Farewell, Spring Cup
We hardly knew ye
Saturday May 29 1976
With no actual football to distract us, the AGM of the Scottish League, featuring all 38 member clubs1, took centre stage on Friday, with earth-shattering results.
No, not earth-shattering - broadly expected with no surprises, that’s what I meant.
With the Morton proposal of an immediate switch to 12 top flight teams withdrawn before it was considered, the remaining motions from the floor were up for debate:
Dumbarton proposed scrapping the whole reorganisation and going back to the 18-20 setup which caused all the problems in the first place. Defeated 36-1
Motherwell proposed that relegation from the Premier Division should be reduced to one club per season. Defeated 36-1
Partick Thistle proposed that ticket revenue should be split 80%-20% in favour of the home side instead of 50-50 as at present. Defeated; no-one reported the margin of defeat, but I suspect some larger clubs may have voted in favour of that one.
Albion Rovers proposed that the Spring Cup was stupid and should be scrapped, to be replaced by First and Second Division clubs playing each other three times a season. Carried 34-3.
I’d like to think that reigning champions Airdrie were among the three who wanted it to continue, but perhaps they fancied going down in history as the only winners of the trophy.
Either way, there will be more league games next spring instead of more cup ties, which seems sensible. No discussion on exactly how this was to be implemented was reported, and I imagine there will be some wrangling between now and the fixtures being published, especially given that half the teams involved will have one fewer home game than the other half.
Other business discussed and passed were the rise in admission prices I touched on last time - it’ll now cost the staggering sum of 70p to stand on the terraces from the start of next season, although my dreams of a pocket money increase went up in smoke - ‘boys2 and OAPs’ prices were untouched.
There’s also been a relaxation of the rules surrounding playing unregistered junior players in First Division games. This practice was legal in Division Two last season, and the world did not end, so it’s being expanded. Teams can have up to two juniors in their side for any league game, and I’m absolutely certain that this came hedged about with caveats and restrictions which the papers aren’t going to bother us with.
If that wasn’t enough to whet your appetite for the new season, the League Cup groups were drawn and announced. This struck me as remarkably early in the close-season until I turned my attention to social media in 2026 to discover that we’re still announcing next season’s League Cup groups before the end of May. Plus ca change, apparently.
Anyway, here’s what we have to look forward to:
As with the previous year, the first four sections contain all the Premier Division teams. I don’t know how it was decided that Celtic and Rangers only get one other Premier team in their sections; perhaps it was a completely above-the-board draw, who knows?
If you’re looking for a ‘Section of Death’, I’d suggest Section 1 fits the bill - Hearts also had a tough opening section last year, I’m not sure how they upset the Football Gods.
The only other football news going around is the fate of the three Scottish teams on tour in various parts of the world. Rangers have had a successful journey around the Pacific Northwest and Canada which will culminate in Toronto on Sunday with a game against Toronto Metro-Croatia which is expected to draw a crowd of around 20,000.
Less popular - both with locals and the players involved, you’d have thought, has been Hearts’ trip to Norway, New Zealand, Australia and Mauritius, which still has over a week to run and must have been something of an ordeal for players who had already played 56 competitive games, and will have played nine more post-season games by the time this is all over.
The big story of the post-season, however, has been Motherwell’s catastrophic tour of the Americas, which involved a hefty dose of food poisoning in Mexico, a trip to politically unstable Haiti, and culminated in them not even playing the final game in Bogota after some vigorous disagreements during the one game they did manage to complete in Colombia.
The team headed for home as soon as they could, no doubt reflecting on how many of their fellow Premier Division players were soaking up the sun in Spain or just having time with their kids in their own back gardens.
It’s not at all clear how these trips made any money for the clubs involved, or what possible benefit the players can have got from it. They’ll be back in League Cup action in a matter of weeks; surely it makes sense to rest them as soon as possible after the end of a hectic season?
Ah, well, I’m sure player safety and comfort will become a much bigger consideration in the next 50 years.
!975-76 Season Review, part 2
3. Hibernian
Hibs will have come in to the season expecting to be in the top places. Since the arrival of Eddie Turnbull as manager in 1971, they had never been out of the top four, and had been second in each of the previous two seasons. With that in mind, finishing third might have been seen as something of a disappointment, although like for everyone, the adjustment to the ten-team setup took some time.
Hibs’ season was a curious one - they were challenging for the title for long periods but every period of sustained success was punctured by a bad result here or there, and eventually they finished third almost by default, their early good form allowing them to survive losing half of their final 12 games, including the deflating final day reverse to a flailing Aberdeen side.
The abandoned game at Celtic Park, when fog descended with Hibs leading 2-1 and only six minutes to go might not have materially affected the final positions, but would have seen them top of the table at a time when their closest rivals had not yet found their feet, and might have allowed them to push on. Additionally, not everyone in the squad seemed to be pulling in the same direction - Joe Harper began the season under a cloud following some pre-season nonsense about not being allowed to grow a beard, and ended it back at Aberdeen instead of hunting down the top scorer prize.
Chairman Tom Hart also had a remarkable moment in the spotlight, lashing out at the other teams in the top three. calling them cowards for having the temerity to have some players catch a flu bug, and tearing into one of his own players about his disciplinary record. None of this can have helped a team who also crashed out of the League Cup to Montrose, and lost a mammoth Scottish Cup quarter-final to Motherwell.
A player of the season is hard to pick out - no one player shone, so I’m going with Mr. Reliable, Arthur Duncan, who combined regularly popping up with important goals with a couple of Scotland caps.
4. Motherwell
From almost the first week of the new league structure, journalists across Scotland were proclaiming Willie McLean’s side the dark horses for the league title. Defensively solid, they had Scotland’s leading goalscorer in Willie Pettigrew, and seemed to be flying under the radar towards a title despite everyone in the press pointing at them and exclaiming “look! Motherwell are flying under the radar!”
In truth, their season was solid rather than spectacular; they had their moments of great excitement, particularly in the first half of the season, but they did fall away towards the end, and in truth their away form was not a patch on how they played at Fir Park, and ultimately left them in no man’s land - neither challenging strongly for European places nor caught up in the mad scramble to avoid the drop.
Three defeats from their four league games against Hibs was the difference between the two sides in the end; turning one of those defeats into a win would have seen Motherwell finish third. Some consolation, of course, came from their victory over their Edinburgh rivals at the third time of asking in the Scottish Cup quarter-final second replay.
The Cup run was the highlight of Motherwell’s season, with the titanic victory over Hibs probably slightly eclipsed by their recovery from 2-0 down to beat Celtic in the third round. At that point, anything seemed possible for the Steelmen, but in hindsight, that was the high-water mark of the season, with the semi-final defeat by Rangers the last meaningful game.
Player of the season was, of course, Willie Pettigrew, who just kept scoring amid all the interest from West German and English clubs to end the season the top scorer in the league. Pettigrew is still only 22, and has the world at his feet - Motherwell will no doubt face a struggle to hold on to him in the summer.
If there’s one thing we can rely on in these troubled times, it’s that our elected representatives will discuss and debate the issues of the day with dignity and decorum.. no, wait:
In another of those incidents which I can clearly remember, but had no grasp of the details, I have been eagerly devouring the contemporary reports to try to piece all of this together.
As far as I can tell, it went like this: the Labour government put forward a bill to nationalise the shipbuilding and aircraft manufacturing industries, but with no majority in the Commons, there was no certainty of it passing. On the first attempt at a vote, there was a dead heat - 303 votes for, and 303 against. Amid rumblings of unrest, the vote was called again, and the Government prevailed by 304-303.
This caused uproar on all sides, with the more left-leaning parts of the Labour benches erupting into a rendition of ‘The Red Flag’ while the opposition members threatened them with, and in a couple of cases, actually attempted, physical violence.
Amid the chaos, the little-known shadow industry spokesman, Michael Heseltine, grabbed the ceremonial mace and began waving it around, although he later claimed he was just trying to be helpful:
The session dissolved into rancour and much yelling, with SNP members ripping up telegrams, claims that ‘semi-drunken Tories’ were preventing the Leader of the House, Michael Foot, from speaking, and - at least according to the Press & Journal report - ‘Hitler salutes’.
Once the dust had settled, the vote stood as no-one could prove that there had been any ‘cheating’ or ‘magic’ involved; both allegations made with apparent seriousness. It eventually turned out that the discrepancy was the result of some procedural misunderstandings to do with the ‘pairing’ system, but the whole thing served to prove just how precarious the government position was - the Prime Minister was again said to be ready to trigger an autumn General Election, which we’re all keenly looking forward to.
As if to emphasise the dangers of such unruly behaviour influencing the public, the Sunday Post has a story headlined:
Anyone expecting tales of wild drug-taking or smashing up hotel rooms will have been mildly disappointed:
And what heinous crime had they committed?
The whole country’s going to rack and ruin, I tell you.
More chaos and rioting - probably - next Saturday.
Of whom only 37 were eligible to vote, Meadowbank Thistle having no say as the newest member. I don’t know how long this state of affairs will continue - presumably they have to prove themselves likely to continue as a going concern for a period of time.
I’m keeping an eye on this, following the passage of the Sex Discrimination Act. Girls were allowed to go to games as well, even in the seventies.