The last time a team won the Scottish football league, OTHER THAN CELTIC OR RANGERS, was in 1984. Alex Ferguson’s Aberdeen. Yesterday, in a ‘knock-out’ final match, Celtic played Herts in a (almost) winner takes all match. If they had drawn, Herts would have claimed the title. But alas and with an inevitability greater than the power of gravity, Celtic scored two late goals, won the game, won the league. Again. Which is a tragedy on so many levels. Not least of which is the number of Palestine flags flying at Celtic Park, but their almost totally Catholic fan base is closely allied to the Irish and we don’t even mention them in decent society. They used to fly IRA flags there, ‘back in the day’, even though they were banned. So we have the terrorists of Celtic and we have Rangers. And, apparently, no team from outside Glasgow is ever allowed to win. Making the Scottish League, the working definition of a ‘Mickey Mouse League’. Or, ‘Mickey Moose’ as they’d call it. Even the Spanish league allows another team to win now and again, otherwise it’s just Barcelona or Real Madrid with predictable boredom. Not Scotland. Old Firm or no firm. Its dull, its stupid and its wrong.

But, like the Spanish league, it’s all about money. The rich teams buy the best players and win the leagues. Simps. But then they get the money which comes with winning. The tv money, the European entry money, which then just increases the ‘gap’ exponentially. Leaving it, quite obviously, unclosable. There is, ‘quite literally’, no chance of other teams winning.

Our league is dominated by money too. Chelsea are a bunch of mid-table rabble for decades until Roman Abramovich decided to launder his billions in the club. Then suddenly, they are the champions of England. Buying every player they could, ruining so many careers, by getting people just so their opponents couldn’t. They out-spent everyone else and would worry about ‘financial rules’, if they actually exist in football, later. After they’ve lifted all the trophies they could. And they did.

Until Manchester City, even more ‘mid table garbage’ for half a century, get acquired by the nation of Abu Dhabi. Who have even more money than Abramovich. And ‘amazingly’ they suddenly become the best team in the world!!!! Incredible what just ‘new ownership’ can do. Especially if that ‘new ownership’ comes with a blank cheque book and teams of lawyers working to defend their monetary excesses. (115 cases pending).

Manchester United weren’t so lucky. They acquired ‘billionaire owners’ who managed to suck money out of the club instead of pumping it in. Which, although quite amusing at the time, was really quite appalling. Now Jim Ratcliffe is at the helm and he’s way more stable than the Glazers and is not only a Manchester United fan but unlike the previous owners, understands the offside rule.

So we are dominated by forrin money in our football league. Arsenal are owned by a rich American, Liverpool too. They run their business models more carefully than the others but still; more money; better results.

And those teams dominate our league. Well, your league, my league might be a different one next year.

And then… Leicester happened. In 2015 Leicester City broke the ‘monopoly’ of the super-rich clubs and won the title here. With no money, a second hand team coach, darned socks. But they won it. So it can be done. It just doesn’t happen very often. And it NEVER happens in Scotland.

COME ON NEWCASTLE!!!!!

(Then it would be a very-)

Happy Sunday

A xxxx