Celtic’s development side travel east tonight to face Raith Rovers in a match that is much more than just another pre-season work out.
While Stevie Frail’s side will enjoy the test of playing a Championship side five days before Raith start competitive action the match has a meaning that will stretch across the whole of Scottish football.
Before the kick-off the main stand at Starks Park will be renamed the Turnbull Hutton Stand in memory of the Raith director who stood tall during the summer of 2012 while those at the top table attempted the most outrageous stunt against everything that sport stands for. Club directors visiting Starks Park will sit in the Turnbull Hutton Stand.
The warnings from Hampden couldn’t be clearer as social unrest and Armageddon were predicted for a game without a club in blue from Ibrox doing whatever they pleased with no regard for those honestly putting team’s on the park every week while honouring the public purse and living within their means.
Conditional membership of the SFA was created for the club formed by Charles Green while clubs stayed silent allowing Stewart Regan and Neil Doncaster to take centre stage with their strange concept of rules, regulations and liquidations.
Supporters took to the internet to voice their disgust with Hutton rising to the task articulating the thoughts of fans across the country that a game geared towards accommodating whichever club is playing at Ibrox isn’t worth backing.
Speaking out on 30 June 2012 against attempts to broker an under the counter deal Hutton let the cat out the bag saying: “If we are at the stage of bending rules and accommodating, threatening and blackmailing, we want to give it up. There is a lot of pressure being applied on people.
“There’s been an abdication of duty from the SPL. Now the Scottish FA wade in and it’s being punted to the SFL to let them try and sort it out.
“And, to help it along, why don’t we blackmail and frighten them? It’s bizarre. If you don’t vote in favour we’ll set up an SPL2 and invite clubs in. If you vote against, you won’t get an invite. What sort of organisation is that?”
Hutton’s anger was followed by other Scottish Football League clubs going public that they wouldn’t be providing a Plan B for Sevco Scotland with a place in the top tier of the SFL.
Three days later he added: “It is not an SFL issue. We’ve been lumbered with this. There are rules we feel they should be followed. They [newco Rangers] should apply for the Third Division.
“[We are being] bullied, railroaded and lied to. We are being lied to by the Scottish FA and the SPL. We are being threatened and bullied. It is not football as I know it.
“It was a ridiculous document which came out last week whereby the threat was there that if you don’t vote for an acceptance into the First Division, a breakaway SPL2 will come along and those who didn’t vote wouldn’t be invited.
“What kind of game are we running here? It is corrupt.”
No action was taken by the SFA against Hutton’s comments, twelve months later the SPL was abandoned with no other club being put into liquidation since Rangers in 2012.
Tonight’s match kicks off at 7.45, fans unable to attend can CLICK HERE to listen to live commentary or pay £5 to watch the game live.
Shame a certain club still gets favourable treatment after being shown up for what they and their supporters really are …..Scotland’s Shame.
The man had the guts to speak out and show how corrupt, the powers that run our game really are towards their clubs from Govan.
RIP.
On Raith tv it says you have to pay to listen to the audio by buying a season pass??
Where is the audio??
A great man
Scottish football needs more people with the guts and morality shown by Turnbull Hutton he refused to be bullied.
Turnbull Hutton was quite simply the most honourable man in football.
He deserves the utmost praise for his dignity, bravery and honesty.
He could not be challenged by the game’s ruling moral cowards, because his statements were accurate and truthful. Challenging him would have brought the truth further into the open.
May he rest rest in peace. A great man, who was a breath of fresh air and someone to look up to.
I am so pleased that my club are helping to honour him.
Great comments by all. TH a pinnacle of football honesty and dignity. Gone but never forgotten. RIP.
Mr Turnbull Hutton was a great man who stood up against the corruption in Scottish Football, and told it like it was with honesty and integrity. It is men like him we need to run the game.
He will be remembered always, RIP.
Why doesn’t someone send all the information in Turnbull’s statements to UEFA for investigation,and ask the police for all the relevant information to be obtained under warrant,of the SFA’s handling of the sevco case.
He showed the SFA up for what they are cowardly incompetent cheats.