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Back in 2004 and flush with the runaway success of Big Brother, the show’s creators Endemol produced a reality show by the name of Shattered. Hosted by the ubiquitous Dermot O’Leary, the basic premise of the show was that ten contestants, ‘playing’ for a prize of £100,000 had to go a whole week without sleep, interspersed with a number of challenges specifically designed to make the poor b*ggers nod off. The other, unpublicised premise was that there was a bet was between the Creative Director of Endemol and one of Channel 4’s Commissioning Editors [name withheld] that Endemol could deliver an audience in excess of one million people to watch a bunch of normal people literally watching paint dry on a Tuesday night. And he won.
Which brings me to Sportscene. The 2012 equivalent of Shattered.
Leaving asides the present scandal that is Rangers, the game here is a confused old granny seeing out her days in an old folks home. Like with the occasional Old firm/Edinburgh derby it can occasionally put on a half-decent show on a Sunday afternoon when she has visitors round, but most of the time she’s just existing, doing little, if anything, of note. The lights are on but no-one’s home. Its basically Red Dwarf from series 8 onwards. For me, the Scottish game ’jumped the shark’ a few years ago when Dundee (of Canigga, Speroni, Caballero fame) celebrated making the inaugural top-6 split by doing a lap-of-honour and prancing around like insurgents who’ve just brought down a Chinook.
With Scotland’s UEFA Co-efficient roughly on a par with mine and, probably regardless of the end-game looming at Ibrox, Celtic facing the prospect of morphing into a bigger-budget Rosenborg, Linfield or Skonto Riga (ladies and gentlemen, the only thing more boring than a two-horse race is of course a one-horse race), the SPL bore-fest threatens to become ever more acute. And you’ll have the usual suspects (you know who they are) agitating for a move down to the promised land of the Premiership.
But it’s the other SPL teams who should pre-empt them.
And it’s clubs like Hearts, Aberdeen, Dundee United, Hibs, Motherwell who should apply to join the English Football League.
What is there to lose? The prospect of the Old Firm wandering into town like the Harlem Globetrotters and giving you a kicking four times a season? Its decreasingly attractive as even a cursory examination of attendances for ‘old firm’ visits would demonstrate. And that’s before you take on board all the ancillary nonsense that associates itself with the ugly sisters.
And does anyone asides from Paul Mitchell get excited about The Pars fourth trip to Tynecastle this year? Really? You’ve got an outside chance of making the Final of the Co-Op Funeral Food and Insurance Cup or whatever its called, as if you genuinely give a toss. And as for the prospect of European football, lets face it, its looking like the best the ‘best of the rest’ can hope for is a creditable defeat against some Danes in the 2nd Europa League Qualifying Round on BBC2 in the frst week of June. Its not healthy, it’s a p*ss-poor product and its utterly tedious. The Scottish game is a polar bear eating its own tail in a Bulgarian zoo.
There is real, genuine potential in clubs like Hearts, Aberdeen, Dundee United and Hibs to perform at the higher, if not highest, levels of English football. That’s not meant to sound patronising, but it is as clear as day these clubs are as needy of new pastures as the gruesome twosome. And that’s before you consider the finances of a move south. Similarly sized clubs like Swansea and Norwich are acquitting themselves most creditably in the Premiership. Other teams like Blackpool, Hull City, Charlton, Bradford etc have all enjoyed spells in the Premiership and made very many friends along the way. If you want a decent idea of what the likes of Hearts and Aberdeen are capable of if they plied their trade on a bigger stage, just like at the phenomenon that is Stoke City. Even the Championship is the sixth most watched/wealthiest league in world football and, speaking as a genuine football connoisseur, is just as watchable if not eminently more-so, than its more illustrious counterpart one step up the pyramid.
Yes, you’re right, any new admissions to the FL would have to start of at the lowest rung of the ladder.
But that’s not necessarily the worst thing in the world. Even on the lowest rung of the FL ladder, you have big city clubs like Bradford City and Plymouth Argyle, and similarly League One plays home to 40,000 sell-out Sheffield derbies and grand old names such as Preston North End and Huddersfield (who incidentally bring in average crowds higher than anyone in Scotland bar the Old Firm). Lets face it, in League Two, are Torquay or Rotherham any smaller clubs to pit your wits against than ICT or Dunfermline?
Yes, distances may be a lot longer for getting to games, but no more so than in Germany or Italy or even Salmond’s w*nk-sock, Norway. And surely a weekend away in Nottingham or Bristol holds a lot more allure than the M90/A9 up to McDiarmid Park for the twentieth time in your life?
Of course, its no panacea and there will inevitably be winners and losers. I suspect the absorption of the East German teams into the Bundesliga back in the early 90s may be as close as we‘ll get to a case study of what might happen. There were of course some big losers, but provincial sides such as Energie Cottbus and Hansa Rostock (as well as metropolitan upstarts Union Berlin) have enjoyed top flight and cup success despite operating on budgets/fanbases much smaller than their illustrious western rivals and displaying their wares on a far more strking stage than the old DDR leagues. And we’ve got a resurgent Dynamo Dresden back now too. Of course, Cardiff City and Swansea show just what could be achieved a little closer to home. One of the smaller clubs may surprise us. St Johnstone, ICT, or Motherwell perhaps? And I’ve not even touched on the finances of such a move and the scope of vastly increased TV and sponsorship revenues available the further up the pyramid you go.
The clubs owe it to their supporters to at the very least sound out the Football League about the scope for membership.
It’s vibrant, its infinitely more entertaining, it would mean visiting new grounds, playing new teams, and experiencing a new adventure.
What’s the alternative?
A sh*tter infinite sequel to Groundhog Day and an Irish League standard of football? Its a life term without parole.
Dip your toe in and see what its like.
You can download/listen/subscribe to the Scottish Comedy FC podcast HERE
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About the Author
Raised by wolves on the wild Lincolnshire coast, Gordon has been Scotland’s 53rd best stand-up comedian for a record six years.
On the scene since 2007, he has been a staple of The Stand’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe programme, performs across the country with his own unique brand of sociopathic misanthropy and biting political comedy and has supported some of the biggest names in UK comedy.
After an unsuccessful football career, culminating in an extra-time defeat in the 1996 U16s Lincolnshire Cup Final, he has been trying unsuccessfully to get a Football Banning Orderfor three years now to stop him spunking any more of his limited disposable income on following his beloved Grimsby Town in the Vauxhall Conference for three years now. He also follows Queen of the South, crack Bundesliga 2 outfit Erzgebirge Aue, Crvena Zvezda and Portland Timbers.
Gordon is a ‘ground-hopper’ and bloody proud of it. His favourite stadia are the Stadio Nereo Rocco in Trieste and the Erzegibrgestadion in Saxony.
“…Character creation Father Alexander was hilarious, taking a satirical lump out of Salmond’s Scotland with a sermon for the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Al-Megrahi…” Brian Donaldson, The Scotsman
“Gordon Alexander eulogies were a highlight….clever, fun and deserving of a bigger audience” Barrie Morgan, The Skinny
“…Far more polished was Gordon Alexander…It’s a superbly written act and Alexander topped up it’s topicality and was rewarded for his efforts by getting by far the biggest laughs of the night…” Neil McEwan, Edinburgh Evening News
“…Man-of-the-match Gordon Alexander stole the show with his character pieces…” Bernard O’Leary, The Skinny
You can follow Gordon on Twitter: @GoAlexander
Brilliant Gordon.