Pre-season

[TRVMP]

Lately? 

 

 

If only I had the time to trawl back Twitter posts from over a year ago...

 

Basically, he started posting over and over about how 'Hoppy' should be the manager, undermining the other applicants (including those at the club) and, worst of all, making it seem as though probably the worst player in the worst squad in the club's history should have any input whatsoever into the future of Greenock Morton. When pulled up on this (not just by me, others as well) he was guilty of the most atrocious bants.

 

I realize you're an international man of mystery without the time to spend literally 30 seconds scrolling down a page but all the tweets should still be extant in the case of your enjoying a couple of minutes of leisure at some point in the future.

[garymcc1874]

Basically, he wanted David Hopkin to be manager and you're absolutely livid because of it.

 

Cool.

[garymcc1874]

 

 

Whit? 

 

nach0 hasn't become anything lately that he hasn't been since the second he stopped moderating the forums. 

[TRVMP]

Basically, he wanted David Hopkin to be manager and you're absolutely livid because of it.

 

Cool.

 

As I said, if you can get a few days off from your very important lifestyle you can go and run your finger under the words and judge for yourself.

[etta crouTON]

Whit? 

 

nach0 hasn't become anything lately that he hasn't been since the second he stopped moderating the forums. 

Human?

[LinwoodTON]

I'd like to see the League Cup returned to home and away games, at least for the early rounds, at the expense of the Challenge Cup. Makes it a bit harder for the diddy teams to cause a shock but it also gives the opportunity to bleed some youngsters.

 

 

You've turned into a bit of a n00b lately. 

 

Give him a specific answer - he's only asking a question.

 

WTF is a n00b? 

[TRVMP]

Yeah but who cares about blooding youngsters? That's what substitute appearances and the development league is for.

[Toby]

Had to laugh at the first thing I saw when I went into Twitter after reading this thread...

 

[TRVMP]

"Big Tony" for shock Livingston move?

[LinwoodTON]

Yeah but who cares about blooding youngsters? That's what substitute appearances and the development league is for.

 

The youngsters.

[TRVMP]

Scottish football already affords tons of opportunities to young players. We have several guys under 22 in the first team.

[SpoonTon]

You will never, ever get the bigger club in the equation to acknowledge a meeting as undiminished. St. Mirren fans already don't care about the "Renny" - turn the League Cup or even the Challenge Cup into this kind of thing and they're going to feel the same way about that competition as well. Same with Morton fans and Dumbarton - we don't even care about meeting them in the league, even though some of them see it as a local rivalry.

 

Shoehorning in more 'crowd-pleasing' fixtures is the exact, literal opposite of thinking outside the box. ****ing about with the rules to play 30-minute games is thinking outside the box, but then again it's also really stupid. Thinking outside the box is piss easy - thinking outside the box well is extremely difficult.

St Mirren fans might not care about the Renfrewshire Cup all that much, but they still attend those matches in greater numbers than they do the early rounds of the League Cup.

 

Since you failed to address the point i was actually making, let's put it a different way: would St Mirren or Morton fans feel like there was more at stake if the Renfrewshire Cup final was also a preliminary round for the League Cup. I'm not saying the format should be that simple, or even that static, but I do think there is an area to explore there. And this is precisely thinking outside the box in relation to Scottish football; since there is such resistance to cup competitions that would be so heavily weighted by the strength of local rivalries.

 

It's not about shoehorning in more derby matches, it's about trying to achieve something a bit more interesting for those attending matches. Fans have voted with their feet even with the diddy Renfrewshire Cup that has diminished in interest over the last dozen or so years - there are still farbmore attending those matches than the games against Alloa, Berwick, etc. in early rounds of other cups.

[TRVMP]

St Mirren fans might not care about the Renfrewshire Cup all that much, but they still attend those matches in greater numbers than they do the early rounds of the League Cup.

 

Since you failed to address the point i was actually making, let's put it a different way: would St Mirren or Morton fans feel like there was more at stake if the Renfrewshire Cup final was also a preliminary round for the League Cup. I'm not saying the format should be that simple, or even that static, but I do think there is an area to explore there. And this is precisely thinking outside the box in relation to Scottish football; since there is such resistance to cup competitions that would be so heavily weighted by the strength of local rivalries.

 

It's not about shoehorning in more derby matches, it's about trying to achieve something a bit more interesting for those attending matches. Fans have voted with their feet even with the diddy Renfrewshire Cup that has diminished in interest over the last dozen or so years - there are still farbmore attending those matches than the games against Alloa, Berwick, etc. in early rounds of other cups.

 

I don't think I did fail to address your point, but the answer to your question there is obviously yes, that would create more interest in that match in isolation. But then you have to balance that against the 'cheapening' of the other matches between us, and (in this specific example - I know you said it doesn't necessarily have to be this static) the losing team missing out on the other League Cup games which could potentially be interesting or lucrative. Such as, I don't know, maybe a trip to Parkhead for a famous win.

 

I'm not especially a huge fan of the League Cup in particular but you're ignoring its prize money, for one thing, and above all I don't see how sectional games against Dumbarton and Ayr are going to drive fan interest. That is the very definition of shoehorning.

[TRVMP]

Again, "more local derbies!" is not thinking outside the box.

 

"30-minute games for families!" is thinking outside the box, and it's shite.

[Rampage Nu Sport]

Scottish football already affords tons of opportunities to young players. We have several guys under 22 in the first team.

Agree with you there.

 

But we'll obviously not agree on the need for innovation and experimentation.  I just feel that Scottish club football has reached a point where it needs to think things through - and I agree, coming up with interesting workable alternatives isn't easy.  I'd just like us (ie those with the future of football as entertainment) to think of ways of attracting new spectators (and thus income) to the sport.  Professional cricket has followed the money, and still retained its conventional competitions, so why not football?  You and I may not like a new format, and may not even attend - but others, new to football, might?

 

As others are saying, we have three virtually identical cup competitions, and in many seasons no opportunities for competitive games against local rivals - so why not make one of the cup formats into something that guarantees a money-spinning tie or two for smaller clubs, such as a local derby or a definite game against SPL opposition?  Football purists will still have the league itself plus (say) the Scottish Cup in a time-honoured trraditional format.

[TRVMP]

Agree with you there.

 

But we'll obviously not agree on the need for innovation and experimentation.  I just feel that Scottish club football has reached a point where it needs to think things through - and I agree, coming up with interesting workable alternatives isn't easy.  I'd just like us (ie those with the future of football as entertainment) to think of ways of attracting new spectators (and thus income) to the sport.  Professional cricket has followed the money, and still retained its conventional competitions, so why not football?  You and I may not like a new format, and may not even attend - but others, new to football, might?

 

As others are saying, we have three virtually identical cup competitions, and in many seasons no opportunities for competitive games against local rivals - so why not make one of the cup formats into something that guarantees a money-spinning tie or two for smaller clubs, such as a local derby or a definite game against SPL opposition?  Football purists will still have the league itself plus (say) the Scottish Cup in a time-honoured trraditional format.

 

Scottish football is almost at critical mass in terms of pay-at-the-gate attendees. New revenue streams need to be almost entirely off-pitch to be worthwhile. That's my take on it. Lots of people disagree because they look at the very high crowds of the 1950s, ignoring that literally every entertainment business has changed wholesale since the 1950s.

[SpoonTon]

There's another angle to this that hasn't been discussed: Sky have made it abundantly clear that they want some type of summer football in Scotland. More than anything else they want games on in evenings throughout the week. Having local competitions that merged into a national competition, running from early July to early August, might be well worth doing in that sense.

 

The League Cup could be pushed more to being a winter competition, and the Challenge Cup could be consigned to the dustbin of history.

[TRVMP]

If a TV company was interested that's possibly helpful because that's where Scottish Football is really struggling, but let's look at two very pertinent examples here.

 

Royal League: The Royal League was for Scandinavia's top clubs and ran in the winter (i.e. Sweden and Norway's close season.) The logic was decent: reasonable prize money, top teams involved, and (presumably) a bit of variety (e.g. IFK/Valerenga) and a few local derbies (e.g. FC Copenhagen/Brondby). The problem was that even with two very big clubs in the final in the first year, nobody really cared (admittedly this was in large part because the Danish teams in particular often fielded weakened sides.) By the third season it wasn't even on TV anymore and even the Copenhagen derby couldn't break 20,000 spectators, while there were truly embarrassing gates like under 7,000 for FCK-Helsingborg. Now, admittedly this tournament came about at the behest of the teams involved, not the TV companies, but it still had everything on paper to work but it failed. Not dissimilar to...

 

Baltic League: Viasat was on board from day one for this tournament, which brought together (once again) the biggest clubs in the three countries (EST, LTU, LAT) and with plenty of local derbies. Edinburgh favorites FBK Kaunas even managed a shock win in 2008. The problem was, again, not a single fuck was given, even when they moved from a summer tournament (i.e. mid-season) to winter-to-summer (i.e. close season and pre-season.) It limped along as largely a betting tournament for the last two seasons when it was finally taken out back and shot.

 

The 'Balkan League' is going to be the next attempt at this, and maybe it'll work, maybe it won't.

 

About the only tournament of this format that actually works is the MTN Super 8 in South Africa, and that works because it only involves the eight best teams in the country (which invariably includes Pirates and Chiefs, by far the two biggest, as well as usually Sundowns, Celtic etc. who also have healthy fanbases.) Needless to say were such a model implemented in Scotland, Morton would be a face at the window.

 

Long story short, all of these post-season competitions have failed to attract the kind of gates that regular season games do.

[Rampage Nu Sport]

I bow to Nacho's superior worldwide knowledge, and the examples you quote are interesting.

 

A couple of points before I shut up.  I wouldn't judge the success of a new format solely on crowds in comparison to (say) the regular league games or Scottish Cup - I'd judge it by how many new spectators does it generate (ie people who wouldn't otherwise even go through the turnstiles at Cappielow).  And all things are relative:  of course some sort of redrawn cup competition involving second or third tier teams isn't going to generate massive gates, but if they generate more income than they cost, and more profit than diddy cup games, what's to lose?

 

Secondly, surely some form of competition (whether pre-season, post-season or during the season) that creates some certainty of big gates for smaller teams is in principle a good thing, even if its a bit contrived?  So a mini-league in, say, the League Cup made up of a team from each of Tiers 1-4 would ensure that every SPFL team got a home game against a SPL club every season.

 

Thirdly, my original "question" was whether some sort of day-long tournament, aimed at families (that might get even Mrs Rampage interested) might combine the needs of pre-season with some money-earning potential?  Some "guest players"?  One or two local teams?

 

And finally, I agree that non-football sources of income are important too.

[TRVMP]

1. Tough to measure new audiences in any case without a database (which Scottish clubs generally don't do, with so many games being paid for in case at the turnstile on a weekly basis - contrast to clubs with an ID card system or the US where card payments are the norm). It's also very hard to say whether such a tournament *would* generate more income than the existing tournaments.

 

2. Yes, that's a good thing - for the small teams. What Celtic have to gain from traipsing up to Arbroath or Dundee United do from heading to Stranraer, on the other hand, is a far more pertinent question. Celtic will argue (with some justification) that their continued participation in the League Cup is charity enough for the likes of Morton.

 

3. I brought up Arran in my admittedly-dismissive example earlier because I remember in our Division 3 season we played a pre-season, all-dayer, take-a-day-out-with-the-rugrats tournament and it was basically a kickabout. Admittedly that's a pretty extreme example but in my view it's a non-starter. It's also hard to see how the kind of person who would balk at the idea of going to the football for two hours would be convinced to do it for six or seven.

 

Here in the US there are plenty of tournaments that run two or even three fixtures in one day in one stadium - the various pre-season ones with the major European clubs often do this, and the CONCACAF Gold Cup this summer has (for example) Panama-Haiti followed by USA-Honduras at Toyota Stadium here in North Texas for an evening-long cavalcade of mediocrity. These mainly attract - you guessed it - fans of the teams involved. You could make a case for the Olympics two-fers attracting non-football fans but I'd call that a special case.