Doing It Yourself Might Work

This is Part Two of my summer series on Governance, and where we go from here:

MY NOT-SO-OLD MATE Bill Lothian made a rare foray into print last week, to add his twopenceworth to the BTL debate on the proposed re-structuring of the club game, in The Offside Line. Bill's succinct words of wisdom are worth repeating here:

“Governing body should not be attempting to control domestic game. Not their remit.”

Back in 1890 the top Scottish Football clubs, with the exception of Queen's Park, formed the Scottish Football League. Note, it was the clubs who acted, rather than the Scottish Football Association – The Victorians running the clubs back then, they knew, controlling the domestic game was not the remit of th SFA. Eleven clubs comprised the first season of league play and today five of them: Rangers, Celtic, Heart of Midlothian, St Mirren and Dumbarton are still members, with the first four still in the top league.

Given the lowly calibre of elected administrator currently sitting on the Club Rugby Board, it may perhaps behold the top clubs as I have listed them in part one of this series, to act similarly and get together to form their own top league. As I have long suggested, a smaller National League, with no more than two divisions, would be more in keeping with what Scottish Rugby could support and maintain.

If such a league was to prosper, there would need to be certain standards of infrastructure, club governance and league governance laid down and adhered to.

The Leageue would, naturally, need SRU approval, but should ideally, as happens today between the Scottish Football Association and The Scottish Professional Football League, be self-governing. I would hope, however, our hypothetical league would take a leaf from other successful professional sporting leagues and have a Collective Bargaining Agreement and the aim of operating on a more-level playing field than the likes of our football league.

If this league – hereafter I am calling it the Scottish Rugby Union League – SRUL - was as as successful as hoped, then expansion could follow, but only clubs meeting minimum standards of infrastructure or governance should be admitted as it expands.

I would also like to think, such a league could create bridges between their clubs and the two (or hopefully more) full-time professional clubs playing in the URC or any other professional league admitting Scottish clubs going forward.

If our hypothetical league did raise playing standards as we hope it would, it would provide a means for Edinburgh's and Glasgow's fringe and Academy players to get more game time than at present through alignment between the league clubs and the two pro teams.

Of course, we all know the default position in Scottish club rugby has long been: “It's aye been and aye will be.” A look at the history book shows this has not been the case, nor should it be.

Let's be brave and try things, otherwise, Scottish Rugby will face ever harder times.

In my last post, I identified Scotland's current top clubs. These are: Hawick, Melrose, Heriot's, Watsonians, Gala, Boroughmuir, Ayr, Glasgow Hawks, Currie and Stirling County. Seven of these clubs will be in the Premiership next season, the other three will be in the First Division.

I have no problems with the 20 clubs who will be in th Premiership and National League One next season being the foundation clubs of our hypothetical self-governing SRUL. That said, one or two would have to up their game considerably to meet what I would presume would be the minimum infrastructure requirements:

• A fully-enclosed ground.

• A grandstand

• Floodlighting

• Pitch protection – to mitigate against cancellations

• Proper financing

These would be the basic tenets for admission to my hypothetical SRUL. I would expect further details, such as proper press facilities would be ironed-out during the setting-up phase.

Initially, I see SRUL being confined to just the country's top 20 clubs, playing in two, ten-club divisions. There might be a case for giving these divisions equal status, which would give us the ability to have post-regular-season play-offs to establish a final pecking order. Or, if as I suspect we might, we went with a first and second division, the promotion-relegation issue would need to be agreed.

I should perhaps note here, there are some inside Murrayfield who believe, we don't even have 20 elite club sides, indeed I have heard it said we perhaps only have, at best 12. We should bear that in mind.

These clubs would need to, as Ayr, the current torch-bearers in driving up standards are doing, re-organise themselves into becoming businesses, rather than social clubs who happen to play a bit of Rugby Union. They would need to embrace part-time professionalism; when you note the physicality of Premiership games, it goes without saying, the players prepared to put their bodies on the line in this fashion deserve to be paid.

As such the SRUL would have to be within the bailliewick of Scottish Rugby Limited, the professional arm of the SRU, rather than the Club Rugby Board, which could still have a function, looking after the interests of the amateur grass-roots game.

Scottish Football flourished for years with a professional, a semi-professional (Junior Football) and an amateur level, Scottish Rugby could too.

I have long had a liking for the feeder system in Baseball. Basically, the Major League Clubs – New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox etc have a 40-man roster of players: 26 of these are on what is called “The Active Roster” - the guys who will be playing in a match, the other 14 are to cover injuries, plus development players, plying their trade with the MBL organisation's feeder clubs.

These feeder clubs play in various more-local Minor Leagues across North America, all hoping that one day, an injury or particularly good form will get them their chance in “The Show” - Major League Baseball.

I see no reason why, with a wee bit of tweaking, we could not have something similar in Scottish Rugby. Edinburgh and Glasgow would be our equivalent of the Red Sox and Yankees, while the top ten club sides could be our equivalent of the AAA Minor League feeder sides, and the next ten AA Minor League sides.

With the AAA and AA clubs linked to one or other of the Major League clubs, up and down player progression would be easy. Similar feeder systems could also, with good will on both sides, operate further down the food chain.