[St Charles Owl]

English League1 participation is more lucrative than playing in Scottish football Saint Charles Owl! Also re the OF fixture, you need to sit down and enlighten yourself re the true nature of this type of match - read some critical literature that covers the casualties of this poisonous fixture and the real venom and hatred that is attached to it and is beyond the boundaries of the sport of football - when football is used as a platform of sectarian hatred and rival hatred that is already well chronicled in book publications, then the sport is no longer a sport any more esp when certain people become fatal victims of this unacceptable behaviour and there have been a lot of victims down the years!

0762, I don't doubt what you are saying, the "passion" around this fixture goes well beyond the sporting aspect at times and I have been critical of both clubs for not doing enough to tackle this head on more vigorously.  But the sectarian aspect is also an aspect of life in Scotland, to a lesser degree than you see in NI for sure, but its always just under the surface and the recent independence campaign showed that side quite a lot.  For me living over here though I have the  luxury of just being able to focus on the sporting side of the fixture rather than the extracurricular activities that go along with it, but I am not blind to it either.

From a football perspective, this fixture is a true classic local derby and the games down the years have been both feisty and exciting in equal measure.  Whether you or anyone else likes it, and wrongly I admit ignoring the issues above, this is the fixture that has the potential to put Scottish football on the map outside of Scotland, just like the Barca-RM one does for Spanish football, a fixture also surrounded by social issues, and that in turn will give the authorities the ability to properly negotiate a much better TV deal, which in turn has to be to the benefit of all the top Scottish teams.