgin as 1992-93 champions, re-engrave the trophy, etc. - but Elgin aren't HL members.

Separately: at the time, using evidence which probably hasn't survived (e.g. testimony given in person) and dealing with a live issue not a piece of nostalgia, a decision was made and upheld on appeal. Some of those involved will now be dead. Dangerous territory to start erasing and rewriting history, IMO.

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40 minutes ago, HibeeJibee said:

As I observed elsewhere: lobbying SFA is an odd approach. It's appeal committee, which no longer exists, only acted as an appellant tribunal (and - vitally - upheld their punishment).

It'd be for HL to announce they now recognise Elgin as 1992-93 champions, re-engrave the trophy, etc. - but Elgin aren't HL members.

Separately: at the time, using evidence which probably hasn't survived (e.g. testimony given in person) and dealing with a live issue not a piece of nostalgia, a decision was made and upheld on appeal. Some of those involved will now be dead. Dangerous territory to start erasing and rewriting history, IMO.

And as much as Elgin supporters would like everyone to believe, it was the reason for moving the game and, if memory serves, it was a game that they needed to win.

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9 hours ago, Melanius Mullarkey said:

Many a happy day as a youth spent on the concrete box in Borough Briggs shouting abuse at the likes of Billy Urquhart. :wub:

Right. That's plenty.

2 hours ago, Tin Shed Jaggie said:

How long will it be before some Forres, Lossie, Caley Thistle joker starts a petition demanding that the punishment stays in place. I suspect it might get more signatures :lol:

Hmmm...

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Read up on the situation, signed the petition. Worthy cause and hope Elgin will get what is rightfully theirs. If I had to bet on it, however, I doubt anything will ever come of this. Football Associations (not just the Scottish one) are rather hardheaded when it comes to admitting mistakes.

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