Barcelona, Birthdays and beer gardens

Gosh it seems like ages since I have been on a computer. I have not tweeted for yonks and my paella and bovril is most definitely cold. However I have just turned 30, done 3 cities in 50 odd hours and watched a Rovers match. But that is a whole other "Paella and Bovril" 

This weeks post is we bit special to me as it was the first one I got to see in the match day programme! I made a wee trip up to Kirkcaldy (then to London and beer garden) to see Raith play. 

This post was first published in the match day programme from the 10th of September

Raith 0 - 1 Dundee

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A prickly time for football

Paella and Bovril

Hola Stark’s park I am hoooommmmeee!!! Touch wood, all being well, and fingers crossed, I am in the building with a large chunk of my family celebrating my 30th birthday and I could not think of a better place to be, Camp Nou versus Stark’s Park, the result would always be Stark’s Park!

But if you listen to the words coming out of the mouths of supposed pundits “in the know”, it’s enough to make you want to give up. Has Scottish football really got that “bad” or “diabolical” or “dire” or “beyond help”?  I hope not, and my view from all the way over here in Barcelona is that it is better than it is made out to be.

Over the past few weeks I have heard many a baldy-heided pundit compare the whole of Scottish football to Football Club Barcelona, “if only we could play more like Barcelona” this “if only we could “that”. So what is so great about Barcelona football club?

Més que un club, and to many fans this motto is very true, FC Barcelona is so much “more than a club”.  Catalonia and Scotland are politically compared regularly here and I have been treated very differently when I correct people on the usual question “are you English?” But unlike Scotland they do not have a recognized national team as such. They do have a Catalan team, founded in 1902 and they have played over 200 matches, which even continued thru the Franco era when nearly everything else Catalan was suppressed.  This team may have some of the best players of the world available to it but they cannot compete in the UEFA cup and World Cup, so they kind of just play for fun. This makes FC Barcelona the closest thing that Catalonia is going to get to having a team that they identify with winning a major competition, and if we are brutally honest the Champions League is probably bigger than the World Cup. I know from experience that when Spain won the World Cup Catalonia did not party, but when Barca won the Champions league, Catalonia, not just Barcelona, partied. FC Barcelona is a nationality for these people!

But at what cost!?! Now do not get me wrong watching Barcelona play is amazing, these guys can play football and Messi is a God in studs and shin pads, but where are the diddy clubs in Catalonia, how are they doing? They are struggling in the shadow of Barcelona! Only a few weeks ago with my mid morning mojito ( I was on holiday and it was 30 plus ok!!) I heard the news that Girona FC had started the process of making players and staff redundant. Never a nice thing to hear, and last year when I was in Tarragona with work one of the locals there was telling me about the financial woes of his team.  All very well that FC Barcelona is a replacement national side, but to the detriment of other clubs? As a fan of a small team I cannot help but feel a little sad.

And it is not like Barca are technically rolling in money! What? you may say, the 2^nd biggest club in the world has no money?  This is copied from the Barca website.

BUDGET 2010/11 SEASON

Trading income: 420.2 million euros
Operating costs: 428.1 million euros
Operating profit or loss: -7.9 million euros
Financial and extraordinary profit or loss: -13.5 million euros
Before tax net profit or loss: -21.4 million euros

Neagtive 7.9, negative 13.5 negative MILLIONS.  How can anyone compete with that? They might have some of the best skills at their fingertips but are these skills worth sacrificing other teams!

We want OUR teams to do well, be it the club or the national team, and what these teams need is our backing and support. I know that Scottish football ain’t  the prettiest display of the game, (just watched the national side play the Czechs enough said) but it is not “dead in the water” It just needs a large kick up the backside with a wee dose of patience. I know many a fan feels they cannot wait any longer, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel, it is a very long tunnel and a tiny light but I think that it is there, if, and only if, there is a slight change in attitude from both the clubs and fans.  Our teams can not win all the time, and the fans can not continue to watch a match if 99.9% of the time they are not even being entertained let alone winning.  

Local pub teams,, juniors, schools,  club, national side all need one thing more than anything else in the world, our support. So please the next time we have a dire week in Scottish football maybe just maybe someone could look on the bright side!