The great myth of 2008
Ten years after the SPL bent over backwards to hand the title to Rangers (IL) Neil Alexander is bitter that the football authorities didn’t do more to send the 2008 SPL trophy to Ibrox!
The circumstances around the 2008 UEFA Cup Final have been distorted almost as much as the continuation lie that the gullible like to revel in.
While Alexander bleats to The Sun about end of season fixture congestion he has overlooked the ten day build up to the Champions League pumping by Lyon in December after the SPL postponed a match with Gretna to give Walter’s Warriors extra time to prepare.
At the same time Celtic drew 1-1 with Hearts at Tynecastle in the middle of playing Shakhtar Donetsk and AC Milan in a seven day spell.
With Rangers (IL) picking and choosing their fixtures the SPL EXTENDED the season to a Thursday night with the Ibrox Euro heroes playing bottom six St Mirren in their second last fixture with the Saints squad already in holiday mode.
“There aren’t many Scottish teams who get to a major final and we might not see it again so it was very disappointing. We had a great group of boys in the dressing room but it gave us a siege mentality.
“We played on the Saturday, then had the final, then we were back at Motherwell for a lunch-time kick-off.
“From there it was Monday night, Thursday night and then the Scottish Cup final on the Saturday — it was crazy. That cost us the league title.
“Zenit had games off to prepare for it and the fact we didn’t get that took away the chance for us to enjoy everything that went with making a final. For us it was just another game in a packed schedule.”
Since 2008 the SPL/SPFL season has never ended on a Thursday night.
Four years after appearing in the UEFA Cup Final with a squad rammed with ineligible players being paid through a tax scam Rangers were put into liquidation.