Aidan Smith: Post-split SPL is not a happy house for Severin or the fans

Published on Saturday 25 April 2009 19:52

I'VE SAID it before and I'll say it again: footballers always say the same things. They get masses of airtime and back pages compared with players in the past, and yet it's like they were all in on some Bazza Ferguson media training school exam scam – his answers in return for Monster Munch – because their utterings are virtually identical and hardly ever controversial. So imagine my surprise when I heard Aberdeen's Scott Severin describe the SPL as "a bit boring".

I'm not prone to exaggeration but this sounds like revolution. Back in 1976, the rallying cry was "B-dum, b-dum – boredom, boredom!", courtesy of the Buzzcocks. Suddenly I was imagining the diddy teams becoming the new punk rockers.

Of course Rangers and Celtic think the SPL is boring, too, but beyond the Old Firm they're seen as part of the problem; the league would immediately become a lot more interesting if they quit Scotland. Extending the punk analogy here, the Big Two can resemble Labour and Conservative in the 1970s: dogma-laden dinosaurs, each as bad as the other as far as the revolutionaries are concerned. Wouldn't it be great if we could create a new order?

I'm not sure. About the Old Firm quitting, I mean (I agree with the bit about Rangers being a stegosaurus to Celtic's triceratops). Severin's comments sound dramatic when viewed in the context of the events of last weekend: the latest proposal for the Old Firm to play in England; the first to come from down south. But the non-events of this weekend serve as a grim warning to the neo-punks of the SPL.

This is the first post-split weekend, and yet there are no games. Not only is the split fundamentally rubbish, it doesn't even offer simple continuity. Any post-Old Firm scenario for oor fitba will require inspiring leadership and visionary ideas if it's to survive and prosper. The split is a perfect example of the guffy ones we invariably end up with.

Why the gap? Is it to avoid the embarrassment of Celtic's first game in the hud-me-back "top six" being against Aberdeen, who were also their opponents in the last match before the league clove in two like a broke-up tanker? No wonder Severin is bored.

I forget who first suggested the split, but you know it wouldn't have come about without the unequivocal backing of the Old Firm – nothing ever does. A smaller top division was sold as being a means of improving all-round quality, but Scotland qualified for more World Cups before. And, increasingly now, we endure desolate weekends and inconsequential scuffles with Kilmarnock (no offence) when it seems that the sole purpose of the SPL is to provide four Celtic-Rangers games a season. The rest is mere pie filling.

Presumably in the post-Old Firm scenario we would get rid of the 12-team format – and the split. It's unwieldy, unfair and, worst of all, it encourages a delusional kind of elitism. What right have the sixth-placed team to scuttle off and join the Old Firm for the season's showdown? Do they really believe themselves to be so much better than those in seventh and eighth? I always laugh when I see the final table and the clubs directly below the perforated line have accumulated more points than those immediately above it. Laugh and then cringe, obviously. The table goes around the world and is just plain embarrassing.

Do we, though, really want the post-Old Firm scenario? There's no getting away from the fact that without Celtic and Rangers, the SPL would become the SDL – the Scottish Diddy League. It might very well flourish; no one can say for sure until it's tried. But we're nervous about trying. The post-Old Firm scenario is the "elephant in the room" whenever oor fitba is debated. The dinosaur, obviously.

And isn't it typically Scottish to be so tragically indecisive? Re-reading the Severin story, I discovered another quote: there were other times, he said, when he actually enjoyed the SPL. Obviously this lessens the significance of the "boring" remark and obviously he's not suddenly turned into Steve Severin, bass guitarist with those most confrontational of punks, Siouxie and the Banshees. He's just a footballer, trying to stay interested.