Scottish Football - 2009-10 season review

With the final trophy of the season now safely inside Dundee United’s trophy cabinet – and the United fans at last emerging, bleary eyed, from their winning hangovers – it’s time to have look back on the season in Scottish football.

Travel Sickness

Short of every club in the SPL going bust in July it is difficult to see how much worse the beginning of the season could have been. Our clubs were, almost without exception, humbled in Europe and our faltering World Cup qualification campaign was dealt a fatal blow with a 4-0 defeat in Norway before August was out. We might have guessed then that George Burley was living on borrowed time as national boss but the continental curse extended further than that.

Of the six SPL teams that endured a European misadventure four – Celtic, Motherwell, Hearts and Falkirk – would change manager before the season was out. Only Rangers and Aberdeen of the clubs that helped strangle our UEFA coefficient stood by their man.

Little is expected from Scottish clubs in Europe so the performances this season, as bad as some of them were, were of little real surprise. Unfortunately it helped frame the narrative of the season. By robbing some many clubs of any early momentum, and denying us all the chance to look forward to South Africa, it set the tone of a season to be endured rather than enjoyed. So it proved.

Jobs and Money

Money and managers. Coaches and cash. The recurring theme of the 2009/10 season. From George Burley to Eddie May, Tony Mowbray to Csaba Lazlo we heard of little but sackings and resignations. Along with the national team, Celtic, Motherwell, Hearts, St Mirren, Falkirk, Kilmarnock and Dundee United have lost managers in the past ten months. That is quite a turnover in a top flight of only 12 teams. You do wonder if any of our clubs will ever find stability.

If we weren’t concerning ourselves with employment issues we were preoccupied with questions of finance. Rangers debt hit £30 million although a tax investigation might see that rise to £80 million. Hearts have accumulated debts of £35 million, Kilmarnock an equally unsustainable £12. Big numbers from a little league. How did it come to this? Mismanagement, misjudgements, mistakes?

You would need a forensic accountant to apportion blame. The important question is how we move forward. There are no simple answers but somehow we need to find a sustainable model that allows Scottish football to grow again. The survival of the professional game depends on it.

Reasons To Be Cheerful

This is turning into a really depressing review, isn’t it? It wasn’t all bad. Honestly.39 year old David Weir played every minute of every league match as he captained Rangers to the title. He was rewarded with a host of Player of the Year awards. Few would grudge him the accolades although his teammate Steven Davis, at the heart of so much that Rangers do well, would have pipped him to the gongs had the voters cast aside sentimentality.

Rangers achievement in winning the title – leaving aside the flimsy nature of Celtic’s opposition – was proof of what a decent manager with a committed, hardworking team playing to their strengths can achieve. Financial uncertainty means Walter Smith’s future remains unclear. If this is to be his last hurrah then he leaves as one of the Ibrox greats.

Dundee United’s Scottish Cup win was a welcome break on the Old Firm’s stranglehold of the silverware. Combined with third place in the SPL it was  a real statement of intent about United’s plans for establishing themselves as the best of the rest. The Scottish Cup also gave us Ross County and their incredible run to the final. Their win over Celtic in the semi-finals was one of the biggest results Scottish football has ever seen and sparked life into a season that provided little cause for enthusiasm. We’re all due the Staggies a big thank you.

Looking Ahead

I’d love to say that next season will be all about the football. Sadly the financial turbulence surrounding many of our clubs won’t go away and big questions about where the game in Scotland goes from here need to be answered, are demanding to be answered, as soon as possible. It might be sometime yet before football is allowed to take centre stage again.

But I know that by July we’ll desperate for the SPL – for all its many faults – to get going again. We’ll even be looking forward to seeing all those muddy pitches that we’ve complained so bitterly about for the last six months. That’s football.

And this summer we can even sit and watch the World Cup without fear of getting beaten.

Roll on next season!

Tom Hall covers Scottish football on the Scottish Football Blog.