Stadium costs close door to transfer market.

Lack of foresight now costing clubs dearly

KEN GALLACHER

19 Jul 1995

THE tangled situation which surrounds Hearts and their manager, Tommy McLean, is a symptom of the ills which presently beset Scottish football -- Rangers apart.

The Ibrox men are the solitary premier division team who have been able to splash out any significant sums in the transfer market so far.

Paul Gascoigne, in case anyone has not noticed, has joined up for £4.3m and Stephen Wright has arrived from Aberdeen for a fee which will be set by a transfer tribunal, but one which will almost certainly push the champions' summer spending close to £6m.

So far, their rivals appear to have spent just a fraction of that -- and the gap grows wider and wider.

* Motherwell have bought John Hendry from Spurs for £200,000.

* Raith Rovers have paid Dundee United £100,000 for veteran Jim McInally.

As for the others -- nothing.

Celtic have tried and failed.

Repeatedly.

Hibs and Hearts simply cannot afford to move for quality players this summer.

And Falkirk and Kilmarnock, who both spent considerable sums last year, have gone quiet.

So, too, have Aberdeen, and there is no guarantee that manager Roy Aitken will get all the money the club will receive for Wright when the tribunal reaches a verdict.

Then there's Partick Thistle, but not even their Intertoto Cup exploits will not enable John Lambie to leap into the market place to spend anything more than a modest sum.

The losers in all of this are the fans -- again, Rangers apart.

At Ibrox, the support knows that each summer money will be spent and chairman David Murray has confirmed that time and again.

Last week, when Gascoigne arrived, it was significant that Murray explained: "We have to keep changing the menu.

We cannot serve up the same stuff to the fans every season.

We have to make changes."

Murray has recognised what the Italian giants took on board as policy many years ago: keep the customer satisfied.

The need for the public today is for new faces, for fresh stars -- and at Ibrox they are paraded each summer.

Most succeed in capturing the imagination of the adoring Ibrox support.

Others, such as Basile Boli, flop.

But, always, the menu will change and the people will buy season tickets, and Rangers will grow ever more powerful.

The reason for that is not simply the size of the support the champions have.

It has its roots in other times when previous regimes were in control, and Willie Waddell was enough of a visionary to put seats into Ibrox when few others saw the need for change.

I can remember Waddell saying: "I told Desmond White (then chairman of Celtic) that he had to pu in seats, otherwise he would miss the bus.

"He kept saying that his club's fans preferred to stand."

Celtic missed that bus, and the Taylor Report decreed that supporters would sit whether they liked to or not.

Now, the Parkhead side are among the clubs being hamstrung by the cost of a new stadium.

When you look around Scottish football you see clubs crippled by building costs, unable to set up a credible on-field challenge to Rangers.

One premier division manager admitted yesterday: "When you exmaine the costs which the various clubs have run up in conforming to the Taylor Report it points out the difference between Rangers and the rest.

"They have a stadium and can concentrate on putting a top team on the park.

"Look at transfers in the premier division this year and you'll see what I'm talking about.

"Rangers are always expected to spend more than the rest put together, but this year the gulf is enormous.

And it will grow if Rangers qualify for the Champions' League, which we expect to happen.

"It might be the turn of the century before the other clubs can be free of overdrafts, caused by the rebuilding of grounds.

Only then can they look at the playing side and spend the money there.

"At the moment, for most of us, the future is bleak."

There may be a late spurt from Celtic as they try to keep up with their rivals on the other side of the city.

Manager Tommy Burns might still land the type of player he has been searching for, but, at other clubs across the country, supporters need not expect too much.

In fact, they need not expect anything apart from a new seat in a new stand in a new stadium.

A stadium which has, most likely, crippled their club until, as my manager friend told me, the turn of the century.

That may not be the most edifying prospect for thousands of fans and they will take little consolation from the fact that they are sitting comfortably as they are forced to watch the equivalent of a television repeat.

Taken from the Herald