Time for Change – Please Support this Vital Cause.

I started supporting Hearts at the tail end of the Golden Age of Scottish football, a 15 year period up to 1965, during which time 7 clubs won the league title.
I remember my despair when I saw the league table with Kilmarnock ahead on goal average.
Twenty years later, Hearts lost the league on goal difference (we would have won on goal average).
After that Golden Age, it was only 14 years before Aberdeen emerged to challenge the Old Firm.
The loss by Hearts of the title in 1986 on the last day of the season effectively marked the end of competition in the Scottish Premiership.
This will be the 36th season of a duopoly/monopoly period which undermines our national sport.
I realised this horror was emerging quite quickly. I begged Scottish & Newcastle Breweries to sponsor Hearts to counter the threat. I have correspondence with the Chairman telling me they couldn’t, basically because Edinburgh had two clubs.
I suspect similar messaging prompted Wallace Mercer to try his ill-conceived takeover of Hibs.
I have total respect for Robbie Neilson – I asked the Foundation of Hearts to intervene to try to persuade him stay at the club before his move to MK Dons – but I disagree with him about returns to Hampden.
The future of Scottish football depends on a stand being taken NOW to end the despair of the duopoly.
Competing in Cup Finals actually ends up sustaining the duopoly, making it look like other clubs really have a chance.
They don’t – and every year for 36 seasons the league table has told us so. Most seasons, the gap between the duopolists and the best of the rest has been a chasm.
Since 2012, a period of monopoly at the top, there has been no credible challenge. 2021 has seen a return to the duopoly.
But 2021 MUST also be the year for change!
The end of the 10-in-a-row pursuit MUST be used as a watershed moment.
I have written to all the Premiership Chairs and to Neil Doncaster calling for change, restructuring that makes the league more competitive.
Here are two suggestions for change.
One is a handicap system, with the winners starting with an increasing deficit as multiple wins are racked up. The deficits would mean that no more than 3 or 4 consecutive wins could be achieved. The handicap system can be constructed to avoid a duopoly, with a graduated points deficit applied.
The other idea, which was suggested to me by another supporter, is to copy the Rugby League set-up, with the top teams in the top league competing on a knock out basis each season to crown the Super League Champions. In football, the champions (and runners up, should a 2nd place be available) in this competition would qualify for the European Champions League, giving the Super League competition the ultimate prestige.
The second idea is a half -way house, that may be seen as worth trying, before contemplating a move to the handicap system.
In any event, whether or not Hearts return to Hampden in 2021 is irrelevant to the future of Scottish football.
The top league set-up MUST be changed.
I call on all of those who support and care about football to put aside their own club preferences to come up with an agreed solution that gives real hope again of genuine competition in the Premiership.