BILLY BREMNER MEMORIAL JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN
Date: 27th December 2024
(Photo:@Homesoffootball)
This week Scottish Football prematurely lost one of my dearest friends, one of the good guys who cared more about the game as a whole and the game’s future in Scotland rather than whether his club won the last match or who they might be signing in the January window.
With a Larkhall granny his deeply formed West Coast childhood alliance is easily guessable but he switched in middle age to an East Coast club who play in green because of how they went about their business and how they treated his son who progressed through the various age stages there.
He also got uncomfortable and fed up with Scottish Football’s particular nasty bile that still flourishes because it has been monetised.
As a footballer he was fit, fast, skilled but also hard and scrupulously fair and likeable.
He was like that in life too.
He hated the cheating that has become endemic at all levels.
A nice dynamic. that ordinary people make work.
And, the underlying theme of this week’s Sting is now Tommy’s anagram, ‘Hear Smithcrafts’.
The Smithcrafts are worth hearing about too and simply feature solutions suggested by you and other real fans.
They come from a wide range of our membership from Henry our ex East Fife full back and ex First Minister, Wullie O who gets it and should have his own column, Sarah who has stopped going to games because of pyros, a Scottish based Government Minister, a bunch of others and me too.
If you are not a member of the SFSA then please join.
It belongs to. The fans.
It is free, always will be and we value your opinions and insights because that is why we exist.
And Change Starts at the Top
So this week’s ‘Sting’ is a bit different and just ‘Letters to Father Christmas’ because despite our collective battle-weary cynicism, we all care. And despite club loyalties if you dig deep enough the vast majority of us actually want the same things.
I’m constantly amazed that when fans have open discussion that self-interest for just their own club soon gets overtaken by what the game as a whole needs.
And if you can go from being a Larkhall, Central- Casting ‘Bluenose’ to a Hibby then anything can happen in our wee fotball world.
So thanks old pal.
Andy’s Sting in the Tale
1. ‘Hear Smithcrafts’
Aka what real fans want from Santa in no particular order and all are deeply interlinked in a deeply integrated game even if those at the top seem to forget that truism.
Please Santa:
Make all the Scottish Leagues bigger
They are too small, this mean that there are no safe places to breathe, develop young players and this kills everything else at the club instead of the 1st team. Fans get bored with 4 matches plus a season.
And please sort the bottom of the pyramid out, it has to be a proper up and down valve.
The way to do this is to narrow the gap between SPFL and what lies below.
No More Pyros
The clubs don’t want them, the players don’t want them.
Most fans don’t want them.
Punish the clubs severely at first and progressively.
Turn the pyros igniters into club-damaging pariahs and self policing will kick in.
Sorted.
Tell the BBC, Glasgow There are More Than 2 Clubs in Scotland
Yes they have the most supporters but news and football coverage and renta-quotes should be broader and just because Rangers are featured in one bulletin doesn’t mean that Celtic have to be covered, nearly equally, but never quite as much, too.
Publish All ‘Guest Lists’ at Hampden and With the Scottish International Teams
Who gets the freebies?
Public Domain is best because secrets are cancerous.
And publish all dealings with the Scottish and Westminster Governments like contact reports in any good business.
(And the MPs and MSPs can declare their own taxis)
Make Government Monies Public
List for the records, all monies from Holyrood and Westminster being noted, totalled and more importantly what they are used for to be in the open, not as per now where nobody gets told anything.
Start Up Scottish Football’s Very Own’ Fan Fund’
Like our very own Scottish Fan’s version of the very successful Norwegian Oil Fund where profits are invested in long term infrastructure projects for the good of all the game.
Don’t let it become a dripping roast for anyone but the game and its future.
Play More Scottish Players
It used to be the norm.
It isn’t now.
Our academy programmes have failed to feed the clubs.
(This ties into a bigger debate and need for real long term planning)
Get the best brains in the business to come up with a real and workable plan.
See Kids as the Number 1 Priority
Blow away the severe short termism and invest progressively into all aspects of the kids game.
A 40 year rolling plan to get back what we used to have.
Schools, local grass roots clubs, elite recruitment not based on year group relative age and size.
Work with the Scottish Government and COSLA and all other stakeholders.
No compromise and proper funding commercial and governmental.
Why is football not free for kids?
Also, Scotland Needs a Full Time Sports Minister
Linked into health, but with a brief to allow all sports to flourish across all age groups.
Everything from diet, to ethics, to self-help fitness programmes.
Not having a dedicated one is myopic.
Kick Gambling Sponsorships Into the Past
Girls and women’s football took the positive decision to eschew links with gambling and alcohol.
Well done.
We know there is a gambling epidemic that hurts young adults the most.
We know there are suicides directly linked to the normalising of 24/7 gambling on smartphones.
We know that bookies are algorithm-driven cash-gatherers and not the local guy in the wee office up the steps in the market.
Gambling Cos are aggressive and football is damaging its own.
Any player wearing a shirt with a gambling logo has no self-respect and is damaging kids.
Yes gambling does offer the most money but clean up the game and become a better partner for better long term and wholesome sponsors.
Show All Scottish Internationals on Free to Air
95% of Uefa based fans all over Europe watch their teams free.
What we have is not normal.
Our SFA hide behind the way they have chosen to allow Uefa total free rein in selling their family silver.
It’s a bollocks response.
And Westminster need to step in and stop the current nonsense that sees Scottish viewers getting all England matches free but not our own.
Bust Clubs (3 right now, including my own)
Ensure not just football debts get paid.
Look after the wee guy suppliers in the communities as part of any pre-pack administrations or any phoenix new starts after liquidation if the club claims to be the same as the one that went bust.
Think Bigger
About everything.
Like a new Hampden in a central Scotland location with good transport links, integrated hotels, retail and whatever else makes the deal work.
Get rid of Our Toxic Hat Trick Doing Untold Damage
Self Interest
Short Termism
Entitlement, where the big clubs think they are more important than the other clubs they need, or they wouldn’t have leagues to play in.
Santa, that’s just a few of the things on our list.
And on ‘River’ a line said to be about Graham Nash, who I remember beaming on Top of the Pops as one of Manchester’s Hollies.
“I’m so hard to handle, I’m selfish and I’m sad. Now I’ve gone and lost the best baby that I ever had”.
Looking back she said, “At that period of my life, I had no personal defences. I felt that I had absolutely no secrets from the world, and I couldn’t pretend in my life to be strong. Or to be happy. But the advantage of it in the music was that there are no defences there either”.
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