Only team that the new league champions haven’t beaten all season. Just come off a moral boosting defeat of the previous champions. Struggle against relegation fodder Wigan to finally take one point off them this season.

It pretty much sums up Spurs, as Julie Welch did in one Tweet(*)…

Spurs. Driving me nuts since 1961.

— Julie Welch (@DameJulieWelch) April 27, 2013

A nothing performance – you knew something would be up when Spurs are kicking off at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon – gifted both goals by the hosts while AVB got a number of things wrong.

The team that finished the previous outing with a 3-1 win over Citeh looked the only option for the manager. An XI with life and purpose and players playing in positions and a formation that suited them. But no Andre decided to change things about, sticking with that same 4-3-3 bizarrely Nuaghton was back in at left-back which again didn’t work – don’t know what BAE has done to AVB but it looks terminal.

And then probably an even bigger mistake was the inclusion of Parker in that midfield trio. Not only in there but as one of the forward looking pair with Huddlestone guiding things from the middle.

AVB keeps getting Parker’s inclusion wrong and even worse than having him in there he plays him as an attacking player. Once again this game showed the folly of that and leads you to think AVB can’t do that again. But then you thought that last week and the week before and well I’ve been thinking it since the dark day we signed Parker. Glad to see there’s an ever increasing number who have come around to the same conclusion – lot of ponderous pirouettes out there.

He was here at it again. Butchering up every forward move with his dithering and inability to provide a forward pass with any quality and then when he’s clean through with the goal at his mercy even more dithering and ineptitude.

This tied up to a distinct lethargy and Wigan fighting for their life added up to a lacklustre performance where Spurs had the the ball but for the most part did bugger all with it. Only positive, bar fighting back and picking up a point, was not having to suffer another abject Adebayor mope around the park – followed by he does more for the team than just score.

So the gifts. A nice bit of Parkeresque Chuckle Brothers passing between Wigan defender, Figueroa, and ‘keeper, Robles – to me, to you – Defoe initially closed down the ‘keeper, couldn’t see Adebayor doing that, then Bale came in to help, stuck his leg out and Robles’ clearance bounces off his foot straight into the net.

My Tweet about now hanging on for 80 minutes with a one goal lead had the usual effect of an equalising goal. Some slack marking at a corner. Vertonghen caught out. And a simple header sees another game without a clean sheet. Lloris has been in goal when quite a number of goals have been conceded since he became number one and it’s hard to remember many that were his fault.

Wigan then clamped Spurs down. A very effective job too, especially on Bale. The thing is prior to the opening goal the visitors had showed exactly how to overcome this smothering. Push and run. One two. Give and go. Walker inside to a midfielder, sets off and takes the return ball in plenty of space. At the time I Tweeted it was the perfect method and that I doubted we’d see it used again. It was and we didn’t.

Wigan took the lead with a cracker from McManaman, via some inept defending from Naughton. Heard some whinging from the Wigan boss after the match about Spurs eventual equaliser. He didn’t mention that one of his scorers shouldn’t have been on the park but sill serving a long suspension after that horror tackle he got away with. Nor the fact that his side should have been down to ten men after a head high foot assault on Holtby by Gomez. Gomez was already on a yellow could have easily got a second but it should have been a straight red, it was for Zamora a couple of weeks ago. Haven’t heard Martinez say anything about it, nor seen anything in various match reports in the media.

Gomez challenge on Holtby

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No Martinez saved his comments for the coming together between Walker and Beausejour near the end. The equaliser coming from the resulting free kick. They say that officialdom are trying to make football a non-contact sport but there’s more contact now than there’s ever been. You watch the old 70s and 80s stuff repeated by ITV on their Big Match Revisited programmes and you don’t see and grabbing of players. There’s not the hand contact that goes on now. Goes on and spoils teh game as players first instinct is to impede their opponent with an arm across, shirt grab or push off.

Walker goes near Beausejour and they’re both grabbing at each other. Cut that out and the game would be so much better. Martinez’s player tried to stop Walker with his hands, he had absolutely no interest in playing the ball, he came off second best. No sympathy.

Huddlestones’ free-kick bounces off a Wigan player to draw the scores level. He could have won it shortly after. Bale’s free-kick coming out to Huddlestone to pile drive a shot that was somehow kept out.

Could have really done with that smash and grab three points, don’t care about all the pundits claims that Wigan were robbed – yes I’d prefer them to stay up and Stoke to go down – still in Spurs’ hands even after ManUre buggered up their lines.

Just have to hope AVB has learned from this. No more right-back at left-back. No more Parker. Not rocket surgery.

Wigan Athletic 2 - 2 Tottenham Hotspur

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* Of course she meant the second half of 1961. First half was a bit better.

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Welsh Wales legends have been coming out and complaining about England’s coaches making it public knowledge they have some questions for the referee of Saturday’s championship decider.

Sour grapes they’re all shouting. It’s not. It’s England coming to the end of their tether with an individual they have history with. A history that led me to Tweet before the game…

Wonder if England will get an honest & fair performance from the ref later. History suggests …

— Toxic Web (@Toxic_Web) March 16, 2013

That led former England international Austin Healey to have a change of heart about the outcome before the game…

On Twitter last week I said I would have a £1 bet with anybody in Wales that England would win. Yet the eagle-eyed among you will remember I cancelled this bet the moment I realised Walsh was the referee.

England gave all due praise to the victors on Saturday and after, Healey adding to that comment above…

I owe a pound to the 300-odd of you who took me up on that bet before I changed my mind.

Because we all recognised that Wales put on a hell of a display to rack up that score. As I said in my post in the end Wales didn’t need the help of the ref. Doesn’t mean he didn’t give it and that he should answer questions about it. It’s not sour grapes at all.

Legitimate question have to be raised about why he did certain things, why he thought England would collapse a scrum when they knew Wales would put another 3 points on the board. Why England’s captain is dismissed out of hand when asking for clarification of certain interpretations, while Welsh players who are not their captain gets a nice discussion about things. Why according to England he refereed things differently than he told them in the pre-match meeting.

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If England go on to win the Grand Slam or just the Championship they need to strike one more medal and award it to the current French coach because on Saturday he made sure it could happen.

Saint-André finally picked a team that could win a game. He picked a team that was winning a game. The right players actually playing in their right positions. All those players he brought in playing like they can and leading France to their first victory of this championship.

Up until the 53rd minute when he couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t stop himself from trying to prove he was right all along when he picked all the wrong players in the wrong positions that were humiliated by Italy and Wales. In a defiant “I’ll show you” gesture Saint-André handed it all to England grasp defeat from the jaws of victory.

For the first 53 minutes of the game this was the France everyone expected, the France that started the 6 Nations as favourites. Morgan Parra was bossing the game, Trinh-Duc was his able deputy, his forwards were destroying their counterparts and his backs were running through theirs. Who cares about the number of changes when it now resemble a proper team on both paper and more importantly on grass.

While France’s seven changes flourish, two of England’s faltered – only Manu Tuilagi really worked. The choice of Lawes looked almost Saint-André like, a second row played at flanker, there for line-out domination and big hits off the scrum and in the open. Neither came. The hits particularly missing as he flounced the first chance to stop Fofana on his magnificent run for the opening try.

Other areas failed as England’s set pieces faltered. Hartley, the other failing change, in at hooker was poor at the line-outs while the scrum, particularly the front row, was destroyed by Nicolas Mas.

England were second best but had scraped in at half-time with a lead thanks to the boot of Farrell.

Ten minutes into the second half England coach Lancaster made the changes that needed to be made. He removed the players that weren’t working, Hartley, Lawes, Marler and brought on Youngs, Vunipola and Haskell. They immediately made a difference.

While Saint-André went the other way and took off his influential players and replaced them with the sorry mob who had seen the side through their first two losses. First up was the very symbol of those ineffectual games earlier in the championship. Michalak for Trinh-Duc, all seemingly because Parra had missed a couple of kicks. Trinh-Duc could have taken the kicks but the coach wanted Michalak on there to prove he wasn’t wrong before.

Michalak put over his first kick but after that went on to prove what a mistake it was by Saint-André. A mistake compounded as more and more of the influential players left the park to be replaced. as Mas trudged off shortly before Parra it was pretty much game over. Scrums now went England’s way, the French forwards were now on the back foot.

It made it easier for Lancaster to take off the injured Farrell. Injured earlier he had struggled through but you could see after the first of his last two kicks at goal, both missed, he wasn’t right. Chances are he would have slotted them if fit. It meant that England didn’t suffer from the introduction of Flood. Nobody ran at Toby, nobody tested him. Brought on earlier he really would have been a target for the rampaging Bleus. They may have targeted Farrell but he’s up to the rough stuff. Flouncy Flood on the other hand. While Cares showed again he should be starting at 9.

England weren’t anywhere near their best. Lucky with the try – first time England have been on the right side of officiating mistakes for a while – almost back to the bad old days of indiscipline, too many penalties especially kickable ones and another yellow card but still beat a side that was cruising and bossing the game by 10 points.

Most of the XV that started, most of the substitutes should take much of the plaudits but then so so should the French coach. England says thank you Philippe Saint-André.

England 23-13 France

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Arrogant enough there Jimbo? Do like it when the Jocks get all self righteous and over confident. Yes it was them that were the over confident ones not England.

It was like the start of the Heineken Cup when I kept reading how great Edinburgh were and that they were going to take the competition by storm. It didn’t even really stop when they were stuffed 45 nil in the first game. In the end they lost all their pool games, suffered two shutouts, got into double points once and scored a whole 3 tries.

After the weekends games you can see Scotland suffering the same fate. And all this followed a great deal of talk about turning England over on their own patch for the first time in 30 years – oh they had two players with the same name as back then, how could it not happen?

The only reason Jim Telfer’s lads got to within 20 points was through some slack play by England. Both tries from dull kicks and weak tackles and the usual giving away stupid penalties straight after scoring themselves. England weren’t that great really. Played some nice stuff but a number of players were off it. And that makes it the sweeter.

Things can get better for Lancaster’s team. Such as the scrum-half. Youngs made that great snipe leading Parling’s try but in the build up after that snipe it was noticeable how quick the ball was played from the breakdown with someone else at scrum-half, a big lumbering forward no less. He’s still to slow with the pass from the breakdown, Youngs. A step, a dither.

Care needs to start the next game. He also needs to stop being a prat off the field. The ball was so much quicker when he came on. Not that I’m advocating substitutions mind. They always bugger up England’s momentum, especially if it’s a seemingly by the number sub. 65 minutes on comes player X. Again it let the Jocks have some ball and territory.

Introducing the likes of Toby Flood is never a good idea at any time. Farrell’s performance at 10 – 18 points with the boot and a lovely pass for that Parling try – has to see the end of Flood in that position, surely now we can’t go back to Flouncy Flood. And with quicker ball from his 9, Farrell will be better. His kicking was outstanding and something you can trust, unlike Flood. When the scoreboard is ticking over it makes the game easier, unlike when you can’t trust your kicker to bottle it.

Dublin a different kettle of fish. Away for a start, these last two good victories being on home soil. Not been the best of travellers over the last few years. A number of England player have never played over there, you don’t know if that works for or against them. But it’s time to put down a real marker, New Zealand can be still seen as a fluke, the Jocks were pathetic. Ireland away says they’re really on the right way.

England 38-18 Scotland

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In her preprepared retirement speech the Welsh cyclist gave it both barrels and then reloaded to fire off a few more direct hits.

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Tyler Hamilton will make more money from his book describing how he cheated than [Lyne] Bessette or I will make in all our years of our honest labour. The situation requires the very basics of morality. Please don’t reward people like Hamilton with money. That is the last thing he needs. Donate his literary prize and subsequent earnings from such publications to a charity. There are many places infinitely more deserving than the filthy hands of Hamilton. I am happy to offer some ideas! - Nicole Cooke

When Lance “cries” on Oprah later this week and she passes him a tissue, spare a thought for all of those genuine people who walked away with no reward – just shattered dreams. Each one of them is worth a thousand Lances. - Nicole Cooke

You can read the full statement here.

One thing you can say though is she helped keep drug use in the sport secret through her actions mentioned in the statement. She didn’t come out and tell authorities what teams were asking her to do or what they provided her with to do it. Of course you don’t know the consequences of telling all.

She is still the only rider to win the World and Olympic road race titles in the same year, back in 2008. And in the way the likes of Chris Boardman and Jason Queally were the start of the revolution in British men’s cycling that’s led us to this last glorious year, Nicole alongside Vicki Pendleton led the way for the women’s sport in this country, so we now have the likes of Laura Trott, Dani King and Joanna Rowsell being the best about.

She leaves with head held high and a pretty damn impressive career behind her.

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Don’t know what’s worse what Stoke call football or the joy they take in killing the game. Points for points sake, no enjoyment, glory in destruction, you wonder what Danny Blanchflower would have made of it all.

The rest of the league seems to wonder why anyone would want to watch them never mind follow them around the country. It’s not something to bring festive joy.

Danny may have seen something like the opening few minutes in his time. Did remark at the time it was like watching the reruns of The Big Match from the late 70′s early 80s they’re showing on ITV4. Stoke hump it up the park as soon as possible while Spurs hammer it away as soon as possible. At least back in the far gone days they had the excuse of the pitch being a ploughed field unlike today’s bowling greens.

This passage of “play” brought Stokes first of a few chances that were gifted to them – didn’t look like scoring without Spurs’ help – as Walker played a suicide ball across his defence that Jones, obviously forgetting where he was on the pitch, smashed high over the bar. On me ‘ead son.

After this Spurs gained control while Stoke dropped back into the familiar flat back 8 to 10 giants.

Things were helped by inept officiating. Obviously scared after last week’s incident involving Stoke’s Shawcross and Fellaini of Everton, Lee Mason – who does a very good impersonation of Bobby Hill from King Of The Hill – was obviously scare of upsetting Tony Pulis. So N’Zonzi got away with an elbow on Dembele. While Vertonghen was booked for an innocuous late challenge on a player who say no card for a revenge tackle on the Belgian that was a bit of a leg breaker.

It brings me to that incident in the Everton game with Fellaini and The Big match repeats. While the football in those old shows maybe hump and bluster at times it is so damn refreshing for the games to be free of pulling and holding. They say the game now is becoming a non-contact sport, well it is but only from the waist down. From above it’s no holds barred.

Is this football or a tea dance?

Which is why I would have let Fellaini off. They, also, say refs can’t penalise holding like that or there’d be 20 penalties a game. Others respond saying it would stop it soon enough. Well I think that if a player was allowed to get out of a hold any way he wanted, including putting the head in like the Everton midfielder did, well that would stop the holding a lot quicker.

Because as you see with the likes of Stoke or Sam Allardyce’s teams they’re OK when handing it out but turn into the biggest wet, girl’s blouses when on the receiving end.

So anyway back to the game and not much happened. Sandro saved a tap in from Etherington who for once didn’t actually score against his old team. At the other end the Brazilian put in a pretty good cross which the substitute Sigurdsson met with a great header that was going to win it but for a magnificent save from Begovic.

In between not much occurred. AVB’s hands slightly tied by the lack of creativity on the bench, Gylfi came on and maybe so should have Townsend but when Parker was introduced it seemed to signal the acceptance of the draw.

Not the first team to draw a blank against this type of football and won’t be the last. Doesn’t mean we have to be happy about it.

The strike pair again showed that the crowd may scream for two up front but it’s brought one whole goal while Adebayor and Defoe have been on the pitch together. And while everyone talks about what a great season Defoe is having he has 2 goals more and 1 assist less than Torres who everyone has been slating. And somehow I’m not surprised we haven’t seen the same performance out of Adebayor now he’s actually signed, not withstanding his being in and out of the team.

Striker, a complete striker, a clinical striker and someone to fill the Modric/van der Vaart hole come the start of the window and I mean the start not the very last minute of the last day of January.

Tottenham Hotspur 0 - 0 Stoke City

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At this time of year we all like to look back, I’m going a little further than the past year, little further back than the football of my youth. December 25th, 98 years ago. I bet the football the Tommies and the Germans played on no-man’s land on the Western front was of a more enjoyable standard than the fair put out by Stoke City.

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Bradley Wiggins’ share of the Sports Personality of the Year vote didn’t quite match Mark Cavendish’s when he won the award last but then Mark didn’t have Olympic gold medal winners to compete with.

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But even with all those medals flying about there was no reason to vote for the other 11 ahead of the greatest sporting moment by a British athlete not only this year but most years. And that was even before becoming for a short time – before Sir Chris Hoy regained his title – the most successful Olympian of the country.

What the others had done had been done before. As said before the likes of Farah did nothing out of the ordinary as I posted a bit back…

…the 5k and 10k have been run 23 times in the Olympics and the double has now been done by 6 athletes at 7 games, so a third of the time, not exactly unique is it. Toxic Web

Ennis has one medal now so less than the likes of Laura Trott who didn’t even make the short-list. Murray it’s the first Grand Slam for a long time but not the first Brit. So on and so on.

Wiggins not only achieved something no British rider has ever done he achieved something no other cyclist has done before he even got to the Tour de France and then the Olympic time trial – winning the Paris–Nice, Tour de Romandie and Critérium du Dauphiné.

Then he adds one of the toughest events in sports history and tops it off with yet another Olympic gold medal.

And most importantly of all he actually has a personality. As shown when he was standing on the podium at the end of the Tour and again when being interviewed by Susan Barker and commenting about Gary Lineker’s make up fist up on the SPotY show. Do wonder how many votes that won him on the night. The BBC did their best to get their favourite’s to beat Wiggo with that first billing, get him on first and hope people have forgotten about him by the time voting lines open, just after the bits about Farah and Ennis.

Dave Brailsford rightly won coach of the year. Said what he was going to do – win the Tour with a clean British rider within 5 years, did it in three – and then winning all those medals at the Olympics after the officials in charge did enough to stop Britain repeating the triumphs of 2008. Funny as well that Brailsford took the shortest route possible up onto the stage. Marginal gains.

With nothing on next year on the scale of an Olympics, World Cup or Ryder Cup, if Wiggo retains his yellow jersey or Froome takes it off him can cycling make it three SPotYs in a row?

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It was easy to see back in the early 2000s where the allegations of doping against Lance Armstrong came from.

First up it was the French media that kind of started it because he, an American, was winning their race, time after time – just have to look at the allegations thrown at Bradley Wiggins this year of how they can’t handle Anglo-Saxon success, 27 years and counting. That to go along with his recovery from cancer meant it was all too good to be true.

The allegations circulated from very early on because of the above, but there wasn’t any real proof, he kept passing all those pesky tests, except of course that first one for cortisone, which he got away with via a back dated medical prescription for a corticosteroid, after the first stage of the 1999 Tour. Or did he? Was there collusion to make sure failed results were never released?

Then it seemed like proof when the various riders came out and named him as a doper. Unfortunately they were all dopers themselves, serving bans, or chucked out of the sport, so easy to dismiss. Lack of good character, had they done deals for their testimony, Armstrong being a big prize.

But with the USADA evidence finally coming out there is one person whose testimony can’t be written off so easily. George Hincapie.

True blue, like a brother to me. That’s what Armstrong himself said about the man who rode beside him through all those 7 winning Tours.

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But George has come clean and admitted it all, from his own doping – he also never failed a drugs test – to Armstrong’s and the role he, Hincapie, played in making sure his team boss, his brother wasn’t caught through all those years and races.

Early in my professional career, it became clear to me that, given the widespread use of performance enhancing drugs by cyclists at the top of the profession, it was not possible to compete at the highest level without them. I deeply regret that choice and sincerely apologise to my family, team-mates and fans. George Hincapie

What axe has George to grind. Yes he’s retired now after this season, his 19th in the game, so bans won’t have much effect but why would he tarnish his own name to bring down someone he was such a loyal lieutenant to now if there”s no truth in what he’s said. That’s why of all the evidence of all the statements Hincapie’s is the most damning and the one Armstrong will be hurt by the most.

Others that testified may have more to lose than Hincapie and Michael Barry who also retired this year, Levi Leipheimer, David Zabriskie, Christian Vande Velde and Tom Danielson are all still riding professionally and so will face the consequences on their career of their admissions. So their accounts should hold some weight but not as much as Hincapie’s.

As well as just plain doping Armstrong stands accused of bullying those in his team to do the same. Robbing them of a clean career. Cheating clean riders out of the fame, glory and money he racked up over the years.

To some he’ll still be a hero, you can’t dismiss his fight against cancer, to others he was and always will be too good to be true. Some say you can’t criticise because of all the good work he’s done in fund raising for his cancer awareness organisation – you might call that the Jimmy Savile defence these days – some might question that fund.

Professional cycling has always been dogged by professional cheating, form the very early days of taking the train, through the doping that went on before Tom Simpson’s amphetamine and alcohol fuelled death on the slopes of Mount Ventoux in 1967 past the Festina scandal during the 1998 Tour de France – the year before Armstrong won the first of his seven titles, when cycling needed a new hero to help remove the stain of the Tour du Dopage – through Alberto Contador’s ban and all those others who would have taken the Tour titles from Armstrong after he’s had them stripped if they weren’t themselves done for doping during the same time. To the expulsion of Fränk Schleck in this years Tour for testing positive for a banned substance, Xipamide, – though both A and B samples tested positive he has denied any doping, saying he was poisoned – and beyond.

Cycling is probably now the cleanest it’s been but at some point this year some rider will test positive for something and they’ll deny it.

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Who’d have thunk it the dolt of a defender – a transfer target of one ‘Arry Redknapp, let me remind you – did his bit for England by first helping getting rid of Fabio Capello and now, finally, after nearly a year John Terry.

Thanks Anton.

Terry’s “retirement” from England was the only way we would get rid of him as Roy Hodgson was desperate to keep him the set up, as shown by his reaction to the former England captain’s announcement. Roy would have kept on with Terry no matter what punishment the F.A. come up with this week. It’s one of the first things Roy has got badly wrong, it wasn’t the last.

Now this isn’t as many pundits have jumped to saying a way to get Rio Ferdinand back into the England fold. Yes Roy didn’t pick Ferdinand because he went with Terry but even if he didn’t mean it and was covering there are footballing reasons not to automatically bring him back into the fold. It’s time to move on. It’s not like Ferdinand has been outstanding, when he’s not poncing out of blocking shots he’s giving the ball to the opposition so they can score as he did at the weekend. Along with the fact Roy has Ashley Cole as his first choice left-back – another error – who Ferdinand doesn’t really get along with these days.

The disconsolate duck is dead.

The problem being who does play, especially with Roy being so enamoured of Lescott. A player who looks permanently confused. He’s useless without the ball and even worse with it. Jagielka might fair better on the international stage without being alongside Lescott. Cahill deserves another go, hasn’t done a poor job.

It would help massively if Jones and Smalling weren’t injured. Don’t know about Jones is he someone how is always going to be picking up injuries and never gets a good run of games. Then if the manager does get a chance to play him of course he’s in at fullback or holding midfield rather than at centre-back.

f Caulker gets a run of games for Spurs the he could be a choice and of course it’s the way things should be moving. Get the kids in, get them games, get them ready and playing as a team. Don’t go turning the clock back to old failures of the rather tarnished “Golden Generation”.

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I’ve pretty much given up on Scottish domestic football – well they never came to see me when I was crap – it’s bad enough with England but watching teams that make Roy’s boys look like Barcelona is too much to ask.

So it’s funny that the club that are responsible for the dire state of the game in Jockland have finally destroyed themselves.

A couple weeks back I was talking about all this stuff to do with Rangers’ financial woes and said that they killed Scottish football back in 1986 and it’s all their fault because it lead directly to where they are now. Bizarrely an article appeared on Sabotage Times a few days later, so no I haven’t just ripped that off – honest guv.

Of course they had some help, namely from the Liverpool fans who went on the rampage in Brussels resulting in the death of 39 fans at European Cup final at Heysel Stadium in 1985.

After that English teams were banned from European competition for an indefinite period – would be for the rest of the decade and only fully lifted nearly half way into the 90s. So with no European football on offer the newly installed Rangers player/manager Graeme Souness had a nice juicy carrot to dangle in front of England’s top players. The only option, other than staying put, would be a move abroad and well for many who struggle with the English language one of them foreign ones would be asking quite a bit. Saying that it ain’t exactly the Queen’s English over Hadrian’s Wall.

But with that carrot plus the even juicier incentive of a blank cheque from new chairman David Murray plenty of them reversed the usual trend of British footballers moving south of the border. Rangers won the title that season – 86/87 – for the first time in nearly a decade and bar one slip up in 87/88 they would keep it for the next decade.

Since that first season under Souness no team outside the Old Firm has won the Scottish title – Rangers 17 times and Celtic 9 times – and the domestic game has died. Since 95/96 only one other side has even denied either of them a place in the top two – Hearts in 05/06 finishes second with Rangers 3rd.

Could have been oh so different if Aberdeen had just got that draw or better they needed on the last day of the 90/91 season at Ibrox, bloody Mark Hateley, bloody Mark Walters

While, bar a run each to the UEFA Cup final from both Glasgow teams, the European outings have been laughable.

But before the revolution Aberdeen had been winning the title, Dundee United won it, the “New Firm” were on the up. They even looked the part on the continent, Aberdeen defeating Real Madrid to win the Cup Winner’s Cup. United getting past Barcelona 3-1 to reach the UEFA Cup final where I don’t know how they lost to IFK Göteborg.

Aberdeen kept it up somewhat during the early period of Rangers domination, finishing second a number of times but this was mainly due to Celtic’s own implosion when they were moments from going under trying to compete financially with their bitter rivals.

All the teams tried to compete but none of them really could and most nearly went over the edge splashing the cash. Rangers were out spending the lot. The problem being that 92/93 first season of the Champions League where they beat the last English champions before the introduction of the Premiership/Premier League, Leeds United. Leeds were pretty woeful that season finish just above the relegation places without a single away win I seem to recall. So beating them counted for nothing more than usual Scottish inferiority bragging rights. This was followed by the thought that with them finishing second in the group, the winner of which would go to the final, they’d effectively reached the semi and the good times were here.

Unfortunately even though more and more money was splashed on more big names, they would be an embarrassment and a new revolution was taking place south of the border which they thought they could compete with. But with the billions pumped into the Premier League as it became the biggest league in the world, money wise, the financial rewards in Scotland just weren’t there. TV didn’t want to pay for a dying uncompetitive, two team, product. While the Premier League are talking billions, £3.018 billion over 3 years, the SPL is talking millions, £80m over 5 years.

But the money kept being spent and now Rangers are a new company and enough of the SPL don’t want them back in the league. Which makes you ask what are these teams going to do for money now? Will broadcasters want a one team league. The money seems to break down for the other teams in the league in thirds. One third from games against Celtic, one third against Rangers and one third the rest of them.

Will Rangers’ expulsion turn round Scottish football or is it just the dying days of a game with no hope or real future?

What for Rangers? Well the bloke I was talking to way back at the beginning of this post said if he was in charge he would be shopping round to join a league in England. He said no matter how far down you went in the English leagues, even none league, it would still be higher up than any of the possibilities north of the border. And the pot at the end of the rainbow is a hell of a lot bigger.

Now I don’t know if that’s even possible but by christ it wouldn’t half put Celtic’s nose out of joint if a few years from now Rangers were in the English second flight aiming for promotion to the Premier League all through their financial incompetence and destruction of the Scottish game.

Read the rest of this crap at Toxic Web →