SPL final weekend

The 2006/7 SPL season finally came to a close at the weekend, split along class lines. On Saturday the bottom six played, and showed us once again all the problems this league faces. The biggest crowd of the day – 6,000 – saw Dundee Utd and Motherwell play out a 0-0 draw and wonder if either of these clubs can push on next season. Optimists could find encouraging signs at both clubs, but the fact is that they have contributed very little of note this term. Meanwhile, even smaller crowds witnessed Inverness Caley Thistle beat St Mirren and an already relegated Dunfermline capitulated to Falkirk.

ICT have firmly established top-level football in the Highlands, and that is a notable achievement, even if it took the amalgamation of two existing clubs to do it. And fans of Falkirk and St. Mirren are of course entitled to look forward to next season with confidence and hope for the continued progress of their teams. But with such limited gates, it’s really tough for them to grow much further and hold onto their best players – Rangers have cherry-picked one from each for next term on pre-contracts. Both have said they will rebuild over the summer, but SPL survival will probably be the limit of their ambitions next season as well.

At least Sunday provided better entertainment, most notably up North, where it turned out to be a very good day indeed for Aberdeen. Firstly, and most importantly, they secured third place in the league at long last, meaning best of the rest status behind the Old Firm and an entry into the UEFA Cup next season. Secondly, they achieved this by beating Rangers 2-0. The visitors were below par, but nonetheless, this was Aberdeen’s first points off the Old Firm all season, earning a bit of legitimacy to go with that 3rd place. Their failure to take so much as a point off them prior to the weekend had become an increasing embarrassment.

And thirdly, they won in front of a healthy home crowd of 20,000. Aberdeen’s trouble with attendances have been well documented this season, and Jimmy Calderwood has often expressed his frustration on the issue – because, unless more punters start coming turning up on a regular basis, the Dons are going to struggle to put any kind of sustained challenge together.

It is expected that they will sell Pittodrie and move to a new home within the next few years in order to pay the debts off. They will then have a clean slate – but the size of that new ground, and therefore the size of the ambitions of the Dons – will probably be defined between now and then.

In the end, it didn’t matter what Hearts did on the pitch, because it was all in Aberdeen’s hands. But a 1-0 defeat at Kilmarnock was not how they wanted to finish the season. The assistant coach, Stephen Frail, was justified when saying that the damage had been done earlier in the season. Since the Soviet-era clown Eduoard Maloveef left, Hearts really have been more consistent and more reliable, and the points have piled up as a consequence. But that doesn’t change the fact that, in the high stakes game that Vladimir Romanov is playing, entry into the Champions League again represented a minimum achievement for this season. To miss out not only on that competition but the UEFA Cup as well is nothing short of disastrous. The financial results will come out later, but it’s certain that this season of utter non-achievement will have come at another heavy loss.

And finally, the Champions turned up at Easter Road, with neither Hibs nor Celtic having anything left to play for. Well, except that Hibs really needed to sign off with a win, and end the run of 9 games without victory. And win they did, as both sets of fans sat back and enjoyed the Scott Brown show. He scored with a header, bossed the game, and generally showed why Celtic have just spent £4.4m to acquire him, a record fee between Scottish clubs.

It’s an ominous development for everyone else, Rangers especially. Celtic have just made themselves favourites to win the title next season too.

Dunfermline drop through the floor

Imagine being a Pars fan.

Relegation looked nailed on months ago. There simply was no way back. The season would be remembered for a great, improbable run in the Scottish Cup, but there was no chance of staying in the SPL.

And then they went on a run, becoming the SPL's form team as the two clubs above them, St Mirren and Motherwell, went into freefall. Victories over both those teams had dragged the Pars back to within a point of St Mirren, and suddenly survival looked possible. Maybe, even probable. On Saturday, Dunfermline were 1-0 away to Inverness, while St Mirren were 2-0 down to Motherwell. If those scorelines remained the same, Dunfermline would have leapfrogged St Mirren at the bottom of the table, with just one more game left to play.

But then it all went wrong. Dorus De Vries, the goalkeeper who has been in heroic form since January, made a blunder and allowed Caley back into the game. Then he was defeated by a wicked deflection in the 89th minute. Meanwhile, the Buddies found 3 goals to snatch all the points from Motherwell. Dunfermline, finally, are relegated, and their fans are distraught. As John Cleese said in Clockwise:

"It's not the despair...I can TAKE the despair. It's the HOPE....."

Somehow, they are going to have to lift themselves for the Scottish Cup final in a fortnight, but you can't imagine it being much of a party now.

There now remains just one issue to be decided... who is going to finish third and grab the UEFA Cup spot? Aberdeen now lead Hearts by just a point, after their defeat to Celtic and Hearts' victory in the Edinburgh derby. Aberdeen's claim to be the third best team in Scotland is undermined somewhat by their failure to take a single point off the Old Firm this season, but if they are to guarantee that 3rd place, they will need to beat Rangers this coming weekend, because Hearts will surely fancy a win against Kilmarnock, who have nothing left to play for.

Aberdeen's season is about to be defined by one match.