Scottish Football Betting & General Discussion Thread (Open to All)

[Kmac84]

I remember another thread in which I suggested we should have a Celtic thread and Celtic was supposed to start it but he never. 

I stick quite a few selections up on Tips for Tikay for Scottish Game and although a few of them get through, there seems to be little interest in discussing them and I put that down to a lack of knowlege on the game up here. 

So going forward I'll put up my selections here and hopefully we can all make some money, but would be happy to discuss the different aspects of the game and gather thoughts of others as there are quite a few Scottish lads on here who support different teams. 

Just picked this up on Twitter and I wholeheartedly disagree with it, what are your thoughts?  If you could take control of the game what would you do to make it better?

[celtic]

I thought I read last week that the scottish cup games were the worst attended for years?

Attendances seem to be down for most clubs. The standard of football is probably the reason for that, along with the cost.

Think celtic will win the league this season though, so it's not all doom and gloom.

[Ironside]

if i was running the game i would make it a 16 team league 30 game league season

or if the teams are that desperate for cash that they need the games vrs celtic and rangers to fill there coffers

split after 30 and a 44 game season

too many teams are filling there squads with journeymen pro's from the EU to insure they stay up rather than bringing players through
if there were less pressure on going down the clubs would be able to blodd young scottish talent with a hunger to play
rather than journey men who are after a cpl of seasons money before they retire

30 game league would see me going to pittodrie for 13 league games a season would miss the old firm games as the atmosphere is normally toxic

[Kmac84]

I thought I read last week that the scottish cup games were the worst attended for years?

Attendances seem to be down for most clubs. The standard of football is probably the reason for that, along with the cost.

Think celtic will win the league this season though, so it's not all doom and gloom.

Celtic winning the league again is doom and gloom for Scottish football.  Part of the problem is the monopoly that was held by Celtic and Rangers. 

Attendances certainly look lower to me, from the games I have watched. 

How do you improve the standards?  Cost wise it must be able to be done better, look at Germany. 

[Kmac84]

if i was running the game i would make it a 16 team league 30 game league season

or if the teams are that desperate for cash that they need the games vrs celtic and rangers to fill there coffers

split after 30 and a 44 game season

too many teams are filling there squads with journeymen pro's from the EU to insure they stay up rather than bringing players through
if there were less pressure on going down the clubs would be able to blodd young scottish talent with a hunger to play
rather than journey men who are after a cpl of seasons money before they retire

30 game league would see me going to pittodrie for 13 league games a season would miss the old firm games as the atmosphere is normally toxic

I partly agree about non-Scottish players but its EU law to allow freedom of movement. 

I'd like to see us adopt something close to a draft system to allow our young players to flourish. 

Regarding league set up I think part of the problem is there are too many clubs playing at senior level.  We don't have the population to sustain so many clubs.  We need a cull.  In principle I am not against a league of 16 I'd probably prefer 2 leagues of 14.  With entry open via a decent pyriamid scheme to juniors/semi pro clubs. 

We also need to clear out the guys who's coaching methods have held the game back in this country for years.  They linger like a bad smell and they routinley go from job to job.  I'm thinking guys like Jimmy Nicol, Jim Duffy, Alex Smith, Tommy Craig, Jim Jefferies, Dick Cambpell there are quite a few. 

[AndrewT]

Why is it that even when they were in the Prem, Hearts & Hibs only got 15,000 attendances- surely a city that big should be getting more through the door to challenge the Glasgow big two.

[Kmac84]

Why is it that even when they were in the Prem, Hearts & Hibs only got 15,000 attendances- surely a city that big should be getting more through the door to challenge the Glasgow big two.

Lack of success, poor owners,  not being competitive would be the main reasons.   Same would apply to Aberdeen and Dundee United. 

In addition to the above many people from Edinburgh/Dundee/Aberdeen etc will travel to watch Celtic and Rangers before supporting their local teams.

[celtic]

Why is it that even when they were in the Prem, Hearts & Hibs only got 15,000 attendances- surely a city that big should be getting more through the door to challenge the Glasgow big two.

At a guess, their capacity isn't that much bigger than that. Dominance of celtic and rangers over last 30 years probably killed the enthusiasm of locals too, and as kmac says, people start following celtic and rangers instead of their local team.

[Kmac84]

Capacity wise I think Tynie holds about 18k and Easter Road slightly more. 

The puzzling one for me is Dundee, I know both clubs have their history but how can you have your stadium on the same street as your biggest rival and expect to be competitive.  Pull one down and make an all purpose stadium from funding from both clubs. 

Well we're at it should get rid of Hampden.  Stadium is joke worse in Glasgow.  Of the 3 that constitute being stadiums. 

[Ironside]

if we moved to a 16 team league, teams wouldnt be so worried about relegation all the time

event at the split quite often the team in 6th/7th spot are looking to make top 6 just so they dont get caught up in the battle of the drop

teams who are safe but not in the shout for the title would bring along cheaper youth players rather than forking out good money on journey men from the EU

aberdeen is split 3 ways with 1/3 of the population supporting the home side 1/3 celtic and the other 1/3 rangers most of scotlands cities are like that i would imagine
but cities like dundee and edinburgh having rivals take away fans from city

ross county/inverness another pointless splitting of the area, lower down the leagues the same tto many teams fighting over too small a catchment area and having to deal with the big 2 taking away fans

scotland has the population of london but do you see 42 league clubs in london? what is needed is reducing the number of clubs with clubs merging  but its not going to happen
teams even with only a few hundred fans are not going to themselves out of the league just look at the inverness merger
some die hard fans of the old clubs still wont support the new team and clach fans got there way and they stayed in the highland league

[Kmac84]

How many teams re there from Fife?  That is one of the areas that grate me most.  There are I think off top of my head 5 teams playing in the professional set up, attendances aren't great, local rivalry cutting their noses off to spite their face.  If there was one team from the kinddom using all the resources instead of it being split 5 ways minimum they could possibly have a successful team and we have seen in days gone by with Dunfermine/Raith making finals there is a sizeable fan base that will come out to support the local team if they are successful. 

[tikay]

Prompted by something else, I looked up "Third Lanark" yesterday. Quite a story, that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Lanark_A.C.

Interesting to see that even back in the day the whiff of corruption was in the air.

Will they ever return to Senior Football?

This is (or might be....) Cathkin Park, as was. Is it still there?

[tikay]

Capacity wise I think Tynie holds about 18k and Easter Road slightly more.  The puzzling one for me is Dundee, I know both clubs have their history but how can you have your stadium on the same street as your biggest rival and expect to be competitive.  Pull one down and make an all purpose stadium from funding from both clubs. 

Well we're at it should get rid of Hampden.  Stadium is joke worse in Glasgow.  Of the 3 that constitute being stadiums. 

Presumably, it used to be rather more than 18,000 judging by this photo?

Click to see full-size image.

[Kmac84]

Cathkin Park is still there but not as a football stadium.   it was a stadium within a bigger park, you can still see some old parts of the Cathkin Park terraces from within the park.

Third Lanark were well before my time buy granda talks fondly of them.  Seemed to be quite capable in their day. 

Whereever there is money there will be corruption. 

[celtic]

Capacity wise I think Tynie holds about 18k and Easter Road slightly more.  The puzzling one for me is Dundee, I know both clubs have their history but how can you have your stadium on the same street as your biggest rival and expect to be competitive.  Pull one down and make an all purpose stadium from funding from both clubs. 

Well we're at it should get rid of Hampden.  Stadium is joke worse in Glasgow.  Of the 3 that constitute being stadiums. 

Presumably, it used to be rather more than 18,000 judging by this photo?

Click to see full-size image.

I would guess that all stadiums are a lot smaller now, due to the all seater requirements.