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Gretna Groan

Dave Bowler

3/13/08

“Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you.” The words of Carolyn Leigh, made famous by Frank Sinatra in his reading of “Young At Heart”. What Ms Leigh did not add is that fairy tales can also come back to haunt you, to bite you on the backside, which is pretty much the experience of Gretna FC at present.

The last few weeks have been pretty catastrophic for them, with genuine fears that they might go out of business, that they might be unable to fulfil their fixtures, that they would go the way of all flesh. Ultimately, it appears that they are living day to day, heading off into administration and collecting the ten point penalty that makes relegation seem pretty much a certainty.

The illness to owner Brooks Mileson which has cut off funding is a disaster for the club, but first of all, it’s a personal tragedy for him and his family and we can only extend our best wishes to them and hope for a full and speedy recovery.

But the case of Gretna, for so long a romantic one as befits the destination of star crossed lovers across the UK, fleeing to marry, has crashed upon the rocks of realism and the hard nosed financial facts of modern day footballing life.

Above all else, it underlines the incredibly dangerous step we take as football supporters when we hand a club over to an individual, however rich, however altruistic, however much he has the club in his heart. After all, the only thing which is certain in life is that you never have the faintest idea what it is that’s lurking around the next corner. Are you going to pick up a tenner off the floor, or are you going to drop down a mineshaft?

Having a football club so closely tied to one person is always inviting trouble, be it through financial problems of their own, ill health as we see with Gretna’s situation, or simply a desire to ditch the club and get back to an easier way of life without what can quickly turn into an albatross hanging around your neck.

As fans, whenever we say, “I wish somebody would come along with an open chequebook and do this, that and the other”, the experience of Gretna should remind us to stop, give pause for a moment and add to that one simple question. “What if?”

But it raises further questions too, notably about the running of the game, and the administration of the SPL and its competition rules. The unfortunate circumstances that surround Mileson notwithstanding, there must be questions as to whether it was ever viable for Gretna to get through this season, playing at a home base something like 100 miles from their own ground, up at Motherwell.

It’s true that the weather has not helped, leaving Motherwell’s pitch like a swamp and making for a scheduling nightmare. But if they couldn’t foresee bad weather coming in at some stage during the winter, the SPL are unique in the whole of Scotland. Where do these people live, Bath or Bathgate?

In fairness to the SPL, there is a very real predicament here and finding the right answer is very, very tough. The whole concept of competition states that football is a meritocracy - you are in the division you deserve to be in based upon the previous season’s performances. But by bringing in minimum requirements for stadia, that ruling has been subverted for good. Not only does your team have to be good enough, so does your ground. Is that right or wrong?

If that rule is to prevail, then an addendum is needed. Thou shalt not ground share. Plainly, it does not work. You lose touch with your roots, you alienate your fan base and the distances to travel become costly and, in the deep midwinter, depressing. Given the distances between so many teams outwith Glasgow, it’s farcical. Probably the only two SPL teams that could viably ground share are Rangers and Celtic. No, let’s not go there.

For a newly promoted team, ground sharing makes staying afloat even more difficult, playing out of an unfamiliar ground, in front of a tiny crowd, throwing away whatever home advantage you had.

So, if your ground isn’t up to snuff, you don’t go up. Or is there another way? Each and every promoted team that has fallen foul of the regulations has done so pretty much on the basis of the chaos created by the pending arrival of the Old Firm. So why not move the relevant home game, just those couple, either to another ground? Or, given you’re going to get spanked by both of them, why not play at Ibrox or Parkhead anyway? As long as Celtic and Rangers donate the day’s ticket money of course, helping level the playing field a little bit. Or shall we let the Old Firm just dictate everything including who can finish bottom?

Silly question.

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