Andy’s Sting In The Tale (09/05/25) “Scottish Football Needs King Billy”

After last week’s banner at Ibrox and the moderate but hollow and shallow, media stooshie I can hear you think, “Aye, right, we need more King Billy nonsense like a hole in the head,” but bear with me.

I genuinely think we really need King Billy right now because he has the answers, and I’ll explain why below.

If you’ve been on the moon

The Ibrox fans produced, and smuggled in, in full sight, a giant and expensive TIFO featuring Graeme Souness with a double barrelled, shotgun and the words “Take aim at the rebel scum”.
A nice way to welcome their long term business partners in a meaningless end of season game.

It was reported in the media that the much discussed, and much needed, American suitors were in the stadium and I wonder just what they thought.
I’d be running a mile away from the deal because despite all the positive, surface-deep attempts like ‘Anyone Everyone’, the reality is darker and extremely resilient.

In a stadium where racist songs are used and unreported weekly to ‘pump up the team’ there has been a generous dollop of the usual hypocrisy in the media and in meetings.
Rangers ‘Fan Advisory Board’ reported there has been a “robust” exchange of views with the club about the incident which has also been reported to Polis Scotland, but they, the men in blue, will kick it into the long grass because it’s always easier to do nothing.

Rangers fans now claim they were upset that the club publicly deigned to decry their initiative which they, the fans involved say is “edgy rather than offensive”.
And then we also got some abject moonbeam nonsense spouted that some fans think “the heritage of the club is in danger of being diluted” if the club stand firm and it means the TIFO group can’t promote their bile, sans consequences, in the future.

So we have a major Scottish club up for sale to some Americans who have no skin in Glasgow’s Northern Ireland-imported Victorian politics.
A club that also plays particular Northern Irish  flute music as an intro to their arena and also condones, by silence, the equally offensive, ubiquitous songbook that the media somehow never usually reports on.

That’s why we need King Billy

Billy Connolly.

Partick’s finest and a man whose approach can unite an embarrassing divide by using humour to out  the currently acceptable as unacceptable.

Glasgow the city and its people defy description but Billy’s annual ‘Spirit of Glasgow’ Award has the solution formula for this nonsense,

Here is Billy’s 5 point pathway to a solution.

i) Resilience

Be as warm as you are competitive. We’re all in this together, both sets of fans, and it will take time.

ii) Openness

Accessible to all, irrespective of daft wee social cliques seeking to reinforce ‘superiority’ that is actually ‘inferiority’.

iii) Unapologetic

Stay proud of what you can be and what you can achieve. Be unpretentious, curious, challenging and mould breaking.

iv) Gallus

Bold, brave, self-starting but always fair and non-bullying.

v) Funny

Above all, an ability and a desire to laugh at yourself first.

It would work if the perpetrators would listen but right now I can’t see the self-entitled fans on either side of the divide listening or wanting change of any sort.
They’d rather fuel each other in a pointless tic tac toe war.

And I have never understood why the decent fans on both sides seem to think what happens is just normal.

Their silence and lack of action makes them complicit.

So in my forecast failure for Billy’s plan I’d revert to ‘Strict Liability’ where the clubs get punished because of the fans actions.

1. League Decider on Sunday?

2. Leagues Apart

3. Takeovers Mean Change

4.Bad Management But Never Any Sackings

5. Where Do We Go From Here?

1. All or Nothing for the Hibees

Live on BBC Alba from the somewhat less than fan friendly Meadowbank with a 12.10 kick off.
It really is the league decider.
3 points ahead with 3 matches to play, if Hibs win on Sunday, the title will be hard to wrestle from their hands, although their last two games are tough with Celtic at home on Wednesday then away to Rangers at Ibrox on the 18^th.
Glasgow have a better goal difference and an easier run in with Motherwell away and then Hearts at home.
If Glasgow win in Edinburgh, the title will be effectively heading their way.
It’s been a great league and I don’t remember anyone at the start of the season seeing Hibs coming from the blind side the way they have.
But.

And football is full of buts.

2. Kilby Host Bonnyrigg

It’s the play-off double leg that every SPFL team dreads.
History shows that none of the teams dropping out have scrambled back up a very greasy pole.
Scottish football hasn’t quite got it right yet when only one of the 5 demoted teams has come even remotely close to a return, Brechin.
East Stirling, Berwick, Albion Rovers and Cowdenbeath are well off the promotion pace and, if truth is told, more likely to go the other way.

I love what the pyramid has done but am deeply concerned about the effective loss of valued community clubs.
The downside was never thought through when the SPFL ‘closed club’ was semi opened up.

The real issue is money.

It’s always money.

There isn’t enough money in Scottish football anywhere outside the Premier level and much worse than that there is half of bugger all once you get below level 4, i.e. below SPFL2.

And I have to say that I feel Bonnyrigg have been especially hard done by the 6 point SPFL deduction for having a slightly sloping pitch. This has proven to be the statistically decisive moment.

But it is a horrible league with a trap door to nowhere.

If The Rose lose their spot to ambitious Kilby, and that’s a 50/50 coin toss, then they will be the first to have gone up to the SPFL and then back down to the nether regions.

SPFL 2 is a dangerous small league where every club starts the season on a precipice that determines that every brass razoo they can scramble is spent on player wages to avoid being in the play offs.

3. In Any Takeover Situation, Ask Why?

Successful business is not random.
We’ve been told this week by one of the Ranger’s ‘Kings’ talking to his favourite red top that the deal to sell a controlling share, and therefore the future of the Rangers company is over 90% likely.
The American fund eyeing up the deal isn’t doing it because of the impressive historic profits made by the Govan club.
I’d argue it’s not based on what they see as future profits either.
So what are they buying and why?
I have no inside knowledge but reckon Rangers will be a part of a bigger jigsaw and cunning plan.
The model will be a business to run fiscally strictly and break even while blooding talent domestically and in Europe.
Scotland is an an easier environment than the English Premier division.

But this will come with three things the Ibrox fans might not like.
Break even and no more losses.
A business with real budgets and tight fiscal rules.
A defined long term nursery role for Rangers,  i.e. a forever junior part of a bigger entity and never the big cheese that fans want.

Hearts very recent approach from Brighton and Hove Albion is likewise not because the Brighton owner wants to have a few beers in the Diggers before home games.
And he’s not buying profit either.
He wants a cheap way deliver ‘a development option’ to a club who sees players as tradeable assets in their cold business plan and thinks instead of loaning youngsters to outsiders  it will be better to loan them to themselves instead.

I hope any investment goes into infrastructure rather than wages.

And I fear for our game.

Scottish football is in danger of having its very heart stolen on the cheap, club by club.

4. Football Failing its Fergusons?

This week we’re already still reeling from the second sacking at Tynecastle in less than a season and with Barry, he of the two fingered salute, pitching to be the new boss at Ibrox its a time of more change.
After what has been a sorry saga of sackings, the harsh reality is one club north of the wall has significantly more resource than Rangers.

The easiest thing in football at any level is to appoint a manager and the second easiest thing is to sack him and ‘move on’.
Somehow the club’s business management never seem to get blamed for making and taking the bad choices that lead to ‘sacked in the morning’ departures.

History shows how football clubs are run is all bollocks and unbusinesslike.

I remember Sir Alex was once jottered by East Stirling and also that his unbelievable root and branch dynasty at Manchester was only fulfilled after Jim Leighton was scapegoated in favour of Les Sealy for the Cup final replay with Fergie keeping his job by the skin of his teeth – and also thanks to Bobby Charlton saying the team and the club needed more time.

Anyway, good luck to Barry who has done well and here is a wee Barry Story that won’t get him the job but might make you smile.

A young, recently elevated, Scottish ref had been allocated his first Rangers game at Ibrox.

During play Barry committed an indiscretion and the rookie ref blew.

“Eff off ref”,  shouted young Ferguson, veins in his neck standing out, and approaching the rookie to intimidate him in front of the home crowd.

“No, you Eff off Barry”, said the ref standing his ground, (albeit with trembling knees).

The rest of the game passed with no repeat encounters or dialogues and after the final whistle the man in black had his hand heartily shaken by the midfielder and a wee compliment given, – “Thanks, it’s good to have refs you can talk to”.

5. Little League Thinking

I don’t believe that anyone in Scottish football thinks that 12, and three 10s are the best solution but for now nobody can think of a better plan for the clubs to agree to.
As a result league reconstruction will probably stay as a wish rather than a must-do.

10 club leagues are dangerous for all members especially those in SPFL 2.

Bigger leagues are wanted by fans but the elephant in every discussion room is the bottom of SPFL 2.
Nobody wants to be in that league and bottom place is not a happy outcome.

The very real problems working against change are:
– Not enough money coming down from the top.
– Not enough money through the turnstiles.
– Short term reality with any money that comes being spent on wages to ‘survive’.
– Self Interest eliminating any self-risky decisions and a constant desire by all to be away from the trap door.

Some would argue there are too many professional clubs for the size of the country but I would counter that with the fact that community clubs are the very important foundation of the game.
The game has just forgotten that simple fact.

New thinking is needed.

The Free World of Sting:

It appears from the ether on a Friday night and talks openly about stuff that our mainstream media avoid for their own reasons.

Sting is a free blog, from a free organisation and you are free to read it, pass it on or delete it,  and equally free to agree or disagree with anything I might say, that’s healthy.

Scottish Football needs more thinking and less “I’m allright Jack – so GTF”.

And more of the commercial income has to come below the top league.

Andy’s Album of the Week

Billy Connolly : Transatlantic Years

I’ve been smiling out loud all afternoon.
This particular album was just before he became stellar and takes me back to Eden Court in ’75 or maybe ’76 when Pastor Jack Glass stood outside with his “No Popery”, entourage on a warm summer evening.
The concert was magnificent and I remember crying at Billy, a very astute man who had the ability to see things with childlike simplicity and clarity.

My blog has taken twice as long to write today because I keep listening to stuff I had forgotten, very distracting indeed.

I’ll be singing ‘Last Train to Glasgow Central’ in my head all weekend and the next concert I go to I’ll again shout, “Gies 10 Guitars”.

Billy demonstrated that humour makes you think and he united a city because he saw the good as the dynamic rather than the tribalism from all sides.

He didn’t need a double barrelled TIVO to hide his deep insecurities.