Clubs going to the wall

The previous teams were playing in the highland league. It's no comparison.

There was an initial interest when professional football came to Inverness but the locals simply arent interested in following the team these days. Once the novelty wore off, the locals werent interested in the merged side. Long term fans of the 2 original clubs werent interested in following the merged side and those who were recent fans simply stopped going in any kind of number.

You can't prove that. Numbers were rising when they were in the top flight and dropped in the lower leagues. I'm absolutely certain that on the off chance they don't go out of business and get back into the top flight that they'll rise again.
 
You can't prove that. Numbers were rising when they were in the top flight and dropped in the lower leagues. I'm absolutely certain that on the off chance they don't go out of business and get back into the top flight that they'll rise again.



19/20 Scottish Championship 130275182117
18/19 Scottish Championship 180458642548
17/18 Scottish Championship 180431062395
16/17 Scottish Premiership 190749683946
15/16 Scottish Premiership 190690933636
14/15 Scottish Premiership 190709193733
13/14 Scottish Premiership 190675973558
12/13 Scottish Premiership 190767314038
11/12 Scottish Premiership 190794414181
10/11 Scottish Premiership 191859984526
09/10 Scottish Championship 180631643509
08/09 Scottish Premiership 190846884457
07/08 Scottish Premiership 191903024753
06/07 Scottish Premiership 170824294849
05/06 Scottish Premiership 160838585241
04/05 Scottish Premiership 110457004155

Only averaged more than 5000 fans per game in 1 season. Havent averaged more than 4000 fans per game since 2012/13. Looks like a city that is abandoning it's club.
 
19/20Scottish Championship130275182117
18/19Scottish Championship180458642548
17/18Scottish Championship180431062395
16/17Scottish Premiership190749683946
15/16Scottish Premiership190690933636
14/15Scottish Premiership190709193733
13/14Scottish Premiership190675973558
12/13Scottish Premiership190767314038
11/12Scottish Premiership190794414181
10/11Scottish Premiership191859984526
09/10Scottish Championship180631643509
08/09Scottish Premiership190846884457
07/08Scottish Premiership191903024753
06/07Scottish Premiership170824294849
05/06Scottish Premiership160838585241
04/05Scottish Premiership110457004155

Only averaged more than 5000 fans per game in 1 season. Havent averaged more than 4000 fans per game since 2012/13. Looks like a city that is abandoning it's club.

Or it's averaged out to about 4,000 in the top flight and halved since going down.

Chart those attendances next to final league positions for reference sake.
 
Or it's averaged out to about 4,000 in the top flight and halved since going down.

Chart those attendances next to final league positions for reference sake.

05/06 they averaged 5241 per game.

- lost fans year on year for the next 3 seasons.
- Lost fans year on year in every season following their promotion back to the top flight in 10/11.

And those aren't complete figures for the whole of their history either. It shows a team that occasionally has some novelty interest but that doesnt keep those fans. The locals havent bought into the club at all.
 
there was no way for the SFL to accept us into division 1, the only had a mechanism for division 3. Something they had told the SPFL before they decided to remove us from the league, something which never happened to Hearts or Dundee when they had their historic liquidation events. Really the SPFL should have hit us with a 2/3 points penalty from season total which would almost certainly seen us relegated the following season but the SPFL knew best and rather than keep things in their own control they decided a grandstand show was required and the SFL Rightly refused to play the game by making up new rules.

It was voted on by SFL clubs and completely rejected - which came to me directly from one of the people who voted on it.

The SFL did have the mechanism to do so but didn't after clubs opposed it.
 
The lower League's should be mothballed for the season.

I give the same amount of concern as our club were afforded by other top flight clubs back in 2012
I totally agree mothball league 1&2 as it will save utter chaos when clubs in league 1 & 2 find come December they have no money left as they have no income
 
05/06 they averaged 5241 per game.

- lost fans year on year for the next 3 seasons.
- Lost fans year on year in every season following their promotion back to the top flight in 10/11.

And those aren't complete figures for the whole of their history either. It shows a team that occasionally has some novelty interest but that doesnt keep those fans. The locals havent bought into the club at all.

Do those figures go back to 94 when they merged?
 
Or it's averaged out to about 4,000 in the top flight and halved since going down.

Chart those attendances next to final league positions for reference sake.


19/20Scottish Championship2nd2117
18/19Scottish Championship3rd2548
17/18Scottish Championship5th2395
16/17Scottish Premiership12th (R)3946
15/16Scottish Premiership7th3636
14/15Scottish Premiership3rd (plus cup win)3733
13/14Scottish Premiership5th3558
12/13Scottish Premiership4th4038
11/12Scottish Premiership10th4181
10/11Scottish Premiership7th4526
09/10Scottish Championship1st (P)3509
08/09Scottish Premiership12th (R)4457
07/08Scottish Premiership9th4753
06/07Scottish Premiership8th4849
05/06Scottish Premiership7th5241
04/05Scottish Premiership8th4155

So those numbers show us that they lost around 400 fans a game over their 05/06 season where they finished 7th in each of the following seasons.

They also show that in the year they finished 3rd and won the Scottish cup, they actually averaged about 700 fewer fans than their relegation season of 08/09.

Not exactly a vote of confidence in the team from the locals even in the season where they finished 3rd in Scotland's top flight AND won the Scottish Cup.
 
19/20Scottish Championship2nd2117
18/19Scottish Championship3rd2548
17/18Scottish Championship5th2395
16/17Scottish Premiership12th (R)3946
15/16Scottish Premiership7th3636
14/15Scottish Premiership3rd (plus cup win)3733
13/14Scottish Premiership5th3558
12/13Scottish Premiership4th4038
11/12Scottish Premiership10th4181
10/11Scottish Premiership7th4526
09/10Scottish Championship1st (P)3509
08/09Scottish Premiership12th (R)4457
07/08Scottish Premiership9th4753
06/07Scottish Premiership8th4849
05/06Scottish Premiership7th5241
04/05Scottish Premiership8th4155

So those numbers show us that they lost around 400 fans a game over their 05/06 season where they finished 7th in each of the following seasons.

They also show that in the year they finished 3rd and won the Scottish cup, they actually averaged about 700 fewer fans than their relegation season of 08/09.

Not exactly a vote of confidence in the team from the locals even in the season where they finished 3rd in Scotland's top flight AND won the Scottish Cup.

I still see it as the natural plateau of the base support in that area. How many people live in and around Inverness that would actually want to go and watch a football team? Google suggests there's about 70,000. Shiny new team - 6,000 odd enthusiastic people that come, try it out and ultimately don't stick around. Second division, 2,000 still go that'll be there whether it's rain, hail or shine because it's what they do. Average that over a 20 year period and it looks like they're capable of attracting around 4,000 if there's top flight football on offer. For my argument, if you were to take that base number (core 2,000 diehards, 2,000 floaters and 2,000 that dip in and out) and you were to add in any kind of sustained success that might come from a better concentration of resources, the better players from the area being forced to compete for fewer places I'm confident attendance figures would also rise over time. Right now the costs of running ICT and Ross County includes the upkeep of two stadiums, two training facilities (presumably) and twice as much/travel/accommodation as well as staff. One combined regionalized team still has the same number of people who probably want to go watch football but offers youngsters and the clubs a greater set of resources to try and challenge for more success. How much you spend and your success are directly connected in most cases. It has of course always been hypothetical. The argument is that fans turned their backs on the older teams. Unless the older teams were averaging around 3,000 each (which they weren't) then it isn't a relevant one to be making.
 
I still see it as the natural plateau of the base support in that area. How many people live in and around Inverness that would actually want to go and watch a football team? Google suggests there's about 70,000. Shiny new team - 6,000 odd enthusiastic people that come, try it out and ultimately don't stick around. Second division, 2,000 still go that'll be there whether it's rain, hail or shine because it's what they do. Average that over a 20 year period and it looks like they're capable of attracting around 4,000 if there's top flight football on offer. For my argument, if you were to take that base number (core 2,000 diehards, 2,000 floaters and 2,000 that dip in and out) and you were to add in any kind of sustained success that might come from a better concentration of resources, the better players from the area being forced to compete for fewer places I'm confident attendance figures would also rise over time. Right now the costs of running ICT and Ross County includes the upkeep of two stadiums, two training facilities (presumably) and twice as much/travel/accommodation as well as staff. One combined regionalized team still has the same number of people who probably want to go watch football but offers youngsters and the clubs a greater set of resources to try and challenge for more success. How much you spend and your success are directly connected in most cases. It has of course always been hypothetical. The argument is that fans turned their backs on the older teams. Unless the older teams were averaging around 3,000 each (which they weren't) then it isn't a relevant one to be making.

Which is a far more relevant question.

We need more people watching football in Scotland. We're not going to achieve that by merging or killing teams. That'll see fans walk away from the game. If we want things in Scotland to improve then we need to get more fans through the gates at every club. That means valuing our local clubs, actually giving a damn about our game and doing everything we can to encourage people to see football as something worth following and experiencing in person at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon.
 

Things like this mean I can honestly say I have no interest in saving any other team.
In 2012 we were booted from pillar to post by every team with no backing from anyone.
In 2020 it’s no different. We gave the clubs a chance to change the corrupt cabal and they all sided with the poet run shit show or shat it and did nothing apart from keep their collective heads down in the hope they were left alone.
Now this latest pish from the cabal. Fûck them all. Hell mend the lot of them. They can all go bust for all I care.
 
I reckon it won't be just some clubs going bust or having to merge over the next year, there will be whole leagues across Europe having to do so. Football will only survive with anything like its current prominence with cross border co-operation across Europe.

I'll be fairly surprised if the Championship and divs 1 & 2 even start next month
 
I can’t fathom how most of the clubs will survive without fans in grounds.
Killie’s ave crowd the season before last was c.6500. Ok they’ll sell a few season tickets for tv viewing at home but there must be a massive gap to be filled financially. The same clubs complained a few years ago that a 2/3 week winter break would mean they’d struggle to pay the wages.

Unless I’m missing something, loads of clubs will go bust without a weekly cash income. I’ve heard weekly COVID tests cost £5k.
 
Which is a far more relevant question.

We need more people watching football in Scotland. We're not going to achieve that by merging or killing teams. That'll see fans walk away from the game. If we want things in Scotland to improve then we need to get more fans through the gates at every club. That means valuing our local clubs, actually giving a damn about our game and doing everything we can to encourage people to see football as something worth following and experiencing in person at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon.

Don't we have proportionately the most people in Europe/the world possibly going to games?
 
Hope they all go out of business %^*& every single one of them! They voted for this. As long as our club survives im happy. The fact they wont get the blue pound this season makes me not too pissed about not being able to attend Ibrox
 
I haven't read the full thread so I don't know if this has already been mentioned. Apologies if it has. Arbroath are drawn to face Ross County at Dingwall next month in the BetFred Cup. Normally Arbroath would travel there by coach on the day of the game. Because they are a part time club they apparently cannot be regarded as being in a 'bubble' and I'm informed that because of this, coach travel is out. As a result of yesterday's ruling on car sharing, the only way that any player, manager and other club officials would be able to get to Dingwall is by individual car travel. That pre-supposes every player and connected official being able to drive and each having access to a car. I don't know how the SPFL will get round this one.
 
Don't we have proportionately the most people in Europe/the world possibly going to games?

Skewed because of the old firm.

Remove Rangers and Celtic and we have a far lower proportion of the population that attend football matches. It's not particularly healthy when 2 teams account for about 3/4 of the total number of fans who regularly attend matches.
 
If the cûnts in charge of Scottish football are suggesting this then they are doing so with the sole aim of helping one club (or their allies). It’s their prime motivation for doing anything. This is no different.
 
Why do you doubt that? Based on your extensive knowledge of my loyalties? Lol
I sat at Ibrox vs Livingston in Dec 2014 with around 20,000 others on what can only be described as Baltic conditions watching dross where you could hear a pin drop, whilst the other 30,000 seats were sat empty.

I'll never forget it. The Saturday before Christmas and although we won 2-0, I remember saying to my brother as we walked back to his car after the game, "I wonder if we'll have a team to support next Christmas"?
 
Wait their!!!

it’s in this cupboard somewhere!!

ahhh got it!!

thought I should play a little tune on my violin!!
;)

any club who tried to put us out the game can die as quick as they like sooner the better. Bye!! Bye!!
 
Skewed because of the old firm.

Remove Rangers and Celtic and we have a far lower proportion of the population that attend football matches. It's not particularly healthy when 2 teams account for about 3/4 of the total number of fans who regularly attend matches.

Does that not further support the idea that there are too many clubs for the rest of the fans if an overwhelming amount from all over the country are already going to support two by default?

Is it far lower if you remove Rangers and Celtic? It seems quite easy to work that out.
 
Right assuming we have moved on from 2012
Fast forward to 2020 and we have a lot of clubs who voted to end the season then voted against our dossier
%^*& every one of them
Can’t really disagree with this. Scotland may benefit from less teams if the fans are absorbed into other clubs.
 
Does that not further support the idea that there are too many clubs for the rest of the fans if an overwhelming amount from all over the country are already going to support two by default?

Is it far lower if you remove Rangers and Celtic? It seems quite easy to work that out.

Absolutely not. People still labour under the delusion that folk would flock to support football if only we had fewer clubs. As if the bewildering range of choice is just too much and people can't decide on a team to support.

We need the Scottish public to start caring about Scottish football and valuing it. We need them to start actually going to games. More people claim to be football fans wihtout attending a single match than go to a football game in Scotland. That's not a sign of a society that has a strong football culture or that loves the game. Thats the real problem - people would far rather follow foreign football on TV or stay at home and follow the old firm from afar than actually bother going to their local ground. Thats if they bother about football at all - too many people in Scotland don't want to be associated with the game because of the perception - rightly or wrongly - that they have of Rangers and Celtic.
 
I hope no club goes to the wall. I remember how badly I felt during 2012 and that was us keeping our club. Scottish football for all its faults is full of passionate fans who love the game . To take that away is shameful

What happened to us in 2012 has absolutely nothing to do with the here and now.

Also there were warning signs from March onwards how this pandemic could potentially turn out?

It didn't stop them voting in their droves to keep the status quo and prop up the most corrupt officials in football worldwide.

Getting back to 2012, why the tears shed from you?

What was the cry? 'We'd rather see our own clubs go bust, than allow Rangers to stay up.'

F_cu_k the lot of them.
 
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So many of these diddy teams stood and ignored our plight caused by charlatans many laughed and they voted us into division 3. Excuse me if I couldn’t care less if the majority went out of business it’s called karma.

If the majority go out of business who will we play?
 
If the majority go out of business who will we play?

It wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility that clubs will go bust right across Europe.

Maybe a huge influx of phoenix clubs would be the correct time to look at merging leagues together - either in an Atlantic League sort of set-up or by having the larger leagues incorporate the top clubs from surrounding countries at the top level to stimulate interest and crowds whilst regionalising further down the tiers to reduce costs.
 
Don't think I want any club to disappear, tbh.
I do. We have far too many shitty little clubs, supported by 2 men and a dug, and ran by complete arseholes who get to have far too significant a say in our game.
Time they merged to survive.
 
Absolutely not. People still labour under the delusion that folk would flock to support football if only we had fewer clubs. As if the bewildering range of choice is just too much and people can't decide on a team to support.

We need the Scottish public to start caring about Scottish football and valuing it. We need them to start actually going to games. More people claim to be football fans wihtout attending a single match than go to a football game in Scotland. That's not a sign of a society that has a strong football culture or that loves the game. Thats the real problem - people would far rather follow foreign football on TV or stay at home and follow the old firm from afar than actually bother going to their local ground. Thats if they bother about football at all - too many people in Scotland don't want to be associated with the game because of the perception - rightly or wrongly - that they have of Rangers and Celtic.

If there's 40 clubs or whatever it is and we're still averaging good numbers with 2 teams pulling in 55,000 each on average (and at the top of the league tables for attendances) I can't see it being that bad when you remove them from the equation. Your second points touches on the saturation of football experience being available in terms of foreign TV and in England. I can't see how that applies on that level but having 5 or 6 teams for the Dundee/Angus area doesn't.
 
If there's 40 clubs or whatever it is and we're still averaging good numbers with 2 teams pulling in 55,000 each on average (and at the top of the league tables for attendances) I can't see it being that bad when you remove them from the equation. Your second points touches on the saturation of football experience being available in terms of foreign TV and in England. I can't see how that applies on that level but having 5 or 6 teams for the Dundee/Angus area doesn't.

The headline figures that prompt this belief about Scottish football attendances are the proportion of people who follow top flight football.

In Scotland it's an average of 96,500 per week from an attendance of 5.4million - about 1.7% per capita.

If we're removing the 55,000 average crowd at a Rangers or Celtic home game then that 41,500 average attendance puts Scotland at 0.76% per capita top flight football attendance. It drops Scotland from top to 6th.

Still think that Rangers and Celtic don't skew the figures? 6th would still put the SPFL ahead of both England and Germany, but its a significant drop.

Culling clubs isnt going to make a bit of difference to Scottish football. Fans would simply walk away from the game. The only thing that will help Scottish football is increasing the per capita attendance at games across all 4 divisions and the pyramid structure below League Two. If St Johnstone were to go bust tomorrow then their fans - as small a number as that may be - wouldn't head along the A90 to Dundee. They'd just stop going to football matches.

Thats the same at every level of the game in Scotland. Caley Thistle's attendances averages show that not even a Scottish Cup winning season could tempt the people of Inverness back to their home games. Your claims that their attendances were growing just aren't backed by the actual evidence of their average attendances over a 15 year period. An Angus United wouldn't have the combined support of Arbroath, Brechin, Montrose and Forfar fans. This bonkers notion about merging clubs across Scotland or culling clubs would only really serve to make football inaccessible for a lot of those fans and drive most of them away from the game.

It's bunkum. It's an argument progressed solely by fans with an arrogance and contempt towards the minnows in Scottish football who claim that it would be progress whilst at the same time showing nothing but contempt for the domestic game and the national team.
 
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The headline figures that prompt this belief about Scottish football attendances are the proportion of people who follow top flight football.

In Scotland it's an average of 96,500 per week from an attendance of 5.4million - about 1.7% per capita.

If we're removing the 55,000 average crowd at a Rangers or Celtic home game then that 41,500 average attendance puts Scotland at 0.76% per capita top flight football attendance. It drops Scotland from top to 6th.

Still think that Rangers and Celtic don't skew the figures? 5th would still put the SPFL ahead of both England and Germany, but its a significant drop.

Culling clubs isnt going to make a bit of difference to Scottish football. Fans would simply walk away from the game. The only thing that will help Scottish football is increasing the per capita attendance at games across all 4 divisions and the pyramid structure below League Two. If St Johnstone were to go bust tomorrow then their fans - as small a number as that may be - wouldn't head along the A90 to Dundee. They'd just stop going to football matches.

Thats the same at every level of the game in Scotland. Caley Thistle's attendances averages show that not even a Scottish Cup winning season could tempt the people of Inverness back to their home games. Your claims that their attendances were growing just aren't backed by the actual evidence of their average attendances over a 15 year period. An Angus United wouldn't have the combined support of Arbroath, Brechin, Montrose and Forfar fans. This bonkers notion about merging clubs across Scotland or culling clubs would only really serve to make football inaccessible for a lot of those fans and drive most of them away from the game.

It's bunkum. It's an argument progressed solely by fans with an arrogance and contempt towards the minnows in Scottish football who claim that it would be progress whilst at the same time showing nothing but contempt for the domestic game and the national team.

You'd need to take the first/second team out of every league to make it valid.

Also I am sure that if you factored in 'top flight' to mean the league system, as difficult as it would be we'd still be quite high with our first, second, third and fourth league as well as the juniors.
 
You'd need to take the first/second team out of every league to make it valid.

Also I am sure that if you factored in 'top flight' to mean the league system, as difficult as it would be we'd still be quite high with our first, second, third and fourth league as well as the juniors.

The report everybody loves to talk about is restricted to top flight only.

If you want to extend that to tier 2 and 3 then I can absolutely guarantee you that the average attendance in the Scottish championship would comfortably be dwarfed by the average home crowd at almost every single Bundesliga 2 team.

Tier 3? Waldhof Mannheim's club membership would probably be the equivalent of 3 or 4 good League 1 crowds.
 
The report everybody loves to talk about is restricted to top flight only.

If you want to extend that to tier 2 and 3 then I can absolutely guarantee you that the average attendance in the Scottish championship would comfortably be dwarfed by the average home crowd at almost every single Bundesliga 2 team.

Tier 3? Waldhof Mannheim's club membership would probably be the equivalent of 3 or 4 good League 1 crowds.

Again though it's per capita.
 
Not bothered if this goes against the grain here but I don't want any club to go to the wall.

First and foremost I want them all to witness our return to the top - hopefully this season.

I don't want to see people lose their jobs among professional clubs - backroom staff.

For the smaller clubs - as much as our journey through the lower leagues sickens me, I still felt a warmth to the lower league clubs - especially from fans and communities - who were all proud to host Rangers coming to their town.

There are also people out there where football will be one of the few things to keep them going.
This exactly , it’s not just players of the clubs , it’s everyone from the canteen women to the kit guy who losing their job, wouldn’t want that for any them.
 
Partick Thistle who thought it would be to their benifit when we were being chased out of football. Oh how I will larf.
 
We were told that it was inevitable clubs would go under when this all started in March. It hasn't happened so far and tbh I doubt it will. Fans will tend to rally round clubs when needed, think the same will happen here
 
Again though it's per capita.

It is per capita.

Unfortunately the same information isnt available for the lower leagues. There's no average weekly attendance at football matches, only an average attendance for each team across the entire season.

None of which changes the fact that culling teams wouldn't improve attendances. Or that Caley Thistle are largely unloved in Inverness and have consistently lost fans over the past 15 years despite winning a Scottish Cup in that time. Rangers and Celtic skew the numbers. Scottish football doesnt need fewer clubs - it needs far more fans.
 
Also for what its worth, I dont want any club to go under. For full time clubs it means hundreds of job losses, for part time clubs they usually play a big part in the local community. Times are hard enough without losing things that these clubs bring. (Doesn't mean I dont hate certain clubs mind you!!)
 
It's actually time that we restructure the game up here and if club's cannot sustain their status in the professional game then so be it. We should only really have 2 top leagues of professional teams IMO. The money isn't there anymore and won't be for the foreseeable. Club's need to morph into the community more and become part of the fabric of that. Clubs are too distant from where they started.
 
I would off said the same pre 2012. However vast majority off clubs wanted us dead. For me I would take great pleasure in seeing Dundee Hibs reap what they sow.

Then why did the vast majority to allow us into the SFL? If they wanted us dead all they had to do was vote no to us joining.
 
It's actually time that we restructure the game up here and if club's cannot sustain their status in the professional game then so be it. We should only really have 2 top leagues of professional teams IMO. The money isn't there anymore and won't be for the foreseeable. Club's need to morph into the community more and become part of the fabric of that. Clubs are too distant from where they started.

Which clubs? Most of the lower league clubs do huge amounts in their local community.
 
Partick Thistle who thought it would be to their benifit when we were being chased out of football. Oh how I will larf.
Mate that club were treated terribly relegated with a game in hand and 2 points behind ??? Despicable this country
 
Then why did the vast majority to allow us into the SFL? If they wanted us dead all they had to do was vote no to us joining.
Maybe the wrong choice off words. What I mean is in regards to the other spl teams at the time. Especially in regards to the statement by Utd

Far comparing to those clubs in the lower leagues who welcomed us.
 
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