I once heard a rumour that Walter Smith is a Dundee United fan. Apparently he always makes a point of seeing how United have done. I’m too young to remember Smith as Assistant Manager at Tannadice, and I’m certainly too young to remember him as a player for us.
What I do know is that as manager of Glasgow Rangers, he seems to be a very sore loser and prone to making hugely blinkered post match comments. His strop this past Saturday at Rugby Park was OTT, even by Craig Levein’s standards. But as a sports personality, despite his current club affiliation, I tend to like and respect him more often than not. He knows football and has a proven track record.
But in recent months, I really have disagreed with Smith over one particular subject: The Premiership.
The former Everton Gaffer has quite rightly pointed out that after England’s top four, Rangers and Celtic could hold their own. They are two of the biggest clubs in Britain and I can’t see the likes of Wigan, West Ham, Bolton, Blackburn or in fact the vast majority of Premiership clubs treating either of the Old Firm like the walk-over that some ignorant and insular football commentators would have us believe they would.
I think it’s worth pointing out that, even though it’s not meant to mean anything, Rangers beat Manchester City in a pre-season this past summer and Celtic beat Spurs. And just for all of those ‘The Premiership is better than the SPL’ believers, last August, Bolton could only draw with Hearts and United made it look easy against Blackburn, soundly beating them 2-0. But of course, pre-seasons don’t mean anything, right?
On the one hand I agree that pre-seasons shouldn’t and don’t mean jack, but on the other, lets say that City, Spurs, Bolton and Blackburn all came up for pre-seasons and thrashed the SPL teams, the pro-Premiership crowd would claim this to be conclusive proof of the SPL’s inferiority.
I am not for one minute saying that the SPL is ‘up there’ with the Premiership, it is quite obviously ahead in terms of quality, money, and just about everything else you could measure a league by. As a neutral TV viewer, I do think the SPL is just as entertaining and I think fixtures such as Hearts V Celtic or Rangers V Aberdeen are often just as ‘juicy’ as anything not involving the English top 4.
So let’s just say that the Old Firm does go off to the Premiership, or are invited into a new league that I’ve heard rumours about, what would happen? It would be an irreparable disaster and Walter Smith is crazy to even suggest that the Old Firm playing in the Premiership would be anything otherwise.
Some fellow Arabs think that it would be great. The most common opinion favouring a non Old Firm SPL is that Rangers and Celtic can go off and be embarrassed every week in England and the rest of us can play in a competitive league where United would probably challenge for the title every season.
I can certainly see the first winner of a non Old Firm SPL being either United, Hearts or Aberdeen, but what fun would winning the league be without beating Celtic and Rangers along the way? United did it in 1983 and Aberdeen did it twice in a row after us. But Arabs who class themselves as ‘realistic’ believe that us flying the league flag was a once in a lifetime occurrence and that it will never happen again. But it wasn’t so long ago that Blackburn Rovers won the Premiership, and ask around Tannadice, the majority of Arabs believe that we’ll do it again one day. Blackburn winning the Premiership may have been 14 years ago, but Greece won Euro 2004 only five years ago.
As an Arab, I really don’t want to see the Old Firm go. For me, winning over them is just as much fun as beating Dundee F.C. or our ‘New Firm’ rivals Aberdeen.
I grudgingly admire the Celtic fans; they always bring an impressive support to Tannadice. We’ve had electric matches against The Hoops in the past two seasons, the last time they got the better of us in the SPL was Boxing Day 2007, since then it has been hugely enjoyable, ‘edge of your seat’ stalemates with both sides coming away being grateful for just the one point.
There was of course the Co-operative Insurance Cup Semi-Final last season where Celtic only just got through after possibly the most dramatic and entertaining penalty shootout ever. How many times can you say you’ve seen goalkeepers taking textbook spot kicks against each other as compatriot friends? Lee Wilkie kicking the post in utter frustration having again missed in a crucial ‘can’t miss’ situation, Flood taking his last kick of the ball in Tangerine against the club who would employ him the following week, yet missing the target. Yes, the result was the wrong one that night, but that sort of high drama is a tribute to the quality of both teams and because of that, I don’t want to loose Celtic from Scottish football.
Rangers on the other hand are something a little bit different. The matches Dundee United have had against them in the past two seasons have undoubtedly been the best in the SPL. In terms of entertainment and pure sport, I would take watching a draw with Rangers over us beating Dundee F.C.!
Many assume that when it comes to Rangers, them against Celtic is the one to watch. And when it comes to United, many assume that us against Aberdeen is the one to watch. Those assumptions may have been true up until recently, but there is now no doubt that ever since United’s 2-1 victory over Rangers at Tannadice in October 2007, the two teams have produced nothing less than sensational football performances that ESPN would do well to take note of, Setanta certainly did.
2007/2008 saw Rangers grind out the two most controversial victories of that season, both against us. The CIS Cup seemed to be Tannadice bound after Rangers went down twice yet somehow managed to thread the eye of the needle and take the match to penalties despite a stonewall penalty claim that referee Kenny Clark denied United (he saw it just fine, watch the tape).
And what match defined football controversy more than what Arabs call ‘The McCurry Match’? It was a refereeing performance the likes of which you hear stories of taking place in Columbia. Noel Hunt brought down in the box as he was about to pull the trigger, yet no penalty and no sending off. Craig Conway with a perfectly good goal yet somehow ruled offside, Noel Hunt with an elbow to the face, Daniel Cousin head butting Lee Wilkie, Mark De Vries booked for checking that his goal was okay with the Linesmen (obviously sarcastic, but justified under he circumstances), Craig Levein calling McCurry over to the touch line for a little ‘chat’ and some of the most seething post-match interviews normally associated with Sir Alex or Keegan. A body under a patio or a JR shooting couldn’t compare with the farce of that May Day.
Rangers against United produced possibly the match of the season in 2008/2009 in the November. It was a Tuesday night, the match had been postponed due to the death of United’s much loved Chairman, Eddie Thompson. The Arabs were emotional as were the players. The match produced six goals in what could only be described as a thriller, with United going down 1-0 within five minutes only to come back and go into the 90th minute 3-2 up. With the Rangers “fans” leaving Ibrox and the Arabs still throwing hysterical goal celebrations, Rangers equalised in the dying seconds from a free-kick.
Obviously the CIS Final, the McCurry Match and the 3-3 draw all produced the wrong results, and all of the other fixtures between United and Rangers last season were gripping draws (that’s aside from the utter thrashing we took at Tannadice on the final day of the campaign!).
United v Rangers has been nothing less than mouth-watering in terms of drama and as a sporting spectacle it’s produced several classics in recent seasons and will do again this season. We can not lose this sort of occasion from our football calendar. Neither the Premiership nor the SPL has got anything to gain from it.
I love to hate the Old Firm, especially Rangers. I’ve heard their supporters talk about ridiculous conspiracy theories against their teams when it couldn’t be more obvious that referees, the SFA, the SPL and the media (the BBC in particular) all favour them. But despite all of this, I still want them in the SPL. It makes beating them all the more satisfying.
And one day, soon I hope, it will make that glorious, sunny May afternoon all the more sweet when United lift the SPL trophy having beaten Celtic and Rangers to do it.
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Last updated: 27 September 2009, 15:18
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