Charlton Athletic Online

First Alan Curbishley was linked with a managerial move to Hearts; then almost immediately the papers (and other bloggers) told of Glasgow Rangers declaring their interest in Curbs on the back of their disappointing start to the season. Yesterday, Gordon Strachan, Glasgow Celtic manager said that the Premiership would be a better place if both Glasgow giants were admitted to the top league in England, though what this would do to the remaining Scottish teams wasn't mentioned. Yes, it's started to get boring in Scotland, so they start to look south for entertainment.

Pedro45 has a view on the Celtic/Rangers in the Premiership debate: If they want to join our leagues, they are welcome. But like any other club, they should start in a league where they can gain entry as did Aldershot, AFC Wimbledon and the like, and work their way up the pyramid ladder. At present, the Premiership is blocked to them both, so why not start lower down? If you think about it, they could put fairly junior or reserve teams in to the leagues every year until they get near the Conference, when they may be forced into playing more experienced teams. The journey into the Football League, and inextricably toward the Premeirship would be harder, and all told, would take about ten years from admission (depending where they start) I reckon. But you have to remember that these wishes to join England's elite started about ten years ago! If they had had the foresight then, they could both be getting very excited about it now!

Of course, it will never happen; we have a European Super League now (called the Champions League) and all the "best" teams play in that year after year. Do Celtic and Rangers fall into the best sides in Europe category? No. They may both get large crowds every home match, and have a great away following, but neither have enough money from TV rights to challenge regularly. The reason the TV money isn't there is because it has been boring watching Rangers and Celtic dominate Scottish football for the last fifty years or so (apologies to Aberdeen, Hearts, Hibs, Dundee United, Kilmarnock, Morton and Motherwell who have all had their moments in that period) while continuing to overdo the religious bigotry.

Every season we get the same pleading from North of the border, but both clubs should concentrate on their own league, then do well in European competition, and if they could be successful, they would be playing Arsenal and Ajax, Bolton and Barcelona, Manchester United and Milan, plus all the other European footballing elite every couple of weeks.