JABBA THE AGNIVORE

DECLINE AND FALL

So apparently what we need in Scottish football is change; and fast! Traynor joins the vast ranks calling for change, from the SFL to...er...the SFL. Rather than tell us all why change is needed, Traynor reverts to type and basically just has a bitter snipe at the SPL a-la-David Biggat. 

"...if the SFL, who were left behind when the SPL was formed in 1998, remain united they can succeed with their proposal and bring an end to the SPL which has been shown to be shambolic and vindictive."

Shambolic and vindictive? Whatever can he mean? Oh, that's right, it was sheer vindictiveness that drove the decision not to allow Green's new club into the SPL! Never mind that it would have been against all the rules, everyone should have been bending over backwards to accomodate The Rangers. Doing such a thing is what Traynor believes is integrity!

"They are not interested in providing a structure which allows clubs they believe are a waste of space to breath and thrive – and it is time they were brought down." 

Strangely, this goes against what he professed to believe before. The team he 'supported,' Airdire, were put into liquidation by none other than St David of Murray. According to Traynor it was survival of the fittest, football was a business and devil take the hindmost! A different story now!

He also goes on about giving young players "the chance and time to flourish and that would help enhance the quality." Maybe he should have been telling his hero, Murray, that when he decided to up the ante by bringing expensive foreigners in; a route that other teams had to follow if they were not to be left way behind.

Maybe it is time for Traynor to face up to the truth. Our game in Scotland was ruined by Murray's ambition. Expensive English and foreign players ran riot over other Scottish teams and those other teams had to spend, spend, spend just to try to stay in touch. That is why clubs are teetering on the brink and, rather than league reconstruction, we should be looking at capping wages. 

It is also a painful truth that our country cannot sustain the number of clubs that are in existence at the moment. Football is now in competition with many other forms of entertainment and in a society that no longer sees it as acceptable that a man disappears all day on a Saturday while his wife does the shopping and entertains the kids. Two things need to be done: a re-branding of the game as a family-friendly entertainment and smaller clubs will need to look at amalgamating. A start has already been made on the first item since all the bigoted and sectarian songs have now been consigned to Division 3.

As to amalgamation, surely it would be better to have, say, twenty well-supported teams rather than the forty-two we have at present? It makes good business sense, which is something Traynor likes to bang on about.

But then, Traynor isn't really interested in good business sense or even improving Scottish football. All he wants to do is to tear down the whole structure in order to accomodate one team. His support for the SFL is completely disingenuous and if a certain team were not there now he would show utter disdain for any reconstruction plans coming from that quarter. 

Traynor is fond of pointing out how low attendance figures are in the SPL if you remove Celtic from the equation; well let's do the same for the SFL. Remove Green's team from the reckoning and you are left with three leagues that could not muster up enough supporters between them to fill one SPL ground. And yet, we are supposed to let the teams in these leagues dictate what goes on in Scottish football!

Traynor's real agenda comes out in the final part of his tirade:

"Also weren’t the SPL clubs fond of telling everyone they had no choice but to listen to their supporters during the close season?
Hopefully they’ll still be listening when the same fans tell them where to stick their SPL 2."

Can you hear all the SPL fans rebelling against their clubs and demanding that they go along with SFL plans? No, neither can I. So either Traynor's hearing voices or, not for the first time, he arrogantly assumes that everyone will go along with whatever he says. Sorry, Jumbo...er...I mean Jimbo, but SPL fans have already shown what they think of a certain club's cheating ways and then arrogantly assuming that it could start over and walk straight into the top tier. No amount of bluster and misinformation from yourself is going to change that!

SFL crowds show their support for league reconstruction.