The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Jim Spence says Scottish football is once again confounding its critics
Rumours of game’s death greatly exaggerated
With the season under way, Scottish football is again proving its ability to confound the critics.
I have covered eight matches – from Edinburgh to Inverness – in the last 20 days and it seems to me that regular predictions of football’s demise keep rebounding like a rubber ball.
Our European ambitions may lie in ruins with only Celtic still in competition on the continent but season book sales show a huge appetite for the game.
More than 50,000 season tickets have been sold at Parkhead and more than 40,000 at Ibrox. Meantime, Aberdeen, Hibernian and Hearts, between them, have seen close to 40,000 fans snap up their season books.
The constitution of our national sport resembles a crocodile’s stomach: capable of swallowing anything, yet robustly surviving to tell the tale.
Our international and European club form fades to grey, as most fans seem prepared to accept the game for what it is really all about for them – local community, competition and a sense of camaraderie.
Week in, week out, fans roll up in the numbers which make Scottish football among the best supported in the world per head of population.
A few years ago as Rangers suffered liquidation, doomsday warnings that Scottish football faced Armageddon were issued by some folk in positions of power.
Those parochial and narrow-minded views insulted many hard-working clubs throughout the country, with a misguided belief that any one club was greater than the sum of the game.
Those predictions have been proven to be nonsense and speak volumes about the lack of judgment of those who made them.
Such views were also revealed as emotional incontinence to anyone watching the two riveting Dundee derby games in the Betfred cup. The city clubs may be in different divisions but both matches were vibrant and raucous occasions, watched by a big television audience, along with 21,000 supporters turning out at Dens Park to witness two enthralling games.
It would be a source for celebration if our clubs could cut a swathe throughout European competition every season, and if the international team performed much better on the world stage, but there’s no tartan cringe in accepting and enjoying what we have at the moment.
On the field, our game is up front with its open and honest endeavour, and while there may be no earth-shattering talents on display, that can also be said of football in many other countries.
There are, of course, serious strains regarding how our game is being run.
A potential battle is looming between a collective of fans who are seeking judicial review of the Lord Nimmo Smith inquiry into the Rangers affair, and the SPFL have requested that the SFA hold an inquiry into the governance of the game.
On the pitch, though, a season looms which will provide entertainment of varied quality but, above all, talking points aplenty to keep us riveted and engaged.
Our game isn’t perfect and improvements are required in both playing quality and fan engagement but no other activity in the country can come close to stirring the passions of so many people on a daily basis.