Our clubs will survive if they have the will

Published on Monday 23 February 2009 21:58

SCOTTISH football has always been regarded as the poor neighbour of the English game. Now, as the recession starts to bite, it also bears unfavourable comparison with its own recent past.

With a domestic market which is roughly a tenth of that south of the Border, the Scottish game can only dream of the size of revenue from television deals which English clubs take for granted. In June last year, for example, the SPL agreed a four-year deal with Setanta for the broadcasting of live matches which is worth a total of 125million.

That deal, which takes effect from next year, is more than double the previous agreement, but it is dwarfed by the 1.3billion, three-year package currently in operation in England. Similarly, Scottish clubs today simply cannot afford the quality of player they could attract in the 1990s. The internal transfer market has almost collapsed, and even Rangers were looking to sell a player last month in order to raise revenue.

But, while such a state of affairs may suggest that times are tough, the lesson from even harder times in the past is that our national sport is remarkably robust. True, clubs have gone bust, but those which have not recovered have been exceptional cases.

Livingston, Dundee and Motherwell entered administration but live on, as do Airdrie, albeit under the guise of Airdrie United. It is very rare indeed for a Scottish club to go under when it is on a stable footing and being run by people who want it to continue as a going concern.

Gretna disappeared from the league after their owner, the late Brooks Mileson, was forced to retrench after over-extending himself. Clydebank only foundered after a long-term battle to stay afloat. And Third Lanark went bankrupt in 1967 after years of infighting.

The fate of those clubs should not be lightly disregarded. But the fact remains that the vast majority of Scottish teams have kept going through leaner periods than this.

In the mid-1970s, for example, the three-day week was introduced, putting millions on part-time working. Power cuts were introduced, the sale of candles rocketed, and the end of the world was nigh according to some.

But football adapted. Matches were rearranged to take place during daylight hours, and clubs were able to get by.

We have to go a lot further back, to the Second World War, to find a time in which football as it had been organised ceased functioning. Even then, the usual league and cup competitions resumed in 1946, and almost every club which had fallen into abeyance at the end of the 1930s was able to start up again.

Leith Athletic and St Bernard's did not make it, but they had been in some trouble before the outbreak of hostilities. Only the Stirling club King's Park could be regarded as casualties of the war – their ground, Forthbank, was bombed by the Luftwaffe.

Of course, in order to get going again after the war, many clubs had to make economies. Similarly, those clubs which have gone into administration over the past decade have had to learn to live more frugally before resuming normal commercial existence.

In retrospect, some clubs were allowed to live beyond their means for too long before finally being told by indulgent bankers that they had to rein in their spending. Since then, there has been a general recognition in Scottish football that the years of excess are over.

That recognition has not yet extended everywhere to practice. Many clubs, especially in the SPL, spend far too large a percentage of their turnover on players' salaries.

But the knowledge of what has to be done is there. Clubs are actively striving to remove their debt rather than telling themselves that speculating to accumulate will eventually produce results on the park and on the balance sheet.

They know how to survive, and if they want to they will. They may have to do so in reduced circumstances, and those footballers whose financial demands are too extravagant will probably have to ply their trade in another country. But they will live through this crisis, just as they have survived others of far greater severity.