Alternate history of Scottish football

[tamthebam]

1 hour ago, Zen Archer Esq. said:

What if?

There might still be a Meadowbank Thistle. There wasn't really a tradition in Scotland of fans resurrecting clubs in the same way as Accrington Stanley or Bradford Park Avenue and disgruntled Hibees might have followed Thistle instead.

Now you have to watch a failed franchise in a concrete shitehole. Thanks "Hands off Hibs" 

[tamthebam]

If the League had treated Leith Athletic fairly in 1954 they may still have been playing today. If we do a bit of conjecture and go forward to reconstruction in 1974 as there is already a third Edinburgh club there is no bid from Ferranti Thistle to knacker up the bids from the Highland clubs and as a result ....

 

  ...Berwick Rangers got to have borders derbies with Hawick Royal Albert as clubs still didn't let the Highland League sides in!

[tamthebam]

Something not football related but in the 1880s there was a plan to turn Eyemouth into a major fishing port for herring. Unfortunately a storm wiped out Eyemouth's fishing fleet and the money went to Peterhead instead. Had Eyemouth been developed Eyemouth United may well have played in the Scottish League and Berwick Rangers would have been an obscure Northumbrian side.

[tamthebam]

Thought of another one: Forfar drew with Dundee United at Tannadice in the Scottish Cup Quarter Finals in 1987- the Loons should have got a late penalty. This time they get it and win the tie.

Plucky Forfar are then beaten in the semi final by Dundee who go on to beat St Mirren 1-0 in the Scottish Cup final thanks to Mince Vennie's arse deflecting in a cross. 

Meanwhile free of Scottish Cup games a less knackered Dundee United stuff Gothenburg over two legs and lift the UEFA Cup.

[GordonS]

Here's one.

It's well-known that Queens Park used to compete in the FA Cup, but it's less known that so too did Third Lanark, Partick Thistle, Rangers, Hearts, Cowlairs and Renton. In 1886 Renton knocked out the cup holders Blackburn Rovers, Partick Thistle beat Cliftonville 11-0 in Belfast and Rangers made it to the semi-finals, losing to eventual winners Aston Villa. After this the SFA banned its members from taking part.

At this time there were still no national leagues and fixtures were chaotic. In 1888 the Football League was formed after a meeting of interested clubs in Manchester.

It's really not difficult to imagine a world in which the SFA doesn't ban members from playing in the FA Cup, some Scottish clubs join the Football League and Scottish football ends up like Welsh football.

[Arch Stanton]

I'd imagine Dundee would be up there.  Two teams from a city of about 150,000.

The town of Falkirk, with a population of around 35000, used to have two football clubs, Falkirk FC and East Stirlingshire.
Now it doesn't have any.

[craigkillie]

 
another one to consider if one of the early Aberdeen sides had survived in the SFL, we’d probably be seeing Aberdeen as 2-3 small-medium sized sides and not a fairly large single club city.

None of the early Aberdeen teams played in the SFL - the current Aberdeen FC were the first team north of Dundee to enter back in 1904/05.

[pozbaird]

10 hours ago, Zen Archer Esq. said:

What if?

The biggest question arising from this is ‘What if Adidas hadn’t done away shirts in fat basturt sizes?’

[Dunfermline Don]

Title race of 1991 was a proper sliding doors moment
Aberdeen only needed a point at Ibrox to win the league
No 9IAR for the Oldco if we’d not shat it 

I always feel that if Motherwell hadn’t beaten Rangers the previous week and Aberdeen were going to Ibrox needing a win that they would have done it.
The fact the Dandies had hit the top the week before and only needed a draw meant they went playing for one. Smith’s reputation at Aberdeen never fully recovered from this.

[Al B]

Funny to think that If some jobsworth at Falkirk had addressed their groundshare request to the owners of Airdrie's stadium rather than the tenants, they would have gone on to several top league 2nd and 3rd place finishes, Europa and Champions League qualification, full debt free fan ownership and being arguably the best run and well respected mid-size club in the country, whilst Motherwell scrambled around in the arsehole of Scottish football.

Imagine being the person that wrote that envelope.

[scottmcleanscontacts]

The Queens Park one is interesting to me. Would it possibly have curbed the appeal of Celtic and Rangers, and kept football on a more even keel in this country? Or were the identity politics of those two clubs too strong to resist and QP would have fallen by the wayside like Third Lanark, or become a distant third like Partick Thistle? Genuinely interested if anyone has any insight on what might have happened.

Impossible to tell for sure, but perhaps the only way is maybe to look at things like the respective crowds at the time? I've no idea at all what kind of draw Queens Park were at the time when professionalism was established in the game but I suspect it was far more than the few hardy souls they get today.
It's definitely an interesting one and will forever be a Scottish Football 'what if'.

[shuggz]

What if Hibs move to Aberdeen had gone through in 1902? Would Leith Ath. now be the capitals' second biggest club ? So many vaiables.

http://www.hibshistoricaltrust.org.uk/heritage/the-ground

[Junior Pub League]

15 hours ago, GordonS said:

Here's one.

It's well-known that Queens Park used to compete in the FA Cup, but it's less known that so too did Third Lanark, Partick Thistle, Rangers, Hearts, Cowlairs and Renton. In 1886 Renton knocked out the cup holders Blackburn Rovers, Partick Thistle beat Cliftonville 11-0 in Belfast and Rangers made it to the semi-finals, losing to eventual winners Aston Villa. 

Its also why the English FA are called just the FA, the originators original plan was for an England/Scotland combined league but the Scots had other ideas.

Imagine the crowd wanking etc that would happen on a regular basis if Queens Park and Hearts were champions of Britain and regulars in the Champions League.

[Junior Pub League]

3 hours ago, Dunfermline Don said:

I always feel that if Motherwell hadn’t beaten Rangers the previous week and Aberdeen were going to Ibrox needing a win that they would have done it.
The fact the Dandies had hit the top the week before and only needed a draw meant they went playing for one. Smith’s reputation at Aberdeen never fully recovered from this.

Despite it being Joke-y Scott who convinced him to actually play for the draw.

[Squirrelhumper]

22 hours ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

You got another construction magnate though, and look at the stadium he built you! Wrong town tbf, but you can't have everything.

Barr basically built everyone in Scotland a stadium except his own.

[ScottyDee1893]

But for a dodgy ref (who later admitted receiving a bribe) at the San Siro in the first leg of the European Cup, Dundee may have become the first British side to be crowned Champions of Europe 5 years before the Lisbon Lions.

Milan beat Benfica 2-0 at Wembley in the final. The Dee would have undoubtedly enjoyed a huge home support had they made the final

[aaa]

On 10/02/2020 at 20:50, Sugar_Army said:

FFS I am going to have sleepless nights now!  Where do I start?

If John Holt had not been deemed offside when Paul Sturrock struck to put United 2-1 up in the 1981 League Cup Final against Rangers would United have gone on to make it 3 in a row?

If Ralph Milne had netted his sitter in Rome at 0-0 would we have gone on to beat Liverpool in the 1984 European Cup final?

If United had not given up the chase after losing to Hearts in the 1986 run in would we have pipped Celtic to the title on the final day and saved the Jambos their final day trauma?

Had Kevin Gallacher not been deemed offside when Ian Ferguson scored to put United 1-0 up in the 1987 Scottish Cup Final against St Mirren would we have gone into the UEFA Cup Final in a different frame of mind a few days later?

If Billy Thomson had not taken a head knock and thereby been more alert to the freak bounce that led to Gothenburg taking a 1-0 lead to Tannadice would we have won the 1987 EUFA Cup by not pushing for an early goal and not leaving ourselves open to the sucker punch goal and therby be the last Scottish team to win a European trophy?

If Eammon Bannon had netted his glorious chance to put United 2-0 up in the 1988 Scottish Cup final would we have denied Celtic the double in their centenary year?

If Freddy van Der Hoorn's shot had struck the inside of the post and gone in instead of going out for a thrown in at 0-0 in the 1991 Scottish Cup final would Jim McLean have defeated his brother Tommy in the Family Final?

If Mark Kerr had not decided to pass the ball backwards to Kris Boyd in the 2006 League Cup Final...I think I need to go lie down in a darkened room

 

ifyergrannyhadbaws.com

 

If Jim Mclean had just stayed at Dens it would have saved you a lot of heart ache.

[zenon]

If Terry Butcher had not broken his leg vs Aberdeen in November 1987, could Rangers have gone on to clinch the second of 11 in a row? 

[Sugar_Army]

1 hour ago, aaa said:

If Jim Mclean had just stayed at Dens it would have saved you a lot of heart ache.

Considering where we were as a club before we took over and what he went on to achieve with us, can you imagine the potential success he might have with that lot if he had stayed?

 Imagine the heartache that would have brought us!