Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Academical thinking still evades SPL

To the massive relief of pretty much everybody involved in the SPL, Gretna are going to be relegated as a result of their performance on the pitch, rather than as a consequence of red tape. The minnows have, by all accounts, been about as successful as the Sinclair C5, and at times have been about as much of a joke as well. The club's actions through the January transfer window - releasing almost all their senior players to sign for Division One teams, and replace them with teenage loan signings from English Championship sides - suggests, to me, that they are resigned to dropping down a tier. When your manager is linked with taking over the team second from bottom of the division below (yes, Davie Irons, despite having as much experience of victory as an Andorran international footballer and also looking like he is constantly sucking a lemon, has been linked with Morton this week), you can tell that things are not going swimmingly.

So Gretna will disappear, as will the potential issue of where the heck they would play next year. Not just because they have completely failed to build a new stadium, nor because they haven't made the slightest effort to renovate Raydale Park (an area that looks more like a landfill site than a football ground), but also due to the massive disaster that ground-sharing at Fir Park has caused, with the pitch now vaguely resembling a swamp and attendances barely scraping four figures. I'm sorry, but even Caley managed to take two thousand to Pittodrie when they were stuck there, and that was double the distance and the A96 does not have anything remotely in common with the motorway Gretna fans need to zip up to reach home games. The whole thing has been a little bit of an embarassment for everyone, but in May we should be able to put it behind us and move on.

Except we might not be able to, as their potential replacements are Hamilton Academical.

On the face of it, Hamilton and Gretna are like two peas in the pod. Hamilton's last, brief visit to the top league was in 1988/89, and they were actually in Div 3 back in 2000, but managed to haul themselves back up to Div 1 over the next 4 years by sound management and sensible investment. Their squad consists of good young players, one or two guys picked up from England, and a few lower league journeyman. The coach, Billy Reid, made his name at Clyde and has continued his work at the Accies. Their current support is not phenomenal (2,000 at the game with St. Johnstone on Saturday) but ICT did not exactly pack in the fans before promotion either. And if they do win the division, it results in (at least) three pretty fun derbies with Motherwell.

The point I'm trying to make is, while they might find the step up to be pretty darn difficult, Hamilton appear on the surface to be a sound addition to the SPL for next year, bringing no worries of financial trouble or controversy with them. The trouble is that the controversy is there. Unfortunately, if you go by the "logic" that harassed the promotions of Inverness and Gretna, and by the experience that Dunfermline had as well, Hamilton's promotion bid will be dogged by two major issues; firstly, their stadium is not (yet) big enough, and secondly, they have an artificial pitch.

If Accies have any sense, they will be able to make the stadium size thingummy a non-event. Whoever chose to build New Douglas Park just 700 seats short of the 6,000 limit (all right, it was designed long before that rule, but it's beside the point) deserves a slap. But the SPL has been happy with small temporary stands before, so get some Cowboys to knock up a 1,000 seats overnight and Bob's your uncle. But you just know, deep in the pit of your soul, that the league will pick a fight over the turf. Common sense might suggest that, in light of all the trouble caused by weather this winter (the whole insistence on undersoil heating looks pretty freaking stupid now), promoting artificial pitches is the way to go; Hamilton use the same one as Montrose, and I have had the privilege to walk on the Links Park pitch - it's soft, grippy and, because there are no bobbles or divots, it's conducive to good passing football, even in Division 3. Anyone who claims it causes more injuries is either a twit, or a wuss, or both. I've kept goal on crappier astro than that, without coming away with anything worse than skinned knees (and you get those on grass, by the way).

But common sense is as anathema to the SPL as spending money is to Stewart Milne. So, with an air of inevitability, Hamilton's promotion, if it happens, will lead inexorably to another struggle and another reason why the SPL is a bit of a laughing stock. They know that, and that's why they are praying that Hamilton blow it and Dundee can be welcomed back with open arms instead. But the way forward is to let Hamilton in as they are, to bring a wee bit of fresh air, and give them the chance to compete on a level playing field - by that I don't just mean in terms of the pitch.

L.

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