The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
We’re playing for love of the game – Rab Douglas
All the talk this week has been about a European Super League. I think my gaffer Dick Campbell summed up the people behind that idea perfectly when he called them “a shower of greedy b ******* !”
Money is all the people in charge of the clubs involved in that project are interested in.
Players at the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester City and Liverpool are the superstars of the game.
It might as well be a different planet to Arbroath.
When I look around Gayfield, I don’t see any superstars.
I just see a bunch of good, honest boys who get their sleeves rolled up and give it their all.
And they don’t do it for £500,000 a week.
They do it for a couple of hundred quid, three points and the pride of winning, for both themselves and the fans.
That’s what football at Arbroath is all about.
It’s what football is about for all part-time teams in Scotland.
I laughed earlier this season when I heard talk from Nicola Sturgeon about our “elite” sport being allowed to continue through the pandemic.
See when you’re changing under a stand in the middle of winter, it’s minus-three and you can’t hear the manager’s team-talk for the sound of the machinery you’re having to change next to, that’s not elite.
See when you can’t get a shower after the game and have to jump straight in your car and drive home, that’s not elite.
But everybody who does it week-in, week-out knows
exactly why they do it – because they love the game.
Football at this level is all about that love and about doing it for the fans.
Have a look around our dressing room…
You’ve got Nicky Low who’s travelling from Greenock, Kris Doolan travelling from Ayrshire, Ricky Little travelling from Ardrossan, all multiple times every week – you’re not telling me they’re doing it for the cheque in the back pocket every Saturday.
They’re doing it because they enjoy the environment, they enjoy the club and
they enjoy the rapport they’ve got with the fans.
That’s what connects players and clubs and fans, that rapport. It’s one of the magic things about football.
The fans are everything. Take them away and you lose something huge.
That’s why I thought the Super League plan was an absolute nonsense.
It’s the rich trying to get richer, the greedy getting greedier, whichever way you want to look at it.
It’s about money, not football.
Me? I prefer to look at where we are now at
Arbroath – and the other clubs in Courier Country – at this stage of the season.
There’s so much to play for.
We’re fighting for our lives in the Championship, you’ve got Brechin fighting for their lives, Forfar fighting for their lives, Montrose in a play-off position, Dundee in a playoff position.
You can bet that all the boys in those dressing rooms will be giving it absolutely everything they’ve got – and they’ll be doing it for all the right reasons.