Ten Days In May

There are few things in life more odious than the sectarianism that still somehow manages to attach itself to the rivalry between Rangers and Celtic. Even though the two sides play each other a minimum of four times each season, every match between them seems is like a spit-flecked stand off between two angry men, [...]

Kings Of The Stone Age

I have been involved in the running of a couple of amateur football clubs, and the biggest single issue is funding. How do you secure sponsorship for a club with no supporters (and, occasionally, less than eleven players)? It’s not cheap, either. Chances are, no matter how small your club is, that you’ll have to [...]

God Save The Queens

The English FA Cup isn’t the only cup competition to have provided its fair share of shocks. The Scottish Cup has also been full of surprises, with Celtic having already been knocked out at home by Aberdeen, and it was the Dons’ turn to be on the receiving end of a bloody nose yesterday, when [...]

Franchising In Scotland

In Scotland, the harsh realities of the wrong people getting involved in football clubs has been even more pronounced that it has been in England in recent years. Meadowbank Thistle were unceremoniously moved to Livingston, and several clubs have been left homeless or playing in two-sided grounds because of aborted development projects, but the most [...]

Too Much, Too Young?

Some of you will have already seen the piece that I wrote for “Pitch Invasion” on the boom & bust football culture in Essex over the last fifteen years or so. The dangers of being dependent on a single benefactor are being thrown into even sharper perspective north of the border, where Gretna FC’s existence [...]

A Stirling Performance

My various rantings on Scottish football have probably been boring all you bar one person all week (and there’s every chance that they’re boring him too), but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to give a mention to East Stirlingshire – possibly the worst team in the history of British senior football. This is a [...]

Say Hi-Hi To Your Mom

I thought I’d continue with my Caledonian theme, what with the Scottish League starting this weekend and everything. The plight of East Stirlingshire to follow tomorrow (or maybe later tonight), but tonight I’d thought I’d focus on Glasgow’s long-forgotten “third” club (and I say this in full knowledge of the existence of Partick Thistle): Third [...]

Too Orangey For Popes

When I got in from work this evening, I sat down and watched the somewhat infamous Rangers-Celtic derby match from 1987. As I said yesterday, this watch something that I’d been delighted to find in order to download. It’s a match that has gone down in history as one of the most ill-tempered in the [...]