Gretna

Today, time has effectively been called on Gretna.  Following the decision by David Elliot of administrators Wilson Field to put Raydale up for sale, the demise of the club is essentially now a formality. With very little possibility of having a team in place and completing their fixtures for next season, the club has no real alternative but to call the Scottish Football League and formally confirm their resignation from the league, bringing to an end a saga that has gone on much longer that it should really have been allowed to.  

While it brings to an end one team, already moves are afoot to look towards the future and keep at least some kind of football presence in the town. Anton Hodge, secretary of the Gretna Supporters' Society action group has already started looking into the possibility of forming a new team and has promised to look at the lessons learned from this debacle to make sure that whatever club arises from the ashes, the same mistakes will not be made again.

We've been following the story of Gretna for some time now at Inside Left, sometimes with tongue firmly in cheek. But as supporters of Scottish football generally we are never happy to see a town lose it's team, as fans of Clydebank discovered and which Motherwell, Dundee and Livingston narrowly avoided. Inside Left sincerely hopes that a footballing presence remains in Gretna. A football team is an essential part of the community, especially a small community like Gretna. It provides focus and above all pride, something that Gretna Football Club provided in the mad years leading up to this moment and which the town urgently needs to regain, in a footballing sense. We at Inside Left would like to wish all former, as well as future players, fans and staff the very best in the years to come.

Our only appeal to the league is this: the mistakes made in this whole debacle have not been made by Gretna alone. Inside Left feels that the Scottish Football League, as well as the Scottish Premier League must bear some responsibility in this affair.  A system of balances and checks must be put in place to ensure that what happened to Gretna does not happen again to other clubs in the league. It would not be good for the teams involved, the communities they represent, nor for the credibility of the leagues involved.

With four new teams applying to join the ranks of senior football, we urge the Scottish Football League to look beyond stadium criteria as the only prerequisite to league membership and demand assurances and guarantees from Cove, Annan, Prestonpans and Spartans when the applications are reviewed at the Special General Meeting on the 3rd July which demonstrate that each club is financially sound (i.e independent), with an audited business plan in place.

Only then can we ensure that history will not repeat itself.