It was good to finally get hold of Dundee chief John Nelms last week and hear his side of the voting shambles at the SPFL.
The Dens managing director said he isn’t keen on doing interviews unless there’s something to say – I’d argue from a Dundee fan’s point of view, there had been plenty to say since coronavirus shut the Dens doors.
Finally, though, we got down to it and Nelms was happy to sit and chat away about football and life in general while sipping away at an iced tea.
He was very relaxed and I think that came across in his quotes – relaxed anyway until the mention of the leaked WhatsApp messages that surrounded the vote.
At that point, there was a real anger in his eyes and it’s clear any dealings with Inverness chief Scot Gardiner – who read some of them out on live radio – in the near future will be frosty old affairs.
Overall, though, I thought Nelms came out of the interview very well – the reaction to the story has been very quiet from the west anyway.
Maybe his argument that the vote actually had nothing to do with Rangers complaints over Celtic potentially being handed a title rang true.
Or maybe nobody read it over there, I don’t know. But the heat over the voting U-turn at Dens seems to have cooled somewhat and I would see that as a good sign for the club.
It’s difficult to really get a feel for how Dundee fans have reacted, however.
Being stuck at home all week and only seeing what’s spouted on social media, it’s nothing like getting the feel for the supporters’ feelings at the stadium.
The good news for them is the Dark Blues seem to be in decent shape financially in such a testing time for football clubs.
The hope for Dundee is that means they can come out of the shutdown in a better place than a lot of other clubs and can build a team capable of winning the second tier.
We’ll have to wait and see what that looks like, however.
We seem to be in the downtime between lots of action getting the reconstruction talks started and then the final decisions being made.
https://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/fp/dundee-fc-john-nelms-lifts-lid-spfl-vote-u-turn/
I’d still be happy with the 14-10-10-10 idea floated early on but the 14-14-14 one has merits, too.
The key is finding the option that gives every one of the 42 SPFL clubs a benefit and that is far easier said than done.
I believe Nelms when he says that was his only intention during the voting rigmarole – as someone who’s only been in Scottish football the last seven years, maybe he can see better than the rest of us what isn’t working.
Whatever you believe, our game has a real chance to come out of this crisis in better shape than before.
Ryan Gauld just loved his time at Dundee United so much he had to go and copy them by getting promoted by committee!
Before any Arabs write in, that’s just a wee joke – United more than deserved their title for an exceptional season.
And I’m glad to say Gauld deserves a bit of success, too, after falling off the radar a little.
News from Portugal has arrived, however, and Gauld’s side Farense will be playing in the top flight next campaign.
The powers-that-be over there have decided, like here, to end the seasons in the lower leagues but keep the possibility for the top flight open.
With Farense second in the second tier, Gauld and his pals will be taking on Benfica, Porto and old side Sporting Lisbon next term.
For a player with the talent we could all see in tangerine, that’s certainly the level he should be testing himself at.
At 24, he’s the perfect age to really push on and realise his potential now.
Best of luck Ryan, be great to see you back at Tannadice sometime soon.
There will be some weird and wonderful suggestions over how football can restart amid the coronavirus pandemic.
And the English PFA’s Gordon Taylor saying they should play shorter halves was right up there. I’m no doctor but, once the players are out there competing, taking five or 10 minutes off the clock isn’t going to make a blind bit of difference.
Now, suggest stopping the clock when the ball goes out and cutting to 30 minutes a half and I’ll get behind that.
This delaying tactic from Rangers over their evidence of impropriety at the SPFL is doing my head in now.
If there really is something rotten there, they have a duty to everyone to say so. After all this it’ll have to be a bombshell.
This article originally appeared on the Evening Telegraph website. For more information, read about our new combined website.