Confront the Players as well as the Suits

Apparently the time has come for some post-election review of the way Scottish football is run. Last Thursday's pile-in to the polls has got the argumentative juices flowing and now it's time to examine those who are responsible for the game's governance.

The performances given by the Chief Executives at the SFA and the SPFL, Stewart Regan and Neil Doncaster respectively, are under review by those who didn't vote for them to hold high office but reserve the right to criticise their handling of the game.

Nothing wrong with that. It's a free country and the lack of a ballot box has never discouraged nationwide debate where football is concerned.

Fans have traditionally voted with their feet as a means of showing their displeasure and that can have a far more devastating effect than a show of hands in times of stress and strain.

Hearts' owner, Ann Budge, has already made it known that she wouldn't mind assuming a place on one of the game's committees where her undoubted business expertise and commendable ability to get to the core of any contentious matter would be a decided improvement on some of the questionable decision making of late.

But while Ann moves to be the Nicola Sturgeon, Ruth Davidson or Kazia Dugdale of the fitba' world there needs to be a proper assessment of who's to blame for what goes on inside Scottish football.

Sometimes it's possible to get the feeling that fans condemn Regan and Doncaster on the basis that neither was born here and both are head-hunted opportunists with no real feel for the environment they work in. Two men who will ultimately walk away with a handsome financial settlement while having left no imprint on the game they were hired to run.

But what are they getting to work with in the first place ?

I watched Hamilton Accies play Partick Thistle on Saturday and the level of entertainment on show was disturbingly low. This was a game involving two sides from our flagship competition, the SPFL Premiership, and it was severely lacking in quality.

So well done to the hundreds of Thistle fans who took the trouble to get there on a day when railworks meant there were no trains running between Glasgow and that part of Lanarkshire. And congratulations to the Accies fans who stayed until the bitter end and were rewarded with a belated equaliser to level a turgid match.

They demonstrated a level of devotion to their clubs that was above and beyond the call of duty when bearing in mind what they actually got to watch for their money.

You can throw insults at Regan and Doncaster all day long but what they're trying to sell has to be better than what was on offer at New Douglas Park.

We can moan about fixtures being scheduled at inappropriate times, the cost of getting into matches and the exclusion of the paying customer from any decision making process, and rightly so at times.

But what about demanding better of full time players who cause some supporters to ask what they do in training every day when their technical skills are so often called into question on a match day ?

No wonder a game played on a mild, sunny afternoon in North Lanarkshire drew a paltry attendance of 2,342 people.

This Sunday at Ibrox will be another test of public opinion.

The fans at Hamilton were required to pay full whack at the gate. Those who attend the second leg of Rangers' play-off tie with Queen of the South will get in for a fiver.

When Dave King was fighting for control of Rangers he spoke of his fear that a generation of supporters could be lost to the club while it struggled to regain a place in the highest division.

A fiver is, when compared to normal admission prices, just about as close as it gets to letting fans into a game for nothing. Rangers' prospects of being promoted, or left where they are in the Championship, remain in the balance after Saturday's 2 - 1 win at Palmerston.

If Ibrox isn't full this weekend then King may already have cause for concern that the years spent in the lower orders has already had a profoundly negative effect on the club's core support.

Part of the reason for that possibly being the case is that discerning fans may have come to the conclusion that the football they were being asked to watch wasn't worthy of their disposable income.

If Rangers are to compete with Celtic on a level playing field one day in the future they will need to find better players than have worn the club's jersey on the road to being in the same league as their historic rivals.

The Celtic fans are singing about winning Ten in a Row so far as league titles are concerned so there's no time to be lost relative to the re-building project at Ibrox. Ronny Deila's side are at four and counting.

The Celtic fans were at Aberdeen on a Sunday afternoon and are now going to Perth on Friday night for their team's next match. It is tough on supporters who have work commitments and school to attend, but the inclination to complain is curbed when you're league champions and having a ball.

The rest who are not so fortunate tend to rail against the game's administrators, but they should also take more time to analyse what they're watching and be more demanding on that front as well.

Incidentally, which Superscoreboard member gave the correct score in advance of Rangers' game kicking off on Saturday ?

Not the two panel members who once played for the club and not the other journalists asked for their prediction. It was me, the one so often slated for being unable to accurately say which day of the week it is.

It helps when you know something about the game, doesn't it lads ?