Kingsmills

Just quietly slipped away in the Snug of the Rovers Return still clutching her glass of milk stout in the Company of Minnie Caldwell and Ena Sharples. Albert Tatlock was very upset as I recall.

How many of our promising young players would be ready to play to an acceptable standard week in week out in the SPL

Limp

Good news about Denzil I'm sure he has a few goals in him yet.

Looks like a good many of the Gretna squad will be released possibly by the end of this week. I wouldn't mind seeing Skelton at the TCS next season.

Surprising but congratulations nevertheless.

Certainly, as a Nationalist with rebublican leanings I would not be happy with my children being "encouraged" to swear such an oath.

Disappointment

Misery !

I'm not great at arithmetic but if one relegation place is reduced by one does that not leave a grand total of zero relegation places ?

Programme

Have to agree that the Pogues were a great, if unpredictable, live act 20 or so years ago.

Disney

The real question is will they survive long enough to be relegated ?

This topic has been moved to Anything Goes. [iurl]http://www.caleythistleonline.com/community/index.php?topic=6313.0[/iurl]

Halo

I agree, the statement seems a bit of a smokescreen.

Having the tag of favourites seems to be a curse in this season's FA Cup !

I agree but the SPL and SFL need to get their own houses in order first.

Confidence

Proof

I believe that Gretna are a limited company so, if the worst came to the worst, the process would be liquidation rather than sequestration. I agree that they may well be able to stagger on until the end of the season but liquidation could indeed see them out of business before the end of the month far less the end of the season.

It looks as though Gretna might well not exist next season even if administration and an SPL advance help them limp on until the end of this. So what do the SPL and SFL do in that event ? The stock answer in the past has been to recruit another club but it seems to me that there are no longer any substantial centres of population that are unrepresented in the league apart perhaps from the Borders which doesn't seem to have a great deal of appetite for the round ball game. So what would be the point in a small country with far too many league clubs as it is in recruiting another club ? Even if it was relatively well run it would be another small part time club existing on league subsidies and crowds of three figures. Surely the sensible thing would be to take the opportunity of some radical reconstruction which might not be in place for next season but which could certainly be achieved by the season after even if it meant the Third Division operating with only 8 or 9 clubs for a single season or, more sensibly, combining with the second as an 18 team league with each team plaing each other twice. I say 8 or 9 as East Stirling have been pre warned that if they finish bottom this season, which would be the 8th consecutive year they've propped up a very poor part time league they risk being exluded from the SFL. If thy do finish last again this season then that is exactly what should happen. That would leave 40 teams to organise a league system for starting the season after next. My own prefernce would be for a full time top league of 18 teams playing each other twice thus getting rid of "the split" with a second national tier of 22 clubs which would be very largely part time. The additional games would give these clubs a little more revenue. Another possibility would be to revert to four leagues of ten with the top two divisions being run by the SPL and the bottom two by the SFL. Perhaps 25% TV and sponsorship revenue could be distributed among the "SPL 2" clubs meaning that relegation from the top tier wouldn't be such a disaster an that a prudently run club could sustain full time football there without recurring annual losses. Any reduction in TV income to the top league clubs would be partly compensated for by the fact the they would have four guaranteed home matches against the Old Firm rather than three as at present.

If Gretna fold before the end of the season, which even with the protection of administration and the benifit of an advance from the SPL, is quite possible, there will be no other team relegated. Whilst Gretna's results will be expunged, which will do ICT no good given that we've humped them twice, they will be deemed to be the relegated team. I know that the rules are less than clear on the point but the SPL''s management committee are hardly going t want to interpret them in any other way.

Gretna have no realisable assets and a minimal income stream compared to their debts and day to day expenses, even in administration and with the benifit of an advance of SPL monies, they will be lucky to limp on until the end of the season.