In unrelated news, Joey Barton is doing amazingly while being a jerk to me in my Hartlepool FM save. He was at Bromley in the VNL when I joined Hartlepool (November of the second season when I got stupidly fired from FCSB of Romania, my actual irl team. Hartlepool was 18th at the time). First season I take Hartlepool to the playoff final (lost to a 90+2 OG) after an 11 game winning run, Barton finishes 14th and keeps saying how he is better than me due to his experience. But next season, we had a true title fight. So much so that ahead of the final day Bromley was first with 88p, Fylde had 87 and my Hartlepool had 86 but with the GD advantage. We ended up winning the title on GD (keep in mind this is the only sure promotion spot in the VNL) as Barton s Bromley proved unable to take advantage of their opponents getting a red card in the 41st minute. They promoted via the playoffs. Next season I got 2nd in League Two, Bromley only got 12th which is still very respectable but Barton followed me into League One as recently relegated Wimbledon took him on. He managed to get them promoted as second while I only just miss out on the playoffs by a point after losing 1-0 to Wimbledon on the final day as well as getting into bad form in the second part of the season. Now Wimbledon is 24th in the Championship but only 3p away from safety with 9 matches to go while I am 4th in League One, 6p away from 7th and 3 away from automatics. However, I definitely have him beat in the cups as I made Round 5 (Hartlepool never did that irl) of the FA Cup 3 times in a row before losing in Round 4 this season. I love having a proper rival in game, game on!
The money divide in British football is a video in itself, Tottenham get more from Cinch’s name on their sleeve than the SPFL gets from them having their name on the league it’s crazy
As someone who lives in America, got into Football Manager with your videos, and had a 16 year at Stenhousemuir... I never thought I'd hear you mention them.
It's pronounced Ann-Ann. Also, this is the same SPFL that is basically telling Bonnyrigg Rose,'You possibly have to go into debt to sort out your pitch.' Unfortunately, there's very little money in the lower league's of Scotland. Teams from the league 2 to the smaller clubs in the championship basically rely on money via attendees to matches.
And those attendances are lower than many 6th and 7th tier clubs in England. Dumbarton averaged just 838 in their last Championship season, my local 6th tier club averages double that.
You know what even crazier is that this is the team that won the first 2 Scottish championships in 1890 and 1891 and they have the most championships out of the team not in the Scottish premiership.
@@blckhll1082 Yeah, they would. Rangers were able to achieve it by being relegated down the divisions whereas we were able to achieve it as we yo-yo up and down the leagues. There was only one division when we won the top flight (League 1890/91, 1891/92), two when we won the combination league (1905/06), three when we won the 2nd (lDiv 2 - 1910/11, 1971/72) and 3rd (2nd Div - 1991/92)and there were 4 when we won the fourth (3rd Div) came in 2008/09 so as long as a club wins the number of leagues that exist at that time, then they can take the credit so yeah, Queen’s can become only the third team to achieve that.
On the Netherlands v Scottish league point. 2 'professional' divisions vs 4 isn't a direct comparison. The Netherlands 2 leagues have 38 teams, Scotland's 4 leagues have 42 - and just over half of the 42 clubs are full-time / professional. One interesting thing about how finances have changed (and again, well before Covid) is that most Scottish professional teams' record transfer fee paid was 15 to 20 years ago!
The Dutch are more conservative with their system but also should be noted they have nearly 4 times the population too, but Scotland makes up the gap by being more invested into football than basically any other country per capita in terms of engagement. Imo Scotland should probably go to the 2 pro league model and expand the league sizes to the 12-16 range, but with the old firm around that means halving the games they play each other when they are easily the biggest by a country mile in the Scottish calander which would hurt TV revenue.
Scotlands population will play a huge part in this, similar size to england with 65 million less people, thats why even step 5 in england is mostly professional, theyre getting thousands in attendances, whereas as someone else stated, Dumbarton struggle to get over 500, and thats in SL1
Last season Falkirk in League One had an average att. of 4750. The season before that Dunfermline had an average att. of 4776, and Falkirk had 4199, both in League One. Dumbarton is one of the coldest, windiest, wettest, exposed to all the elements grounds in the whole of the UK, and also so close to Glasgow that most of the people there will be from families that traditionally support Rangers or Celtic. Go down to the 6th tier (the West of Scotland Premier) and you'll find teams like Pollok or Auchinleck Talbot regularly getting crowds of 1000+. Quite a few teams down here are better supported than the League Two or even some League One teams. But you are correct that the population is the issue. Because when taking population into account, it turns out a higher percentage of people in Scotland attends the football than anywhere else in Europe (and by quite a distance too, more than double most). So it's not that we don't like football (we love our own league more than anyone), but we have both Rangers and Celtic scooping up like 60% of the fans all over the country, then the remaining 40% are all spread over loads of other teams. We also don't have a national sports broadcaster who has any interest in our league to invest in it or showcase it in any way (ours is already preoccupied with another league), so we literally get like 2% of the TV money English teams get handed to them each season. Before that started happening (1992 when Sky introduced the Premier League), some Scottish teams were among the best in Europe; Aberdeen winning 2 European trophies in the early 80s, Dundee United regularly getting to the QF and beyond throughout the 80s(and getting cheated out of a CL final appearance in 84). Rangers being one of the 8 teams represented in the Champions League logo, and being on the wrong end of a match fixing scandal away from reaching the final in 92. We were doing absolutely fine until Sky Sports just started handing English teams billions among themselves and us pennies. It's been a long downward spiral since then. Rangers ruined themselves trying to keep up.
@ exactly, scotland is nowhere near dense enough to maintain a system like it has, not sure on whether the SPFL is fully professional, but theres just such a big gulf in fan amounts from Celtic and Rangers to some of the other teams in the SPL, let alone SL1/SL2. This is evident by stadium sizes, in england you have a lot of stadiums within the 15-30k capacity range, whereas in Scotland theres a huge cliff basically (if im correct, not an expert in capacities). For example i support Huddersfield, we’re in L1, we have 24.5k capacity which would be the 4th highest in Scotland, yet roughly half the size of 3rd largest. The gulf is ridiculously big, too big for sustainability.
The Premiership and Championship are both full of full-time teams, this is the first time the Championship has been completely full-time in a good while too. Queen of the South and Inverness are the only full-time clubs in the third tier and obviously the fourth tier is completely part-time. If you look into the proportion of fans who go to games compared to population - Scottish football is one of the most supported league systems in Europe so there is an appetite there to support the four leagues. Dumbarton have had a lot of financial problems the last few years which covid exacerbated. The land on which their stadium is is constantly being sniffed around at for a housing estate by businessmen so there is a feeling for Sons fans that, unless the club is fan-owned, then there will always be that risk. If you're looking a bit more information then Fraser Clarke who is a Dumbarton fan wrote about the administration with good detail in the Daily Record through the week.
I know Scottish football well. I've been following it for 40 years. The biggest problem, and it existed pre-Covid, is clubs living beyond their means - and it's not like their us an England style TV deal that makes you rich as soon as you get to the top division. The owners of most clubs and, more importantly, the people governing the game are all hubris, greed and self-interest - which is catastrophic for the clubs and the fans. But, hey, since when did the fans matter? Right?!
@@FraseThatPlays That’s not an accurate assessment at all The problem with Scottish football is sectarianism and how the Old Firm tie their selves into a bitter Protestantvabd Catholic divide, ensuring they’ve a ready made support every single generation. This support weakens other teams and the issues are not that they are going beyond their means but that they know they can’t compete with Rangers and Celtic and are too often ready to accept that they are fighting to be ‘best of the rest’. There are very few examples of clubs living beyond their means as those who do are made an example of: Dundee got lucky in the 90s but clubs like Airdrie and Rangers all paid a heavy fine. Other clubs like Clydebank and Meadowbank Thistle all suffered because they are in the catchment area for bigger clubs: Clydebank were too close to Glasgow so lost support and income to Rangers, Celtic and Partick Thistle and Meadowbank were in the shadow of Hearts and Hibs Look at the clubs that have put in good challenges to the Old Firm: Dundee United came close late 80s/early 90s and the last team to win a title other than Rangers and Celtic, Alex Fergusob’s Aberdeen. Both clubs are in good sized cities that are well out of reach of Glasgow. Scotland has this unique problem where the success of two of our biggest clubs are destroying the game and the more successful they are, the more damage it does to our game and that’s even before you factor in the hatred, the violence, the sectarianism
@GioMarron you won't get any argument from me about Rangers and Celtic profiting from hate, but that isn't going to change. They act like they are doing Scottish football a favour by existing in the Scottish leagues and the governing bodies don't act like they disagree with that. I used to be a St Johnstone season ticket holder, as I was born in Perth, and it used to disgust me how many buses were leaving Perth for Parkhead or Ibrox every time I was driving to watch the Saintees.
One interesting part of this is that Dumbarton are one of the only clubs I can remember to go into administration who operate as a part-time club. Other Scottish club to go into admin have been full-time (Inverness, Hearts, Rangers (lol) and Dunfermline (lol)). Going part-time can be a solution for clubs financially struggling - Dumbarton cannot do that.
Shout out to Kelty Hearts who were in the Lowland League (5th tier) during the Covid era and are now pushing to get promoted to the Scottish Championship (2nd tier) just four years later.
Zealand - would love to see you chat about this stuff with folks from Scottish football on the channel! Like maybe your mate JJ Bull or another journalist who I'm sure would be happy to help educate the viewers of this channel about what's happening
LSK Kvinner - the Lillestrøm women's football team - were deeucted 4 points because of financial problems. That 4 points kept them out of Europe next season... where they likely would earn prize money to help with their financial situation.
A team formed in 1872, imagine if they end up going or being relegated next season again.😮 And yea, you did many videos on inverness in this same League.😅
Dumbarton were in the Championship when Hearts, Rangers, Hibs and Dundee United all spent a bit of time in there and then drifted into League One and sunk towards League Two just before and after Covid, gotta wonder if the shockwave of having 2 of the bigger teams bringing decent crowds then finding yourself at the bottom tier has to be massive for finances
The Lowland League is now a problem for third and forth tier teams nowadays. Not a closed shop as former junior teams can now get promoted. East Kilbride which is the fifth largest town or city in Scotland are another big threat
One of my standard FM saves every year is Edinburgh City, who went through much the same kind of thing last season and got relegated to League Two. Fortunately, they seem to have recovered and are doing OK in L2. But if anyone's looking for a short but challenging FM24 save, try them with real world transfers - the most recent update has their point deduction, and most of your best players will leave in December and January, making staying up a bit tricky. I kinda think the biggest issue Scottish football has is that revenue-wise, Rangers and Celtic are just in a different galaxy than everyone else. This means they have different priorities than the other 40 teams in the league system, but since they're also the main drivers of TV revenue and media attention, their opinions hold a lot of weight. So any time somebody talks about, for example, reorganizing the leagues to increase the number of teams in each league and reduce the number of levels in the pyramid, that gets countered with "but we can't reduce the number of Old Firm derbies, we need a bunch of them to make money." I feel like something drastic has to change, but I'm not sure exactly how that's going to look.
This says less about the systematic failure of Scottish football (concerns which are very much still valid) but more about two incompetent and/or malevolent owners in terms of Inverness and Dumbarton. In Dumbarton's case we've dealt with dodgy owners for the last 20 years who have operated in the shadows, passed ownership between various shell companies, and ultimately sought to slowly kill the club to sell the land the stadium's built on for property developers. Our main issue is a £1.9m loan that our owners took out against the value of the land that we have no ability to repay. Inverness struggled to raise £1m and they're full time, regularly get several thousand fans every week. We're fucked
It's not that there are too many professional clubs (most teams outside the Championship are part-time). It's that there are too many clubs in general, too much money given to Rangers and Celtic, and too many glory hunters or people in the Greater Glasgow area who support those two clubs for dubious religious reasons.
Also Ze , pretty much every team in league one and two in Scotland are only part time - Dumbarton included and now ICT. In fact some teams even in championship have part time players
The SFA needs to restructure the four leagues into 2 leagues, make the premiership either 18 or 20 team league and turn the championship into a 24 or 20 team league to allow teams that cannot afford to go full time. It will never happen because it needs to have four old firm games every year in the league. It’s so heavily loaded towards Celtic and Rangers that other teams are a simple afterthought for most. Also to note most teams in Scottish leagues 1 and 2 are part time and even Arbroath survived and nearly got promoted to the premiership as a part time club.
It should also be said, Dumbarton's situation isn't down to spending beyond their means. They were bought over by external investors from Norway who set out that they'd build a new ground and have a youth set up to bring through players a few years ago. Since buying the club it's been radio silence. Dumbarton's ground has some space next to it they were attempting to sell off but it's next to the River Leven for housing. There was speculation that it was found that this ground wouldn't get planning permission. This was due to how susceptible it would be to flooding/inability to build foundations.
Fyi mate, Annan is pronounced with a long A then a short A like "Ah-nnan". Hope this helps. Sad to see Dumbarton in this situation. Back in the early days of the Scottish league, they were a top team. Dumbarton shared the very first Scottish League title with Rangers in 1891. Goal difference wasn't a thing back then and they drew the playoff, so they decided to be joint champions. Then they won the league outright in the 1891-92 season. Love your vids 👍
Scotland's system is being streamlined but man, it used to be some real sicko stuff back when the Juniors were their own thing. The Welfare is still trudging along, keeping the flame burning.
I love how slowly but surely everyone is discovering that closed leagues is just a superior financial model. We in the US discovered this like 120 years ago when the open baseball leagues kept failing so the national league was founded but it seems like the smaller struggling European leagues are learning now.
I think a closed top flight would mess up the sport in Scotland entirely. Like, sure, you've got teams that can really mismanage themselves and tumble down the leagues, but on the opposite side, you've got Ross County, who didn't get out of the fifth tier until 1994, but are now an established Premiership side. In 2017/18 Kelty Hearts were in the sixth tier, now they are shooting for promotion to the second. Plus, the Premiership is far too small for all the teams in Scotland with long and proud histories. You've got Falkirk, Ayr United, Partick Thistle, Queen's Park, Dunfermline Athletic and Airdrieonians, and that's just in the second tier. The championship may only ever bounce between two teams, but to close the league off entirely would doom the sport.
@ Nobody tunes into the premiership routinely because Ross County used to be in a lower division. That’s not why people watch. Sure it’s a nice bonus story but the idea that not having that bonus would “ruin the sport” is beyond silly. Go look at attendances and ratings - people watch to see good teams play competitive games even if on Twitter they say what makes the sport interesting is long odds promotion stories - what actually makes it interesting as in what people actually find interesting enough to turn on is good teams playing competitive games. Yes I fully understand the tradeoff of closed leagues. You get less UA-cam video worthy stories. Both positive and negative ones. But you got a lot more turn on the TV or make your way over to the stadium worthy games. And your team doesn’t disappear and go bankrupt (once established - obviously in the transition not everyone makes it). Stability is a good thing for major cultural institutions actually.
@ oh - and the pride is a bug not a feature. If Scottish football was a little less proud maybe it would live within its means instead of being so unsustainable. Half the problems in Scottish football stem from excessive pride. I don’t think Scotland will actually go to a closed league precisely because it’s too proud to modify its behavior to be sustainable. If it were good at doing smart sustainable changes it probably wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with.
Annan - Think Cannon. I believe only the top two divisions in Scotland are actually fully professional - The other two are Semi-Pro. Scotland has 4 divisions but only 12, 10, 10, and 10 teams in those divisions - I've been saying for years that they should reorganise to 3 divisions of 16, 16, and 16 {yes that would mean 6 teams being promoted to the new 3rd tier from the Highland and Lowland Leagues but Cove Rangers, Kelty Hearts, Edinburgh City, Bonnyrigg Rose, and Spartans have all proven recently that there's very little difference between League Two in Scotland and the Highland/Lowland Leagues stronger clubs.
The gulf in money is there not just between the top league and lower leagues. There is a gulf between the top 2 teams (Old Firm) then the rest of the Premiership. Then there is another sizeable drop to the Championship sides (who are all full time clubs). And then Leagues 1 and 2 are roughly the same, there isn’t much difference in the player quality and finances at those levels. There are 2 full time teams between those 2 leagues (Inverness and Cove Rangers). Scottish Football is ran horrifically from top to bottom, these 2 teams going into administration is just the start. There will be a fair few more over the coming years to fall into this. I worry that my own team, Stirling Albion, fall into this. We just got relegated into League 2 but sacked our manager even though he has a 100% record of winning League 2 with multiple sides. We gave him a new contract in the January of last season and 6 months later he was sacked. Our current team is majority players between the ages of 18-23 with a few older players (an FM managers dream) but unfortunately those 18-23 year olds have no experience at any adult level of football. Scottish football caters to the top 2 and no one else. We are all just going to fall further and further down the chain if nothing changes. No matter how good our national team are doing because not many of them actually play or have played in Scotland. Big changes needed and needed sooner rather than later or the lower league system in Scotland will be fucked.
Scotland can’t sustain 42 league clubs, but we have some of the oldest clubs on the planet and people won’t let go. Understandably. But clubs could merge and we could drop to two leagues of 12 or 14. The problem financially is the people running the game accept terrible TV deals that means the big clubs are pretty much forced to keep most of it because they are the ones generating it. The TV deal in England is so big it can sustain the lower league and non league clubs.
Omg Dumbarton! - main reason I did a save on fm24 with them is how old they are and how much of a rabble they are tbh 😂😂😂- I will say lots of potential here in a fm save - managed to win the ucl with them - cool fm save highly recommend
Zealand's pronunciation of Annan was so wrong that I laughed heavily until I realised that I also don't know how to pronounce Annan and am half-Scottish.
as someone whos done a ton of saves in Scottish leagues, the difference between league 2 and 1 of scotland is almost 0, championship is marginally better. but outside of celtic and rangers theres no money at all. i mean Livingston survived in the prem for years on a shoe string budget
Scottish football is doing just fine. In Scotland we have far bigger clubs playing in the 5th/6th and 7th tier than some of the current league clubs. The pyramid system will eventually sort this out. What you may call "non-league" is flourishing in Scotland. The WOSFL is fantastic and will in time provide bigger clubs than these two to the league (especially from Ayrshire).
Scottish football believed it had to have higher standards. which in principle sounds fair, however they were raised to quickly and most do not have the money to reach them. Also Scottish football as a whole needs better domestic and international tv sales so more money can trickle down.
Zealand, you think the Dumbarton and ICT financial situation is mad. You should do a deep dive i to rangers. They’ve lost £117m in 12 years, and have only failed to make a loss once in that time, yet the media, the spfl, the sfa and the clubs sit quietly.
I think, Scotland should just switch to a 3 tier league system and make their leagues bigger, as in have 5 more teams in Premier, championship and league 1. As seeing the same teams play 4-5 times a season must get dull. Also Zealand, you have to also realize that top Scottish teams budgets are the same as upper mid table English championship clubs and I would argue that some higher more ambition British league 2 clubs have more income, fans and revenue than championship Scottish clubs.
I like the fact that my Scottish side’s somehow going to survive relegation even though they haven’t actually tried to play football since the start of the season. I’d rather my side (Annan Athletic) gets relegated in all honesty because they’re the worst side in the division.
It's called Irn Bru (iron brew), that's what's in the water in Scotland. It makes our heads hard and the SFA stupid. And it's AN-ann Zed. God, where did you learn to speak Scots? Maybe they put Irn Bru in the water in Florida as well, and just call it fluoride?
As funny as it was, I think 2012 proved we have no way of stopping our clubs falling apart at the seems and its not chanced since. We have plastic pitches in our top league but we are forcing a club with limited resources to get a new one because of a slight decline at one end… Priorities are absolutely backwards. We’ve needed changes to out league pyramid structure since before I was born. Nothing is going to change any time soon
in-ver-NESS, ANN-in These smaller clubs get pennies in income. There’s no tv deal to benefit beyond Celtic and Rangers. These towns have had their own clubs since the earliest days of organized football. Scottish football is always among the best attended leagues in Europe, per capita. I think the SFA has to let some of the sweet tainted UEFA money cascade further down the leagues for the overall health of the game.
The thing is the only fully proffessional leagues in scotland is the premiership and championship league 1 and 2 are almost fully part time my old maths teachers plays in league 2 for stranraer (not the best team i know) and the pay he gets isnt much worse than league 1 im pretty sure he got paid like £200 a week so i understand how ict went into admin bc they are paying prof wages with semi-professional money but dumbarton i dont rlly understand
Let’s not pretend Covid was the reason for the situation in Scottish football, Rangers & Celtic having a monopoly over our game in this country and stifling other clubs for decades is the major reason. Was always going to happen, the pandemic only maybe sped things up.
trickle down economy is proven and proven again to not work no matter if we are talking companies, leagues, countries etc. still I hear it as the solution to all our problems over and over again..... another thing that is spewed out even if all the data points to it being false.
I can't help but think it is the league structure at fault, 42 clubs across 4 divisions (a 12 club top flight + 3 divisions of 10) and the clubs are playing each 4 times in a season in the bottom three divisions. English Football League clubs have 46 league games as opposed to the Scottish 36, that is 5 more sets of home gate receipts per club per year with no repeated home games within the year, and I also think Scotland is looking to support 50% of the clubs with 10% of the population when compared to England which is relevant as a single employment market for Players. Your comparison to the Netherlands was interesting but they are supporting 38 clubs through their league structure so only 4 less but the population is triple that of Scotland. Ultimately looking at this a 20+22 league structure might be better for Scotland in terms of a more viable entertainment product media sales of which are ultimately the only way to address the finance problem as it is the Scottish geography issue that creates a demand for so many Pro clubs.
Dumbarton and Inverness CT have both been very poorly run for a number of years now, spending way more than they earn. It was going to happen eventually.
You nailed it by Scotland not being able to support 4 divisions, it has never made any sense and the leagues are so small, there should be 2 divisions of 16 teams maybe 18 at a push. Has been floated a few times but because it might endanger the 4 old firms games a year it always gets pushed back.
When I was growing up in the 70's the Scottish league WAS two 18 team divisions. There was no relegation from Division 2 even though a few of the Highland League clubs were bigger and better run than the worst Div 2 clubs they weren't allowed in until 1994.
Dumbarton were the first ever Scottish league champions. They were forced to share it with the now defunct rangers because there was no decider rules, but Dumbarton actually finished above them. Mad that both of Scotland first two champions might not exist soon.
Dumbarton's average attendance is like 600 people. They had games this year with 240 people. Not sure how you can survive that. It's a great FM save though.
Ah yes, Dumb Barton. The older, more sensible brother of Joey Barton.
How droll.
Older and more sensible.
@@Ramtamtama dont mind if i yoink that
In unrelated news, Joey Barton is doing amazingly while being a jerk to me in my Hartlepool FM save. He was at Bromley in the VNL when I joined Hartlepool (November of the second season when I got stupidly fired from FCSB of Romania, my actual irl team. Hartlepool was 18th at the time). First season I take Hartlepool to the playoff final (lost to a 90+2 OG) after an 11 game winning run, Barton finishes 14th and keeps saying how he is better than me due to his experience. But next season, we had a true title fight. So much so that ahead of the final day Bromley was first with 88p, Fylde had 87 and my Hartlepool had 86 but with the GD advantage. We ended up winning the title on GD (keep in mind this is the only sure promotion spot in the VNL) as Barton s Bromley proved unable to take advantage of their opponents getting a red card in the 41st minute. They promoted via the playoffs. Next season I got 2nd in League Two, Bromley only got 12th which is still very respectable but Barton followed me into League One as recently relegated Wimbledon took him on. He managed to get them promoted as second while I only just miss out on the playoffs by a point after losing 1-0 to Wimbledon on the final day as well as getting into bad form in the second part of the season. Now Wimbledon is 24th in the Championship but only 3p away from safety with 9 matches to go while I am 4th in League One, 6p away from 7th and 3 away from automatics. However, I definitely have him beat in the cups as I made Round 5 (Hartlepool never did that irl) of the FA Cup 3 times in a row before losing in Round 4 this season. I love having a proper rival in game, game on!
@@edi0157 im from hartlepool so this is great
The money divide in British football is a video in itself, Tottenham get more from Cinch’s name on their sleeve than the SPFL gets from them having their name on the league it’s crazy
OTOH, lollujo sold enough Wenbley shirts in FM 24 to become the left buttock sponsor of Wembley FC
icym the podcast "the price of football" featuring the eminent Kieran Maguire is a great source for football finance insight
As someone who lives in America, got into Football Manager with your videos, and had a 16 year at Stenhousemuir... I never thought I'd hear you mention them.
Stenny is my current save
It's pronounced Ann-Ann.
Also, this is the same SPFL that is basically telling Bonnyrigg Rose,'You possibly have to go into debt to sort out your pitch.'
Unfortunately, there's very little money in the lower league's of Scotland. Teams from the league 2 to the smaller clubs in the championship basically rely on money via attendees to matches.
And those attendances are lower than many 6th and 7th tier clubs in England. Dumbarton averaged just 838 in their last Championship season, my local 6th tier club averages double that.
Ann-in
An-nin
Ann Ann basically sounds like how Zealand was pronouncing it.
Ann-in***
It’s not pronounced Ann-ann, it’s ann-in.
You know what even crazier is that this is the team that won the first 2 Scottish championships in 1890 and 1891 and they have the most championships out of the team not in the Scottish premiership.
We were also the first, and only until Rangers got pumped down the leagues, club to win every professional league in Scotland
@@GioMarronwould Queens Park be on for that should they win the Championship at some point? Or does their success predate the league
@@blckhll1082 Yeah, they would. Rangers were able to achieve it by being relegated down the divisions whereas we were able to achieve it as we yo-yo up and down the leagues.
There was only one division when we won the top flight (League 1890/91, 1891/92), two when we won the combination league (1905/06), three when we won the 2nd (lDiv 2 - 1910/11, 1971/72) and 3rd (2nd Div - 1991/92)and there were 4 when we won the fourth (3rd Div) came in 2008/09 so as long as a club wins the number of leagues that exist at that time, then they can take the credit so yeah, Queen’s can become only the third team to achieve that.
@@GioMarronRangers weren't relegated
Imagine having a League that's so closed in how many teams win that someone hasn't won TWO trophies out of it since the VICTORIAN ERA
This Is The Funniest Forehead I’ve Ever Seen
Peyton Manning
your user makes this comment even better 😭😭
4:07 The pronunciation of Annan😂😂
You're my favorite football or soccer ⚽️ related channel here. Well done Mr.Ism 👏🏻
On the Netherlands v Scottish league point. 2 'professional' divisions vs 4 isn't a direct comparison. The Netherlands 2 leagues have 38 teams, Scotland's 4 leagues have 42 - and just over half of the 42 clubs are full-time / professional. One interesting thing about how finances have changed (and again, well before Covid) is that most Scottish professional teams' record transfer fee paid was 15 to 20 years ago!
The Dutch are more conservative with their system but also should be noted they have nearly 4 times the population too, but Scotland makes up the gap by being more invested into football than basically any other country per capita in terms of engagement.
Imo Scotland should probably go to the 2 pro league model and expand the league sizes to the 12-16 range, but with the old firm around that means halving the games they play each other when they are easily the biggest by a country mile in the Scottish calander which would hurt TV revenue.
Started an FM save with these, then the day after go into administration IRL
Scotlands population will play a huge part in this, similar size to england with 65 million less people, thats why even step 5 in england is mostly professional, theyre getting thousands in attendances, whereas as someone else stated, Dumbarton struggle to get over 500, and thats in SL1
Dumbarton FC are the third best supported team in Dumbarton after you-know-who. That's the big problem
Last season Falkirk in League One had an average att. of 4750. The season before that Dunfermline had an average att. of 4776, and Falkirk had 4199, both in League One.
Dumbarton is one of the coldest, windiest, wettest, exposed to all the elements grounds in the whole of the UK, and also so close to Glasgow that most of the people there will be from families that traditionally support Rangers or Celtic.
Go down to the 6th tier (the West of Scotland Premier) and you'll find teams like Pollok or Auchinleck Talbot regularly getting crowds of 1000+. Quite a few teams down here are better supported than the League Two or even some League One teams.
But you are correct that the population is the issue. Because when taking population into account, it turns out a higher percentage of people in Scotland attends the football than anywhere else in Europe (and by quite a distance too, more than double most). So it's not that we don't like football (we love our own league more than anyone), but we have both Rangers and Celtic scooping up like 60% of the fans all over the country, then the remaining 40% are all spread over loads of other teams.
We also don't have a national sports broadcaster who has any interest in our league to invest in it or showcase it in any way (ours is already preoccupied with another league), so we literally get like 2% of the TV money English teams get handed to them each season. Before that started happening (1992 when Sky introduced the Premier League), some Scottish teams were among the best in Europe; Aberdeen winning 2 European trophies in the early 80s, Dundee United regularly getting to the QF and beyond throughout the 80s(and getting cheated out of a CL final appearance in 84). Rangers being one of the 8 teams represented in the Champions League logo, and being on the wrong end of a match fixing scandal away from reaching the final in 92. We were doing absolutely fine until Sky Sports just started handing English teams billions among themselves and us pennies. It's been a long downward spiral since then. Rangers ruined themselves trying to keep up.
@ exactly, scotland is nowhere near dense enough to maintain a system like it has, not sure on whether the SPFL is fully professional, but theres just such a big gulf in fan amounts from Celtic and Rangers to some of the other teams in the SPL, let alone SL1/SL2. This is evident by stadium sizes, in england you have a lot of stadiums within the 15-30k capacity range, whereas in Scotland theres a huge cliff basically (if im correct, not an expert in capacities).
For example i support Huddersfield, we’re in L1, we have 24.5k capacity which would be the 4th highest in Scotland, yet roughly half the size of 3rd largest. The gulf is ridiculously big, too big for sustainability.
Funny thing is that by head of population, Scottish football is the best supported in Europe
@@AreJayCee And most of the gate money, which still is what largely supports clubs financially, goes to two clubs.
The Premiership and Championship are both full of full-time teams, this is the first time the Championship has been completely full-time in a good while too. Queen of the South and Inverness are the only full-time clubs in the third tier and obviously the fourth tier is completely part-time. If you look into the proportion of fans who go to games compared to population - Scottish football is one of the most supported league systems in Europe so there is an appetite there to support the four leagues.
Dumbarton have had a lot of financial problems the last few years which covid exacerbated. The land on which their stadium is is constantly being sniffed around at for a housing estate by businessmen so there is a feeling for Sons fans that, unless the club is fan-owned, then there will always be that risk. If you're looking a bit more information then Fraser Clarke who is a Dumbarton fan wrote about the administration with good detail in the Daily Record through the week.
I know Scottish football well. I've been following it for 40 years. The biggest problem, and it existed pre-Covid, is clubs living beyond their means - and it's not like their us an England style TV deal that makes you rich as soon as you get to the top division. The owners of most clubs and, more importantly, the people governing the game are all hubris, greed and self-interest - which is catastrophic for the clubs and the fans. But, hey, since when did the fans matter? Right?!
@@FraseThatPlays That’s not an accurate assessment at all
The problem with Scottish football is sectarianism and how the Old Firm tie their selves into a bitter Protestantvabd Catholic divide, ensuring they’ve a ready made support every single generation.
This support weakens other teams and the issues are not that they are going beyond their means but that they know they can’t compete with Rangers and Celtic and are too often ready to accept that they are fighting to be ‘best of the rest’.
There are very few examples of clubs living beyond their means as those who do are made an example of: Dundee got lucky in the 90s but clubs like Airdrie and Rangers all paid a heavy fine. Other clubs like Clydebank and Meadowbank Thistle all suffered because they are in the catchment area for bigger clubs: Clydebank were too close to Glasgow so lost support and income to Rangers, Celtic and Partick Thistle and Meadowbank were in the shadow of Hearts and Hibs
Look at the clubs that have put in good challenges to the Old Firm: Dundee United came close late 80s/early 90s and the last team to win a title other than Rangers and Celtic, Alex Fergusob’s Aberdeen. Both clubs are in good sized cities that are well out of reach of Glasgow.
Scotland has this unique problem where the success of two of our biggest clubs are destroying the game and the more successful they are, the more damage it does to our game and that’s even before you factor in the hatred, the violence, the sectarianism
@GioMarron you won't get any argument from me about Rangers and Celtic profiting from hate, but that isn't going to change. They act like they are doing Scottish football a favour by existing in the Scottish leagues and the governing bodies don't act like they disagree with that. I used to be a St Johnstone season ticket holder, as I was born in Perth, and it used to disgust me how many buses were leaving Perth for Parkhead or Ibrox every time I was driving to watch the Saintees.
My new fav Scottish club is Dumbarton
At this rate, every club in the league will go into administration before the end of the season and the points will all sort of level out 😐
Even before the deductions, it was an even league. Scottish football is rotten.
Scottish league football the gift that keeps on giving.
If anybody needs cheering up, Check out the Patrick Thistle mascot - Kingsley.
Way better than your Arab blood money funded tourist league where every club plays robotic football
Why is the prospect of people losing their jobs a subject of joy for you?
One interesting part of this is that Dumbarton are one of the only clubs I can remember to go into administration who operate as a part-time club. Other Scottish club to go into admin have been full-time (Inverness, Hearts, Rangers (lol) and Dunfermline (lol)). Going part-time can be a solution for clubs financially struggling - Dumbarton cannot do that.
I think Queen's Park also went into administration when they were completely amateur in early 2000s
Shout out to Kelty Hearts who were in the Lowland League (5th tier) during the Covid era and are now pushing to get promoted to the Scottish Championship (2nd tier) just four years later.
No they beat Annan so no shout out.
In all seriousness though, I’d love for them to do well.
Aa someone who is a fan of a club in this league its absolutley insane I have never seen a season like it.
Zealand pronouncing Annan is now one of favourite things of the year.
Zealand - would love to see you chat about this stuff with folks from Scottish football on the channel! Like maybe your mate JJ Bull or another journalist who I'm sure would be happy to help educate the viewers of this channel about what's happening
Fraser Clarke from the Terrace Podcast who's a journalist on the local Dumbarton paper would be ideal.
LSK Kvinner - the Lillestrøm women's football team - were deeucted 4 points because of financial problems. That 4 points kept them out of Europe next season... where they likely would earn prize money to help with their financial situation.
women's football 😂
@@wavell14 Why are you laughing if I may pry?
Nooooo not Dumbarton 😢 I love that club. Such a cool pitch.
I can see Dumbarton rock from my house its something else to be there
bonnyrigg rose mentioned !!!!!!!!!!
The way yous say Annan 😂 love it p.s (Ann-in)
To be fair, it's like Luton being promoted to the Prem but there being no TV deal
Fun fact I know the person who's trying to put together a consortium together to take over Dumbarton
A team formed in 1872, imagine if they end up going or being relegated next season again.😮
And yea, you did many videos on inverness in this same League.😅
Dumbarton were in the Championship when Hearts, Rangers, Hibs and Dundee United all spent a bit of time in there and then drifted into League One and sunk towards League Two just before and after Covid, gotta wonder if the shockwave of having 2 of the bigger teams bringing decent crowds then finding yourself at the bottom tier has to be massive for finances
My hometown. So strange to see the club in this situation, especially with the fraud investigation now
Dumbarton could possibly have top 5 scenic locations for a stadium in world football
The castle on the hill by the water looks so sick
It's absolutely iconic. Superb scenery. A pity about the state the pitch gets into at times though, especially during the winter.
Its not a hill its a literal rock its beautiful i can see it from my house
Zealand talking about my hometown club just hits different 😂
Saaame mate when he did the video on Dunfermline 😂 He loves Scottish football
The Lowland League is now a problem for third and forth tier teams nowadays. Not a closed shop as former junior teams can now get promoted. East Kilbride which is the fifth largest town or city in Scotland are another big threat
One of my standard FM saves every year is Edinburgh City, who went through much the same kind of thing last season and got relegated to League Two. Fortunately, they seem to have recovered and are doing OK in L2. But if anyone's looking for a short but challenging FM24 save, try them with real world transfers - the most recent update has their point deduction, and most of your best players will leave in December and January, making staying up a bit tricky.
I kinda think the biggest issue Scottish football has is that revenue-wise, Rangers and Celtic are just in a different galaxy than everyone else. This means they have different priorities than the other 40 teams in the league system, but since they're also the main drivers of TV revenue and media attention, their opinions hold a lot of weight. So any time somebody talks about, for example, reorganizing the leagues to increase the number of teams in each league and reduce the number of levels in the pyramid, that gets countered with "but we can't reduce the number of Old Firm derbies, we need a bunch of them to make money." I feel like something drastic has to change, but I'm not sure exactly how that's going to look.
This says less about the systematic failure of Scottish football (concerns which are very much still valid) but more about two incompetent and/or malevolent owners in terms of Inverness and Dumbarton. In Dumbarton's case we've dealt with dodgy owners for the last 20 years who have operated in the shadows, passed ownership between various shell companies, and ultimately sought to slowly kill the club to sell the land the stadium's built on for property developers. Our main issue is a £1.9m loan that our owners took out against the value of the land that we have no ability to repay. Inverness struggled to raise £1m and they're full time, regularly get several thousand fans every week. We're fucked
It's not that there are too many professional clubs (most teams outside the Championship are part-time).
It's that there are too many clubs in general, too much money given to Rangers and Celtic, and too many glory hunters or people in the Greater Glasgow area who support those two clubs for dubious religious reasons.
Also now allegations there was massive fraud going on at the club.
Also Ze , pretty much every team in league one and two in Scotland are only part time - Dumbarton included and now ICT. In fact some teams even in championship have part time players
The SFA needs to restructure the four leagues into 2 leagues, make the premiership either 18 or 20 team league and turn the championship into a 24 or 20 team league to allow teams that cannot afford to go full time. It will never happen because it needs to have four old firm games every year in the league. It’s so heavily loaded towards Celtic and Rangers that other teams are a simple afterthought for most. Also to note most teams in Scottish leagues 1 and 2 are part time and even Arbroath survived and nearly got promoted to the premiership as a part time club.
It should also be said, Dumbarton's situation isn't down to spending beyond their means. They were bought over by external investors from Norway who set out that they'd build a new ground and have a youth set up to bring through players a few years ago. Since buying the club it's been radio silence. Dumbarton's ground has some space next to it they were attempting to sell off but it's next to the River Leven for housing. There was speculation that it was found that this ground wouldn't get planning permission. This was due to how susceptible it would be to flooding/inability to build foundations.
Fyi mate, Annan is pronounced with a long A then a short A like "Ah-nnan". Hope this helps.
Sad to see Dumbarton in this situation. Back in the early days of the Scottish league, they were a top team. Dumbarton shared the very first Scottish League title with Rangers in 1891. Goal difference wasn't a thing back then and they drew the playoff, so they decided to be joint champions. Then they won the league outright in the 1891-92 season.
Love your vids 👍
Scotland's system is being streamlined but man, it used to be some real sicko stuff back when the Juniors were their own thing. The Welfare is still trudging along, keeping the flame burning.
Nessie in the water
Can't believe you did a video featuring InverNESS, pulled out a ' there's something in the water'...and DIDN'T make a Nessie joke.
I love how slowly but surely everyone is discovering that closed leagues is just a superior financial model. We in the US discovered this like 120 years ago when the open baseball leagues kept failing so the national league was founded but it seems like the smaller struggling European leagues are learning now.
I think a closed top flight would mess up the sport in Scotland entirely. Like, sure, you've got teams that can really mismanage themselves and tumble down the leagues, but on the opposite side, you've got Ross County, who didn't get out of the fifth tier until 1994, but are now an established Premiership side. In 2017/18 Kelty Hearts were in the sixth tier, now they are shooting for promotion to the second.
Plus, the Premiership is far too small for all the teams in Scotland with long and proud histories. You've got Falkirk, Ayr United, Partick Thistle, Queen's Park, Dunfermline Athletic and Airdrieonians, and that's just in the second tier. The championship may only ever bounce between two teams, but to close the league off entirely would doom the sport.
@ Nobody tunes into the premiership routinely because Ross County used to be in a lower division. That’s not why people watch. Sure it’s a nice bonus story but the idea that not having that bonus would “ruin the sport” is beyond silly.
Go look at attendances and ratings - people watch to see good teams play competitive games even if on Twitter they say what makes the sport interesting is long odds promotion stories - what actually makes it interesting as in what people actually find interesting enough to turn on is good teams playing competitive games.
Yes I fully understand the tradeoff of closed leagues. You get less UA-cam video worthy stories. Both positive and negative ones. But you got a lot more turn on the TV or make your way over to the stadium worthy games. And your team doesn’t disappear and go bankrupt (once established - obviously in the transition not everyone makes it). Stability is a good thing for major cultural institutions actually.
@ oh - and the pride is a bug not a feature. If Scottish football was a little less proud maybe it would live within its means instead of being so unsustainable. Half the problems in Scottish football stem from excessive pride.
I don’t think Scotland will actually go to a closed league precisely because it’s too proud to modify its behavior to be sustainable. If it were good at doing smart sustainable changes it probably wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with.
Their stadium is can see from my house, dumbarton rock is beautiful there’s a castle at the top.
nooooooo not Dumbarton my first ever champions league win was with them... really wanna go up soon
Annan - Think Cannon.
I believe only the top two divisions in Scotland are actually fully professional - The other two are Semi-Pro.
Scotland has 4 divisions but only 12, 10, 10, and 10 teams in those divisions - I've been saying for years that they should reorganise to 3 divisions of 16, 16, and 16 {yes that would mean 6 teams being promoted to the new 3rd tier from the Highland and Lowland Leagues but Cove Rangers, Kelty Hearts, Edinburgh City, Bonnyrigg Rose, and Spartans have all proven recently that there's very little difference between League Two in Scotland and the Highland/Lowland Leagues stronger clubs.
The gulf in money is there not just between the top league and lower leagues. There is a gulf between the top 2 teams (Old Firm) then the rest of the Premiership. Then there is another sizeable drop to the Championship sides (who are all full time clubs). And then Leagues 1 and 2 are roughly the same, there isn’t much difference in the player quality and finances at those levels. There are 2 full time teams between those 2 leagues (Inverness and Cove Rangers). Scottish Football is ran horrifically from top to bottom, these 2 teams going into administration is just the start. There will be a fair few more over the coming years to fall into this. I worry that my own team, Stirling Albion, fall into this. We just got relegated into League 2 but sacked our manager even though he has a 100% record of winning League 2 with multiple sides. We gave him a new contract in the January of last season and 6 months later he was sacked. Our current team is majority players between the ages of 18-23 with a few older players (an FM managers dream) but unfortunately those 18-23 year olds have no experience at any adult level of football. Scottish football caters to the top 2 and no one else. We are all just going to fall further and further down the chain if nothing changes. No matter how good our national team are doing because not many of them actually play or have played in Scotland. Big changes needed and needed sooner rather than later or the lower league system in Scotland will be fucked.
Scotland can’t sustain 42 league clubs, but we have some of the oldest clubs on the planet and people won’t let go. Understandably. But clubs could merge and we could drop to two leagues of 12 or 14. The problem financially is the people running the game accept terrible TV deals that means the big clubs are pretty much forced to keep most of it because they are the ones generating it.
The TV deal in England is so big it can sustain the lower league and non league clubs.
France has one of the strictest financial rules...
Same league where PSG have doped the league for the past dozen years to everyone else's penalty.
Omg Dumbarton! - main reason I did a save on fm24 with them is how old they are and how much of a rabble they are tbh 😂😂😂- I will say lots of potential here in a fm save - managed to win the ucl with them - cool fm save highly recommend
Stenny is my team I’m doing now
I hesitate between them and Diagoras in Greece (Rhodes) for my next save
Zealand's pronunciation of Annan was so wrong that I laughed heavily until I realised that I also don't know how to pronounce Annan and am half-Scottish.
as someone whos done a ton of saves in Scottish leagues, the difference between league 2 and 1 of scotland is almost 0, championship is marginally better. but outside of celtic and rangers theres no money at all. i mean Livingston survived in the prem for years on a shoe string budget
There’s already next to no money in Scottish football
Oh man. Now I don't know which save to go for in FM
Run.
You just keep talking about all the topics that I'm following (San Marino, Russia, ect...)😮. Look forward to your video on OFC.
Scottish football is doing just fine. In Scotland we have far bigger clubs playing in the 5th/6th and 7th tier than some of the current league clubs. The pyramid system will eventually sort this out. What you may call "non-league" is flourishing in Scotland. The WOSFL is fantastic and will in time provide bigger clubs than these two to the league (especially from Ayrshire).
Scottish football believed it had to have higher standards. which in principle sounds fair, however they were raised to quickly and most do not have the money to reach them. Also Scottish football as a whole needs better domestic and international tv sales so more money can trickle down.
Dumbarton are owed a lot of money from a land sale deal in 2021
Zealand, you think the Dumbarton and ICT financial situation is mad. You should do a deep dive i to rangers. They’ve lost £117m in 12 years, and have only failed to make a loss once in that time, yet the media, the spfl, the sfa and the clubs sit quietly.
I think, Scotland should just switch to a 3 tier league system and make their leagues bigger, as in have 5 more teams in Premier, championship and league 1. As seeing the same teams play 4-5 times a season must get dull. Also Zealand, you have to also realize that top Scottish teams budgets are the same as upper mid table English championship clubs and I would argue that some higher more ambition British league 2 clubs have more income, fans and revenue than championship Scottish clubs.
Your hair is in a relegation battle with your forehead
I like the fact that my Scottish side’s somehow going to survive relegation even though they haven’t actually tried to play football since the start of the season. I’d rather my side (Annan Athletic) gets relegated in all honesty because they’re the worst side in the division.
Annon getting saved with the clutch dumb barton admin
Took this club to 4 Champions Leagues in 5 years.............on FM but still its sad to see
Dumbarton were joint champions in the first Scottish League season, and outright champions in the 2nd.
They haven't got close to winning a 3rd
It's called Irn Bru (iron brew), that's what's in the water in Scotland. It makes our heads hard and the SFA stupid. And it's AN-ann Zed. God, where did you learn to speak Scots? Maybe they put Irn Bru in the water in Florida as well, and just call it fluoride?
A nun
Ann-ann
As funny as it was, I think 2012 proved we have no way of stopping our clubs falling apart at the seems and its not chanced since. We have plastic pitches in our top league but we are forcing a club with limited resources to get a new one because of a slight decline at one end… Priorities are absolutely backwards.
We’ve needed changes to out league pyramid structure since before I was born. Nothing is going to change any time soon
in-ver-NESS, ANN-in
These smaller clubs get pennies in income. There’s no tv deal to benefit beyond Celtic and Rangers. These towns have had their own clubs since the earliest days of organized football. Scottish football is always among the best attended leagues in Europe, per capita. I think the SFA has to let some of the sweet tainted UEFA money cascade further down the leagues for the overall health of the game.
By the way, not all of the clubs are pro, Queen's Park only went pro two years ago.
The thing is the only fully proffessional leagues in scotland is the premiership and championship league 1 and 2 are almost fully part time my old maths teachers plays in league 2 for stranraer (not the best team i know) and the pay he gets isnt much worse than league 1 im pretty sure he got paid like £200 a week so i understand how ict went into admin bc they are paying prof wages with semi-professional money but dumbarton i dont rlly understand
Annan pronounced as in like Canon without the C
Let’s not pretend Covid was the reason for the situation in Scottish football, Rangers & Celtic having a monopoly over our game in this country and stifling other clubs for decades is the major reason. Was always going to happen, the pandemic only maybe sped things up.
Pronunciation is more like "Ann-in"
Ann in . Would that sound right to a someone who wasn’t sure how to say them. But good try Zealand
I’m sick w how early I am I mean 15secs cmon
Yes, it's hilarious that 2 clubs are on the verge of going out of business...
Iniesta
trickle down economy is proven and proven again to not work no matter if we are talking companies, leagues, countries etc. still I hear it as the solution to all our problems over and over again..... another thing that is spewed out even if all the data points to it being false.
Annan is pronounced like Anin
I can't help but think it is the league structure at fault, 42 clubs across 4 divisions (a 12 club top flight + 3 divisions of 10) and the clubs are playing each 4 times in a season in the bottom three divisions. English Football League clubs have 46 league games as opposed to the Scottish 36, that is 5 more sets of home gate receipts per club per year with no repeated home games within the year, and I also think Scotland is looking to support 50% of the clubs with 10% of the population when compared to England which is relevant as a single employment market for Players. Your comparison to the Netherlands was interesting but they are supporting 38 clubs through their league structure so only 4 less but the population is triple that of Scotland. Ultimately looking at this a 20+22 league structure might be better for Scotland in terms of a more viable entertainment product media sales of which are ultimately the only way to address the finance problem as it is the Scottish geography issue that creates a demand for so many Pro clubs.
Dumbarton and Inverness CT have both been very poorly run for a number of years now, spending way more than they earn. It was going to happen eventually.
It's pronounced 'Ah-nan'
Any partick thistle fans in here?
Partick
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Lol Germany has only 3 professional leagues and the clubs in 3rd league makes zero money
Sounds like there's gonna be some playing time for some local Dunbartese lads. :D
Not funny if you're a Dumbarton fan like me :(
Its sad isn’t it?
You nailed it by Scotland not being able to support 4 divisions, it has never made any sense and the leagues are so small, there should be 2 divisions of 16 teams maybe 18 at a push. Has been floated a few times but because it might endanger the 4 old firms games a year it always gets pushed back.
When I was growing up in the 70's the Scottish league WAS two 18 team divisions. There was no relegation from Division 2 even though a few of the Highland League clubs were bigger and better run than the worst Div 2 clubs they weren't allowed in until 1994.
Dumbarton aren’t professional
Dumbarton were the first ever Scottish league champions. They were forced to share it with the now defunct rangers because there was no decider rules, but Dumbarton actually finished above them. Mad that both of Scotland first two champions might not exist soon.
Dumbarton's average attendance is like 600 people. They had games this year with 240 people. Not sure how you can survive that. It's a great FM save though.
you're laughing? two teams went to administration and you're laughing?
No views. Bro fell off
You have 16k views on your entire channel. Zealandism has 11 million. You have .15% the amount of views he has