Old Firm's rejection by England gives other SPL clubs a great opportunity

Published on Sunday 15 November 2009 23:05

WE ALL know that negotiation is best done from a position of strength and it is now time for the other teams in the SPL to renegotiate their terms of engagement with the Old Firm.

The recent rejection of the Old Firm by the English Premier League confirms that, for the foreseeable future, they have nowhere else to go.

This provides an opportunity for the other members of the SPL to end the continued favouring of Celtic and Rangers in TV income distribution and voting (eg the 11-1 requirement means both of the Old Firm must agree to a proposal for it to be carried).

I suggest the remaining clubs start a new breakaway league (or rejoin the SFL) where all members are equal. SPL clubs would be welcome to join but on equal terms only. Any member club bringing the league into disrepute by denigrating it in public would be subject to fines, and any existing SPL club that does not want to join would be welcome to go wherever they can find a game.

ALEXANDER CONWAY

Melbourne

Australia

Tarred with same brush

Within a week we have heard from David Lewis (letters, 9 November), a Scot who resides in Bucharest, who tells us that the hooliganism of visiting Glasgow Rangers supporters to the city made him feel ashamed to be Scottish, and a group of Celtic supporters at their match with Falkirk on Remembrance Sunday chose to disrespect the memory of the Fallen during the minute's silence by chanting.

It is a pity that in the eyes of football supporters all over the world, Scottish football is Celtic and Rangers, and we are all tarred with the same brush.

WALTER J ALLAN

Colinton Mains Drive

Edinburgh

Sporting values survive

Imagine a line-up of Scottish ball players in a hard-fought match, physically clattered with resulting bloody injuries, no diving, no rolling on the ground in feigned agony, and with the scores neck and neck, our players accepting the referee's last minute decision not to award a penalty, shaking hands at the final whistle with the opposition winners and then all going off for a drink. No constantly run action replays and whingeing managers. It's a pity our footballing counterparts couldn't take the same stoic attitude as Scotland's players in the shinty v hurling international with Ireland at Bught Park, Inverness. Though I suppose they'd manage the drink part okay.

IAIN MARIN

St Mary's Street

Edinburgh

London Scottish greats

FURTHER to Stuart Bathgate's excellent piece about the London Scottish team killed in the First World War, two of the players mentioned, James Huggan and David Bedell-Sivright, had previously played with distinction for Edinburgh University. The latter was also Scottish heavyweight boxing champion, while the former has a memorial inside the abbey in his native Jedburgh with a tribute from his commanding officer, 'If ever I met a brave man, he was.'

G J DAVIDSON

Bruntsfield Place

Edinburgh

Writer nutmegged

Whilst one hesitates to question such an erudite person as Colin Wilson (vide his frequent letters on a wide range of subjects) one has to ask on which planet he has been living. Terms such as "peg" and "nutmeg" have been around and used in relation to football for decades.

GEORGE O'BRIEN

Falkirk

Copycats eye Ferguson

Ironically, I fear that Sir Alex Ferguson's punishment doled out by the FA regulatory commission could lead to more referees suffering abuse... from the kind of guys who hero-worship the Manchester United manager and see him as some kind of icon to be copied.

JUDI MARTIN

Maryculter

Aberdeenshire