#thank you archie for you expert opinion about football

[tomlinsins]

2016 | 2024 top bins, then and now

[thefootballlife]

Attack on Titan - A response to James Gheerbrant's Times Article on if Celtic's dominance is damaging Scottish football

I received an email on Wednesday evening asking if I'd like to help a journalist with an article he was writing. I spent 10-15 mins on the phone to him on Thursday morning having a pretty pleasant chat and then received an email later in the day asking if it was OK to put my name in as a quote. I replied this was fine (because, the amount of people who don't ask is far larger than those who do!) and awaited to read it.

The article itself can be read on The Times’ website at http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/sport/scotland-the-worst-title-race-in-europe-since-1932-z68l83g02

While it's always fair to be sceptical of any article which describes me as an expert (including, if not especially, those where I describe myself as such), Gheerbrant’s article was one described by Duncan McKay as “here’s my agenda and I'll find ways of showing you how right I am”. This much was, to be fair, fairly apparent from my conversation with him. He was given (or had already come to) a conclusion and his role as writer was to make everything stack up to prove that hypothesis.

Every writer does that. Even me. If I'm writing an article, I'll often know the end before the start because one of my focuses is to attempt to both start and finish a piece with a good line. From a perspective of method, generally I do about 50% of articles on a “I should write on this to be timely”, 25% on “this idea has come into my head and I want to get it down” and the other 25% is where I have a witticism I want to use and build an article round.

Obviously, someone making their way in the world with the fricking Times of London has less freedom. A quick flick of his articles shows an EPL focus and then bits where he has clearly been tasked with a specific article that’s a “story”. So, before I get into the nitty-gritty of today’s article, let me note that, from having spoken to James Gheerbrant on both email and phone, I agree with Duncan McKay’s quote above and got that feeling in advance.

In the English bubble, it is very easy to just take a pop at Scottish football when you need to feel a bit better about yourself. It was, bluntly, an article that justifies why the Times do next to nothing on Scottish football the rest of the season. As an example, why comment on Hamilton’s average attendance so far this season being down by 443 as proof Scottish football is dying when you could just as easily take the fact that St Johnstone’s has risen by an almost identical amount as proof it is in rude health or that Kilmarnock’s attendances have risen by over 1000.

I can do anything with statistics to prove a point and to pick on two clubs, Aberdeen and Hamilton - one of whom are not challenging for the title his season and one who are the smallest club in the league - to show proof Scottish football is on the rocks is a bit of a stretch. So far this season, in the Premiership, attendances outside of Celtic and Rangers have risen by an average of 70 fans per game. Now, that, to me, is more or less static - you can merely say “attendances are on the up” and use that to prove that Scottish football is on the rise. To see those statistics and argue that they prove that Scottish football is in some sort of terminal decline is to wilfully ignore certain parts of evidence.

Now, you will note that in none of this am I claiming that I was personally misquoted - I was not. My part in the article is a brief two paragraphs about a section of the season in which Celtic games drew lower than usual ratings which I surmised could only have been due to fans turning off because of Celtic's dominance. And the fact that SPFL ratings are strong overall has not been missed.

What most will know without me having to say it is that one thing I am incapable of is getting my point across so succinctly. In my ten or so minute chat I also mentioned that that short period had rebounded back to normal now, that I felt the issue was less to do with Celtic and more to do with the promotion of the league as a whole by the SPFL, and that it would be difficult to blame Celtic for certain based on only half a season. There was no mention of elements such as the external factors such as Rangers, unlegal streaming in Scotland being higher than average and the fact that Celtic were crap to watch last season - all things I said.

Now, I would be a complete hypocrite to call someone out for selective quoting - everyone does it, including me. It is not my right to say that someone should present work that is contrary to the brief they have been given and how they get there. It is my right to then say that I disagree with the overall conclusion and to offer an argument to back up my position. I cannot imagine that many people would have a ten minute conversation with me about Scottish football and come to the conclusion that I'm really pessimistic about it or that I hold the opinion that the club I support is somehow killing the game (and, if that was a view I held, I'd say it because I do believe I call Celtic out on their shit more than most Celtic fans).

Here is something I do believe - this Celtic team are a once in a generation freak. Had they got third in the CL group, they would be live contenders for the Europa League. Gordon Smith and Archie McPherson may have lost interest, but I haven't. Celtic might be 27 points clear but there is a live race for Europe, there is a relegation dog fight. If we want to discuss dominance and lack of interest, we could look to Slovakia whose league is all but won and who won't have a relegation this year thanks to Spartak Myjava going crazy.

Even if one subscribes to there being a decline (which, long term, there has been, but medium term there has not), blaming it on Celtic is a bit rich. It is not for Celtic to justify UEFA only giving small countries on CL place. If one wants to criticise Celtic for having larger revenues, then one must lay the blame at the door of UEFA for creating a system which only increases the disparity in revenues in smaller countries. Basel - on for 8 in a row, Dinamo Zagreb - going for 12 in a row - yet are there articles calling out Basel as killing the Swiss Super League? Is Celtic’s dominance a problem or a natural by-product of other problems endemic in football? Is this a short term issue or a long-term reaction to changes made by UEFA in the Champions League, etc 25 years ago in an effort to increase its commercial appeal?

Issues like this cannot be taken in isolation but they are, ultimately, works of opinion. My opinion is that the opinion espoused by the Times is incorrect. This Celtic team is the best for 15 years and, excluding relegations, etc, are there really any sides in the SPFL Premiership who are actually worse than 5 years ago, in the first season after Rangers’ collapse? Would we rather see Louis Moult or Michael Higdon?

The Times opinion has been backed up using alternative facts and the basis of two football games. Had Gheerbrant viewed St Johnstone 2 Celtic 5 or Motherwell 3 Celtic 4 instead of Celtic-Inverness or a midweek game between Accies and Aberdeen (which naturally has a low turnout because it’s a work night and Hamilton is a 7 hour plus round trip in rush hour) then would he have not seen a really entertaining game of vibrant football rather than an epic rearguard effort or an expected trouncing? Putting in the headline “Attendances have collapsed across the league” is, bluntly, an outright falsehood - as mentioned earlier, on average even without Celtic or Rangers, attendances are up and, when the two Glasgow giants are included, that propels it up massively to around 14,000 extra fans on average across the league. If that is collapse, I would love to see what success looks like.

Scottish football is not in this sort of dramatic collapse as pictured by the Times. The game in Scotland is comparatively trouble free compared to other leagues in similar states such as Croatia, who not only have to deal with a decade of domestic Dinamo dominance (that may end this season) but also empty stands far worse than seen in Scotland - Dinamo have a stadium for 35,000 and a highest domestic attendance of 11,000. No-one is going to argue it is in the rudest of health, but failing to appreciate there are legitimate external factors around why Scottish football isn’t where it was 20 years ago is the height of ignorance. Nor, for that matter, is dipping in once a season to talk down to Scottish fans anything approaching comprehensive coverage nor does it give you any right to claim it is in terminal decline.

Does Celtic’s dominance damage Scottish football? Why not ask, does UEFA’s coefficient system damage smaller nations? Have the economics of football reached a point where leagues tend towards monopoly?

Or most importantly, why not ask a question that might actually challenge your readers as opposed to selectively quoting to reach a lazy conclusion that was already decided before pen was put to paper?

We’d all benefit if journalists did a bit more of that.

Also, the second paragraph of the Times’ article features the word “Rodgers’s”. If you can carry on reading after than piece of punctuation homicide, well done.