tamba_trio

Henrik Larsson. In his mid 20s he was frozen out by Feyenoord and signing for Celtic for pretty much buttons. By his mid 30s he was playing for Barcelona in Champions League finals.

The games Sky do show are unwatchable garbage that would put you off sport anyway, it's better that they don't use their full allocation.

Charlie Nicholas. As a youngster, he was superb. Incredible. Scored on his Scotland debut in 1983 (when he was 21) against Switzerland and, jeezus, what a goal it was. 2-1 down, 15 minutes left, he casually juggles the ball from right to left foot and clips it over the keeper into the top corner in one swift movement (Archie's scream of "OH WHAT A GOAL!!" summing up a level of excitement that he rarely showed). During that 82-83 season he scored 48 times (3 of the goals got nominated for goal of the season). And this was the early 80s. The Scottish League was at its peak. Hell, Celtic didn't even win the league that season (yay for Dundee United). From then on, he only managed to start another 3 competitive matches for Scotland (ignoring the home internationals poop) and managed only a couple of goals that weren't in friendlies. By the age of 26, he was back in Scotland playing for Aberdeen and, although he still had flashes of genius, looked like was about 35. Hell, he was only 28 when he signed for Celtic again. As per always, drink, blah, blah, blah. What a waste.

Sorta to do with Sky, I noticed today that the AFL just signed a new TV deal. Not with Sky, obviously, with Foxtel (Australian Sky). I mention because I'm new to the AFL thing and I looked into it's history a bit. In 1999, their TV deal was about 16 million pounds a year. Back then, the SPL were getting 11 milion a year. Not overly different, is my point. This latest AFL deal is worth about 400 million pounds a season. Every game is shown live, with the big games also shown on free TV (about 3 games a week). Meanwhile, the SPFL gets under 30 million per season. And we actually get less non-Old Firm games live than we did back in the late 90s. Even the free to air highlights are much worse. With all the subscription channels about now (who are all desperate for sport), it's hard to believe we wouldn't even try to get something better.

The 60 minute thing is a bit arbitrary though. The 1990 Scottish Cup Final, as an example, had the ball in play for 110 of the 120 minutes, according to the Sunday Mail's report. I'm not watching it to double check though, as the game was horrendous. We could still have the game last 90 minutes, but issue guidelines when the ball is out of play. Teams have 30 seconds (or whatever) to resume play. So you can still swan about and time waste but there's limits (and it's an automatic booking and loss of possession if you take too long). And the clock can be stopped for free kicks or substitutions. Something like that would bring some order to the game, without changing the duration too much. At the moment though, the timing of the game is a mess.

Yup. I know Rangers went bust. You know Rangers went bust. But there's a team playing at Ibrox called Rangers, who dominate the fans alongside Celtic. They're still the Old Firm. In fact, probably more now than ever. Hell, they even use going bust to get their fans onside. Rangers get to use the "150 years of history" to wind everybody up. Celtic get to play the "unbroken history" thing. They've perfected the pantomime.

Maybe not worthless then, but definitely pointless. Newsflash: Celtic are going to win the league half the time over the rest of our lives. Rangers will win it the other half. Both sides will use each other to ramp up their fans and sell season tickets. At what point does it become worthless? If Celtic were beating an under 8s girls team 14-0, would we still all cheer and pretend it's normal and it's because we're great?? The league has been financially doped to such an extent that there Celtic can't have any rivalries now, with anyone other than Rangers.

Back in 2000 there was a pretty big uproar about the original orange top. Rangers insisted it was tangerine, to honour their Dutch players and manager. Did this new top have similar questions raised? I live in Australia, so I could be wrong, but it feels like we've gone backwards in terms of pandering to the sectarian element of the Old Firm.

Rangers earned pretty much the same and they finished second. And, even then, it's simply extra money that you don't need to beat teams that you'd beat anyway. Winning the Scottish Cup in 1995 was a better feeling than any league or cup could be now for Celtic. It's been diluted to the point of being worthless.

We need to begin by stopping the snootery in our game. The WE DON'T WANT TO COPY AMERICAN SPORTS BECAUSE THEY'RE AWFUL brigade. We have the worst sports league on the planet. The absolute worst. No other country can claim to be as bad as organising sport as we are. So, let's make some changes... I think we need to do away with promotion and relegation. If we're going to share revenues (which any good sports league does) then there's too many clubs. So we have a top league of 12 or 14 or 16, but that's it. No relegation. Then the clubs have to share revenues. Gate money, prize money, TV money, European money all gets split evenly between every team in the top league. Any club merchandise - half goes to the league to be split. The league would have to be changed to make it more appealing to TV. So every game would be shown live, and there'd be Championship and European Playoffs at the end of the season. Now, rather than having 2 teams with 40 million budgets, we'll have 12 (or 14 or 16) teams with 10 million to spend on players. Crowds go up at all the diddy teams, who now have a chance to not be diddies. Crowds at Celtic and Rangers stay the same, because they're not in any way glory hunters and would watch them regardless. Plus, because they're so well run, they'll still be just as successful. Everybody wins. Yes, I know this was a load of rubbish. But I just moved to Australia and I'm in awe that the main sport - the AFL - is currently negotiating a 3 billion dollar TV deal. For a sport that only runs half the year in a country that isn't that big. They also have free to air games every week too. Anyone in the league has a chance of winning it. When you look at what an awful state the SPFL is in, it's hard not be jealous.

Years ago, Deon Dublin signed for Celtic. Whenever they had a throw in, he'd signal to the thrower, make a move, and get the ball. It was obviously something he'd worked on and resulted in the team keeping possession. You'd have thought it would have been revolutionary - this idea that if you practice a few routines and use them you'll keep the ball. But no. He left, and Celtic went back to the traditional Scottish technique of look around for ages then just throw it aimlessly forward. As an aside, I miss foul throws.

I dunno. I always felt Mo Johnson's new striking technique of "smash the ball straight at the keeper" was more infuriating in that game.

I feel like I've spent most of the show making excuses about why it's not good. I think a big problem is that those in charge don't seem to have any story ideas other than Evil Alternate Universe, Evil AI and Time Travel. And the Red Angel mystery was boring enough the first time without redoing it using the Borg Queen. Also, Patrick Stewart hasn't been good at playing Picard for about 25 years now, it's like he forgot how to act him during First Contact. I really want this to be good (third episode felt very meh) and for there to be a grand plan of Qs that makes some sense but I'm expecting the worst.

Thinking about it - if we're considering a good season as one with a genuinely interesting battle for the title - the 97/98 season is the only decent season in the last 30 years (thanks to Hearts being genuine challengers until the last few weeks). Every other year has been Celtic/Rangers battering teams ever week and pretending it's exciting.

Fair point, you guys could probably join the dots on that one.

What do we want, as fans?? For the SPL*, I mean. I'm curious. Do we want Saturday 3pm, unless a game is live on TV or affected by Europe? All the games staggered so they can all be live on TV? I think there's an argument for every top league game being on a Sunday at 3pm, and nothing ever gets rescheduled. *I know, it does sound better than saying the Scottish Premiership though.

Jeez, that's tragic news. After he survived that earthquake yon time too. Poor guy just never had any luck. As for big Hamish, I was never a fan after he signed for Rangers. Disgusting. Also, the magazine went to a glossy, colour thing about that time IIRC, and seemed to lose a lot of content.

If Rangers hadn't been reincarnated, there's a strong chance Aberdeen (or Hearts or Hibs) would have won the league by now. It's not so long ago Aberdeen were top of the league into the New Year and genuinely challenging in March. And, as they improved, Celtic's gates were dropping and they were getting poorer. Rangers return proved the degree to which Celtic want them in the league. Aberdeen lost their captain (to Rangers, obviously) and their squad pretty much fell off a cliff. Aberdeen's smallest league crowd in 2014/15 was more than their biggest crowd so far this season. So now the Old Firm can play off each other, sharing league titles to all eternity. We'll never see anyone else win the league again.

I like this idea. I feel like the East coast teams would be a lot happier.

I think it's also worth considering that, at some point, Scottish football jumped the shark with regards to its treatment of the Old Firm. To use this week's Scottish Cup as an example, the priority of TV coverage for the tournament is now show the Rangers game, show the Celtic game (obviously regardless of opponents) and then throw a dart at the other ties and show whatever, who cares? It wasn't always like this. If we go back 30 years media coverage was almost fair. Well, it wasn't fair, but it kinda pretended it was trying. Motherwell v Aberdeen was the tie of the Third Round back in 1991, ahead of Celtic (at Forfar) and Rangers (at home to Dunfermline). Hell, the day after Celtic beat Rangers 1-0 in the 1990 Scottish Cup the back page of the Daily Record had the headline DONS GET IT TOUGH because they'd drawn Aberdeen in the next round. I think we jumped the shark in 2002, when we switched to the BBC TV deal. At that point, Saturday night highlights disappeared and the live game was simply "who are the Old Firm away to this week". That became the norm, and it's got more extreme throughout the years. It might have happened earlier though I think this was the nail in the coffin for the rest of the league.

Maybe it was more common than I remember. I'd have said that most games were about a minute and, when it went on to 3 or 4, it felt like an eternity and was usually because of something obvious (an injury or Rangers really, really, really needing a goal).

That was a long time for back then. Games used to rarely go beyond a minute of injury time, unless there was an obvious stoppage (and, even then, these were often ignored).

Sadly, the structure of the league doesn’t really matter. As long as Celtic and Rangers have budgets a gazillion times bigger than everyone else, the league will be garbage. The only possible scenario I could imagine where one of them doesn’t win the league would be if there were play-offs for the title (as in US and Australian sports). But, somehow, they’ve managed to convince everyone that would be unfair (but the money I balance is fine and, anyway, you can try and avoid relegation, you wee clubs enjoy that). Sort out the finances then sort out the league. But there’s no chance of that, as was proved in 2012. The sad thing is, before Rangers got back into the top league, the gap between Aberdeen and Celtic was narrowing. Without Rangers, Celtic don’t employ Rodgers and season tickets continue to fall. There’s a fair chance that, Rangers hadn’t returned, Aberdeen would have won a Championship by now.

Agreed on Rob McLean. He's okay for TV but it defies belief that, over the course of the last decade, no one has told him that you need to say what's happening when you're on the radio. As an aside, it's worth remembering that 11 or 12 years ago every top league match was live on the radio. It was great.

I'm surprised they haven't cancelled his visa on account of him swanning about whilst infected. I'd have thought that not being willing to self isolate would be a pretty obvious reason, given how strict countries (especially Australia) are being. Given that you need to be vaccinated to go just about anywhere now, is his plan to get covid just before he travels from now on?