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Standard of Scottish football


Kingleo
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Watched Sportscene last night  for the first time in years. Couldn’t believe how bad the standard was/is. Dundee and the Edinburgh derby both utterly dreadful. Presumed lockdown was back on with the almost empty ground at livi. All in all thoroughly depressing. Watched it with an English mate who’s up and he couldn’t believe how bad it looks. We got talking about where Hibs/hearts/ Aberdeen would be if they played down south. We both thought mid table league one with rangers and Celtic maybe top end championship. Does that seem about right?

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Scottish football is chronically bad and is getting worse. When you have the 2 football organisations , who are supposed to be the guardians of the game, only interested in the 2 scumbag clubs what do you expect. We are heading towards a Northern Irish standard of football, maybe not in my lifetime, but it will happen, unless there is a root and branch reform of the game.

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20 minutes ago, Garscube Road End 2 said:

Scottish football is chronically bad and is getting worse. When you have the 2 football organisations , who are supposed to be the guardians of the game, only interested in the 2 scumbag clubs what do you expect. We are heading towards a Northern Irish standard of football, maybe not in my lifetime, but it will happen, unless there is a root and branch reform of the game.

 

 

3 minutes ago, Garscube Road End 2 said:

De Bruyne? He's pish. Alex Rae would have buried him.

Along with Ronnie Glavin's shovel

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As someone said on another thread the other day, if they weren’t brought up as a thistle fan they wouldn’t pay a moments notice of Scottish football. The standard does seem to be getting worse and being like the northern Irish league before long isn’t far off the mark. Not just that but the cost of it is the big issue. The fact you can watch Bayern or Dortmund for less than st Johnstone v Motherwell in the spl is mind blowing 

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Most of our top league would be around league 1/2 in England.

The 2 arse cheeks might get into the championship but when you have clubs like Sunderland who have a massive fan base struggling to get out of league 1 I find it difficult to see  how they would march through the English leagues or even be that much of a draw for other English teams.

If we assume that the standard is that of league 1/2 then what I don't get about Scottish football is why we think thats a bad thing or why we should be ashamed of it?

Why do we care what the standard of Scottish teams are relative to English teams? We are never going to particpate in each others leagues.

If quality of play was the only thing then we would be looking at the Spannish or German leagues which are still tactically and technically better but we don't do that because we recognise they are bigger nations with styles of play that derive from different climates.

If you compare Scottish top flight football with European countries of a similar population and climate (Norway, Denmark, Finland, Ireland) is the standard of play massively better or worse? Do the teams in those countries look at their standard of play and laugh at themselves or do they respect what they have?

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Part of the problem for Scottish football is the constant comparison with the English game, which encourages styles of play discarded long ago everywhere else in the world - physical, the long ball, running hard, playing down the wings. (It may be exciting in one sense, but so, in its day, was kicking the opponents off the park! :D)

In England, that physical style is promoted with huge sums of money - much of which comes from dubious sources that wouldn't be permitted in, say, the Bundesliga, as the financial authorities would pounce on them. The English approach influences top players because of the financial draw of the top flight there, but some comments on, for example, the European championship final expressed relief that the entertaining, watchable play of the Italian team came out on top. If we want a promising future for the Scottish game, we have to broaden our horizons and, if possible, ensure that football from other countries is televised regularly as an example to players here. (It does become available on some channels, but in fits and starts.)

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I guess it is pointless comparing ourselves with other leagues because we will never play anywhere else but I guess my main point is that it seems to be getting worse. It’s hard if not impossible to maintain any interest or enthusiasm when the product is that dire. Allied to the utter numpties running the game you can’t see any improvement. I have an interest in what thistle are up to but other than that I’d rather do the gardening or play golf than watch any of the football up here. It is what it is but it is quite depressing to think what the standard will be like as time goes on

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I would encourage people to get out and watch some amateur, youth and women's football, some fantastic talent, skills and games to be seen.

The standard of Scottish football could be better as could lots of things but comparing it to other larger richer leagues is pointless, more people playing, more people watching and a more fun environment to do all those things is the answer.

But it is brilliant to stand/sit and watch your team win with your mates on a saturday afternoon.

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Out of interest - in modern times when do we think the standard of Scottish football was better than currently?

I'm not saying now is good, I just struggle to think of a time were it was substantially better. In 40 years of watching football I've seen Aberdeen win a cup winners cup, Dundee United, Celtic and Rangers make the UEFA cup final. To my mind those teams had purple patches but the general standard of Scottish Football was still the same.

The Scottish national team qualified for most tournaments through the 70's, 80's and 90's but by the late 70's onwards we were doing that by making use of players who hadn't really played much Scottish league football.

Those that are older than me may be able to tell us that it was better in the 50's, 60's and 70's and I wouldn't argue but modern football to me started from about the mid-80's when Souness arrived at Ibrox. Suddenly the concept that part-time Scottish Football leagues were holding back the 2 arse cheeks from European glory and producing players for National side took hold. From then on the pursuit of money, proffessional status and smaller leagues has held back development and its been a similar standard from that point.

 

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I never have and never will pay for sky or any other football tv. Imo the English premiership is the most hyped up league going. It does have its fair share of terrible games  and not every game is a classic. If we had some of the people working for Scottish football who have managed to build up the EPL over the years we would probably have a lot more money being ploughed into our game as well.

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4 hours ago, laukat said:

Out of interest - in modern times when do we think the standard of Scottish football was better than currently?

I'm not saying now is good, I just struggle to think of a time were it was substantially better. In 40 years of watching football I've seen Aberdeen win a cup winners cup, Dundee United, Celtic and Rangers make the UEFA cup final. To my mind those teams had purple patches but the general standard of Scottish Football was still the same.

The Scottish national team qualified for most tournaments through the 70's, 80's and 90's but by the late 70's onwards we were doing that by making use of players who hadn't really played much Scottish league football.

Those that are older than me may be able to tell us that it was better in the 50's, 60's and 70's and I wouldn't argue but modern football to me started from about the mid-80's when Souness arrived at Ibrox. Suddenly the concept that part-time Scottish Football leagues were holding back the 2 arse cheeks from European glory and producing players for National side took hold. From then on the pursuit of money, proffessional status and smaller leagues has held back development and its been a similar standard from that point.

 

Think you can differentiate between the state of Scottish football and the relative success of the Scottish National team. At any time one can be doing poorly whilst the other is doing OK.  But in my lifetime I cannot mind a time when either the SPFL/SPL/SFL (representing Scottish football) and the SFA (representing the International team) were the least bit competent. Put another way the state of Scottish football has often been better despite the incompetence of those running the game. Same said for the National team in relation to the clowns at the SFA.

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22 minutes ago, Norgethistle said:

I’m at the stage I’d have British leagues, after the initial issues of who goes where I think it would be better for the game. Bigger crowd pulls, more variety, less same teams dominating, and possibly more rivalry. What we have now is stale 

So you would prefer to see the death of Scotland as a footballing nation? Absorbed into England (under the name of "Britain") is preferable? And somehow "Scottish" teams (if they would still be called that) would somehow lead to fewer of the same "English" teams dominating? How would that work, exactly? And you think fans would travel maybe 500 or 600 miles every second week to see Thistle in the middle of Tier 12 or 13, with the expenses that would occur? 

Maybe the British league could be regionalized, so that we'd then have.... wait for it.... a Scottish League system!

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7 hours ago, Jaggernaut said:

So you would prefer to see the death of Scotland as a footballing nation? Absorbed into England (under the name of "Britain") is preferable? And somehow "Scottish" teams (if they would still be called that) would somehow lead to fewer of the same "English" teams dominating? How would that work, exactly? And you think fans would travel maybe 500 or 600 miles every second week to see Thistle in the middle of Tier 12 or 13, with the expenses that would occur? 

Maybe the British league could be regionalized, so that we'd then have.... wait for it.... a Scottish League system!

I’d rather see Thistle compete in a less boring, less restrictive league with an opportunity of having a slightly fairer slice of the pie than what we have now. It’s always Club over Country. 
Crowds in English league 2 are as good as some in Scottish premiership.  Bigger leagues, home and away once. 
 

What we have just now isn’t working, 2 clubs are too powerful and the other 40 seem happy to accept the scraps in the hope those 2 will sell out one of their stands

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