Aidan Smith: ‘Who dares, wins. Players can express themselves, flourish and not sign for Rangers later’

But, if I can get in the mood for 2012-13 after the hammering my team took in the Scottish Cup final, then so can you. Come on, this is the future – or at least 50 per cent of it – that some of us have been dreaming about!

Nothing against Rangers, absolutely nothing, but we fans of all top-flight but intrinsically diddy clubs beyond Ibrox and Parkhead have had the prospect of playing on without the Old Firm dangled in front of us for some time now. Admittedly there hasn’t been much dangling recently. England doesn’t want Rangers and Celtic and the expanded Champions League with its tedious early stages is seriously undermining the campaign for Europe’s so-called best to be playing each other every week. But that hasn’t stopped the rest of us wondering, in the words of Barbra Streisand: “Could we? Should we?”

Could we survive on our own? Should we take a deep breath and, if given the chance, plump for life sans the Big Two? We didn’t ask for this – don’t forget that Rangers and Celtic first declared they wanted shot of us, rather than the other way around – and we haven’t got it yet because Celtic are still here and Rangers are only off the scene temporarily. But this season will provide insight, or half-insight, into how we’d cope in such a new world order, whether we really would prefer an Old Firm-free existence – or whether we’d miss them too much.

You can’t predict how this will pan out for it’s always been possible to love and loathe Celtic and Rangers to equal degrees. Can’t live with them, can’t live without them. Hate how they stomp around the SPL-scape like dinosaurs, squatting on us with their big, scaly bottoms (bigger even that John Greig’s), utterly dominating. But, hey, football would be boring – even more boring than our own efforts contrive to make it – if we didn’t have anyone to rail against, to blame for everything. You can’t predict how we’d react to suddenly finding ourselves in an Old Firm-free zone and here’s something else you can’t say for sure: that 2012-13 with no Rangers is going to be a unmitigated disaster.

There are plenty of doom-merchants who think this. High-up blazers, ex-Old Firm players on tabloid retainers for six belly-rumbling articles per season and of course Rangers fans, understandably bitter about what’s happened to their club. They argue that attendances, competition, broadcast exposure, status and general interest in the SPL will all suffer now that Rangers have been banished. But just supposing this was to be the story: classy Dundee United, bullish Hearts and sparky Motherwell mount keen challenges to Celtic after deciding, with a gratifying lack of sentimentality and woe-is-us, that one club’s misfortune means opportunity for others. On the morning after what would have been the date of the first Old Firm clash, everyone is cheered by the fact the league hasn’t come to a juddering halt. The next Saturday is even more keenly contested. Clubs, instead of anticipating good runs will end with a trip to Govan, simply keep the runs going.

Minus one of the Big Two, the SPL is that much more unpredictable, something the fans have always craved. In these tasty matches it’s who dares, wins. Players express themselves and flourish and don’t sign for Rangers later. Disillusioned supporters start drifting back. Chick Young gets over not being able to utter the words “Ibrox”, “exclusively” and “reveal” anytime soon and does his cheerleading best. The crowds are still modest and they’re never in themselves going to make up the TV shortfall but don’t forget that some stayed away when Rangers came to town (reasons: expectation of defeat; the game almost certainly being on the box; the Ibrox hordes’ songbook). There’s a perkiness to the league, born of a desire to prove the Apocalypse Noo brigade wrong and not let our beautiful game die (we are a sentimental lot, really). Celtic take the flag but not by the predicted 42-point margin. Hearts win the League Cup, a hoodoo trophy for them in recent times. Hibs lift the Scottish Cup at last.

OK, you might have hung around for the first part of my alternative vision of 2012-13 but now I’ve lost you. Well, I’ll take back the bit about Hibs because not even I believe it. (Indeed, incredulity regarding my team’s affairs has just snapped, the way the elastic on 6-2 hero Mixu Paatelainen’s XXL shorts never did. How can the chairman bang the drum for 3,000 additional new season ticket-holders when his total has already been artificially inflated by so many poor saps signing up for the year in order to be at that gruesome cup final?). So, forgetting about Hibs (how I try), and forgetting about cynicism and negativity and four Old Firm games per season being the secret of life’s inner meaning and, for now, disregarding Rangers as well. . . isn’t at least a chunk of this scenario possible and wouldn’t that be some kind of wonderful?