Incentive for a win tonight

There were rumours that George Peat was going to bring along his toy dinosaur to the Scottish Cup draw today but this was felt unfair. After all, the dinosaur is the only thing which remembers Hibs last Scottish Cup win and it was felt best not to have this fact overshadow the rest of the draw.

Biffy Clyro were on hand but we are thankful that they weren’t playing any music. Not sure if the band had dreams of making the Scottish Cup 5th round draw when they were starting out but with Kilmarnock being knocked out of the tournament, they never got to draw their side.

Tonight’s game at Tynecastle between Hearts and St Johnstone was postponed on Saturday due to plumbing problems at Tynecastle. At the moment, the game is going ahead and both teams take to the field knowing the task that lies ahead of them. A match against First Division opposition whilst knowing one of the big Glasgow two are out on their backside is a huge incentive to win a cup tie.

The fifth round ties of the Scottish Cup are scheduled to take place the weekend of the 5th and 6th of February. Of course, by the time the BBC and Sky get their hands on the fixtures who knows when the games will actually be played…

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Thistle’s charity single that is.

If you remember back to the early days of the 2000s, you’ll recall that Valencia were one of the top teams in Europe and one of their key players was Gaizka Mendieta. The midfielder used to boss games with impunity and he made a big impression on us in those years.

He later went to Middlesbrough and although he never made an impact there in a football sense, we actually had a greater respect for him. This is due to the fact that a lot of stories came out about his private life and for once, they were of a positive nature.

It turns out that Medieta is a huge music fan and he cites The Velvet Underground as his favourite band! That’s good enough for us and it turns out that whilst in England, Medieta would write music reports of the English music scene for journals back in France.

Given that most footballers have a terrible taste in music, the fact that Mendieta could play well and loves The Velvet Underground made him one of our favourites.

So what this got to do with Scottish football?

Partick Thistle are getting behind a charity single called ‘T.H.I.S.T.L.E’ with the proceeds from the track going to community initiatives and local cancer charities. Mendieta was only too happy to help out with the promotion of the single and other celebrities are lined up to aid the promotional push this week.

You should be able to find it on iTunes from today and in Fopp on Byres Road from Wednesday.

The song, as you may have guessed, takes its cue from the Tammy Wynette classic, although of course, the Billy Connolly reimagining of ‘D.I.V.O.R.C.E’ is going to come to mind as well. It’s for a good cause so check it out. It’s definitely of limited appeal but we’re happy to push the track on, so give it a listen.

Whilst we are on the topic of cancer charities, our friends at the Cold Blooded Clarity site are putting on their first charity gig. It’s in aid of The Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre, which is a cause that is very dear to their, and many other peoples hearts.

The gig will be held on Thursday 10th June, it costs £5 to enter and as well as two bands and dj’s, there is a rock n roll raffle being held for the event. Please visit the site for more details – Cold Blooded Charity.

So there you go, two opportunities to help out local cancer charities and we heartily endorse both. The fact that 1 in 3 Scottish people will develop some form of cancer in their lifetime means it should never be too far from home for anyone.

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It’s not as salacious as you might think!

Any tabloid stories of an ex footballer hitting the bar is usually accompanied by unglamorous pictures or sleazy exposes. It is all too easy for footballers to be caught out when they are playing, you can imagine it must be even harder when they have given up and don’t need to keep their fitness levels up.

The modern day top level footballer has no need to find a job after they give up playing but those at the lower levels can’t say the same. Quite often, many footballers miss out on their schooling to concentrate on the formative years of their playing career and this can hamper some of them in getting a job when the time comes to hang up their boots.

WeKnowSFA is proud to say that Gerry Britton is now acting as first year trainee solicitor at a Glasgow city centre based law firm.

Even when Gerry was still playing first-team football, he was studying hard for his Law Degree and it is good to see the hard work has paid off. One of the WeKnowSFA writers that studied Marketing at Strathclyde University would occasionally bump into the player in the lifts in the Stenhouse Building.

The WeKnowSFA writer may not have did much with their life but all credit to Britton for balancing both work and studies to enable him to get to this position.

Gerry Britton recently resigned from his post at Partick Thistle to concentrate fully on his Law career and it is good to see him getting on.

For once, an ex footballer hitting the bar can be written about in positive terms.

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Football loves short-term fixes and fads.

Every so often, a new craze sweeps the football world, promising to have all the answers to the problems within the game. A few months ago, it was the additional refereeing staff behind the goals in Europa League matches.

They didn’t really have an impact there but if they were available in Paris the night Thierry Henry went on a murderous rampage and killed 5,000 Irish people and then football itself, maybe they could have stopped him.

The current fad is all about horse placentas and the supposed magical treatment they offer to injured players.

No real evidence has been given as to their benefits so it is too early to pass judgement but it just sounds a bit silly. Dont get us wrong, if it puts players in a more stable condition, it is great news but travelling to Hungary for this treatements seem a furlong way to go for unproven treatment.

So, we know that football loves short-term fads but it is short-term thinking that has helped to downsize Scottish football.

Scottish football is in a very bad way, from top to bottom.

The breakdown of the Setanta television deal has really scuppered teams and with the exception of three clubs, the SPL sides have only got themselves to blame.

Criticism of Celtic and Rangers for hawking themselves to other leagues is justified as it is embarrassing and some would even say undignified. However, progress and change within the current set up of the Scottish leagues looks dead.

Is there any way top level football in Scotland can be re-structured?

Current Status:
The split does bring end of season excitement, which for the clubs means gate receipts and media interest. It may be unwieldy but the split after three round of fixtures has done what it was intended to do.

However, playing some teams in the league four times a season has to be a turn off, regardless of gate receipts and televised games. If teams knew there was only two opportunities to defeat their closest rivals, there would be less margin for error and a greater intensity from the start of the season.

Switch to a 10 team league:

In short, NO CHANCE.

There is no way a number of teams would vote for 2 relegation places and no promotion from the SFL for one season. Even if this was altered to one definitely going down and then a play-off between the SFL winner and SPL second bottom club, it would not be a popular decision.

The fans may be inclined to see the benefits in it but the people pulling the purse strings would consider there would be too much to risk.

Increase the teams in the SPL:

The top half of the SFL Division 1 is jammed tight with clubs and can anyone say they are of a poorer nature than existing SPL teams?

The evidence of the cup ties between SPL and SFL clubs would suggest not, so on paper, an expansion of the league would increase the variety, reduce the monotonous 4 game per league campaign cycle and freshen things up a bit.

However, it will definitely change the league and could destroy the element of competition for many clubs.

A middle band of SPL clubs would develop, playing each season with no real league hopes or ambitions and perhaps praying for some Cup success. For example, Kilmarnock fans may not currently relish their current plight where relegation battles are becoming the norm but would they prefer a season where nothing matters.

Killie aren’t good enough to be in the top 6 or 8 clubs in Scotland but neither would they be in the bottom 4 to 6 of the poorest teams in a 16 team SPL. It could be argued this would allow Killie more leeway to bring through youngsters, take the pressure off the team and still hope to give Celtic or Rangers a bloody nose once in a while.

Money talks
Fans don’t see it that way though. The cost of going to SPL games is too much to justify for experimentational line-ups or transitional seasons where nothing matters. Equally, Sky or ESPN would not be too enamoured with so much filler either. They can just about cover the dross in the EPL with hype but they would be struggling to promote St Mirren v Partick Thistle in the match that no one really cares about….live on Sky Sports 5a, Sunday 10:30am.

The reason the old Scottish league set-up was switched to the SPL was because of these games and clubs having meaningless matches for half a year. Some would argue that Scottish clubs were highly regarded in Europe back then but they were very different times. Other domestic leagues around the world were of a similar ilk and the standard of Scottish player was much higher then.

Is there a solution?

Maybe that’s just it; maybe it’s the quality of players in Scotland that is dragging the game down as opposed to the set-up. Certainly none of the other options jumps out as the immediate solution, so it looks as though Scottish football will keep tinkering and soldiering on with no real hope of change.

It is this mentality that often leads clubs and organisers to think of quick-fix solutions and fads and if a horse placenta was able to be applied to Scottish football, it would be applied quicker than Barry Ferguson shouting up the rounds in Cameron House.

Scottish football needs time to rebuild, grow and develop, from the grass roots up, so what we need is horse-manure, not horse placenta. And with G Smith and Peat in charge at the top of the game, you would think there would be no shortage of horse manure at Hampden.

For once though, the two stooges appear to be very quiet, funny that.

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