SPL considers ground sharing and summer football

By: Ian Rose | March 3rd, 2008

There are two issues being talked about most in football club offices in Scotland lately, and those are the issues of ground sharing and summer football. When a club is promoted from the First Division to the SPL, their stadium is often not up to SPL standards. Such is the case with Gretna this season, and so they have been sharing Fir Park with Motherwell. However, all those home matches have reduced the Fir Park pitch to an absolute disaster, forcing several postponements, including Dundee United’s visit to Gretna this past Saturday. Small clubs in the First Division will argue that any change in the ground sharing policy will discriminate against the minnows like Gretna, that earn their way into the SPL on their merits. But Motherwell fans certainly won’t thank their tenants for the fact that their beloved club plays on not much better than an average school’s pitch.

More of an issue, at least according to Gordon Strachan, is the problem of Scotland’s winter weather. No other league in Europe at so high a latitude plays the whole winter, the way the SPL does. A break seems like a fine idea to me, since I for one would rather watch football when there’s at least the chance of sunlight, and January in Inverness offers little to none of that. Strachan has claimed that the product of Scottish football as a whole suffers from playing in the dire conditions of winter, and that one can’t play good flowing football in high winds and stinging rain. I’m not sure I’d go quite that far, but it certainly does make for a less enjoyable match experience, and I think attendance numbers would be quite improved by taking January off. Still, with Gordon Smith in charge of the SFA, one can’t seriously expect a lot of positive change, and as he is reportedly unshakable from the position, I won’t be holding my breath.