The elephant's graveyard

Gretna, despite a point on Saturday away to a Kilmarnock side with the largest casualty list since World War One, continue to look just as condemned to relegation as they did when I slagged them off - sorry, I meant "impartially discussed their plight" - a few weeks back.

If I was a Gretna fan, I would not be the happiest of campers. Because if you go down a tier from the SPL, you find an awful lot of examples of what happens to a club after relegation. For the first division still contains the last five sides to be relegated from the SPL - St. Johnstone, Partick Thistle, Dundee, Livingston and, most recently, Dunfermline Athletic. That's right; no side relegated has got back to the pinnacle of Scottish football since St. Mirren, and even their fans had to endure some pretty horrific stuff (and some pretty horrific management - anyone remember John Coughlin?) While Dundee are now firm contenders in an increasingly two-horse race for promotion, the other side are none other than Hamilton Academical, last in the top division in 1989. Of the others, St. Johnstone and Partick are now on a reasonably firm footing; after dropping down in 2002, it was only last year that the Saints put up a reasonable challenge to promotion, while Partick had to endure a year in division two (and Dick Campbell's bunnet) before getting back to where they are now - a decent mid-table side still someway off being title challengers.

Meanwhile, Livingston are perhaps the ghost of Christmas Past for Gretna - the perfect example of a club that overspent its resources and went too far, too quickly. Having stayed full-time despite attendances being about as high as they would be for a Margaret Thatcher striptease, they finished a glorious seventh last year. Their Chief Executive then said in August that they would have to go part-time if they don't go up this year; they now lie a thrilling fifth, seventeen points off the lead. Not a very good omen for the future, you feel. There is currently only one part-time in the division, and Stirling Albion are rock bottom.

And, finally, inevitably, we come to Dunfermline. Cup finalists last year, and indeed in 2004, when I believe they also finished 4th in the SPL. How times have changed; out went Jimmy Calderwood to Aberdeen at the end of that campaign, and even the savings made on tanning salon appointments couldn't pay the overinflated wage bill he left behind him. The last three seasons were a perennial struggle against the drop, a fight which they lost in May. Despite this, experienced, seasoned Premier League players like Scott Wilson, Greg Shields, Darren Young, Stephen Glass, Steve Crawford, Tam McManus, Jim Hamilton and Mark Burchill remained, presumably still drawing decent wage packets. And where are they in the table?

Ninth.

So how many of these guys are likely to stay on next season. And how likely are the Pars, not the most financially solvent club in existence, to be able to attract and pay the players required to get them back up?

So the message for Gretna is this. If you somehow still have your books in order on relegation, chuck the playing staff you have now (no problem there - a good few of them are heading for the footie equivalent of the pension queue), and prepare to wait a few years, a la Dundee, until you have a bunch of good, hungry, young players ready to challenge. Don't keep your biggest names, and don't spend on bringing in more, otherwise it'll be wet Tuesday night trips to Albion Rovers in the blink of an eye.

Well, maybe not, but you get my drift.

L.