Bill Leckie - Fair or Foul?

Down-market

You may have noticed that Livingston FC and its supporters received more coverage than usual in the national press after our last home game against Dundee United.

With results not going our way, current team manager Richard Gough, and prospective club owner Pearse Flynn chose to convey a difference of opinion with regard to the direction of the team in the full glare of the country’s media. As titillating as this may have been to some journalists, most managed to stick to reporting on what was said by whom.

One, however, chose this turbulent time to put the boot into the Livingston support for daring to exercise their right as paying customers to criticise their manager – tabloid ‘columnist’ Bill Leckie.

Sections of the Livi support chanting ‘Taxi for Gough’ at the recent home game saw the judgemental Mr Leckie launch into an ill-informed diatribe at the club and its supporters, which left me with a sour taste in my mouth.

According to him as Livi supporters, we have no right to express our feelings when we feel the need arises, because there are not enough of us, and because our club isn’t old enough to have a history valid enough to qualify us to do so. From mocking the size of the Livi support to ridiculing the stadium, anything and everything Livi-related was deemed fair game.

Apparently everything about Livingston FC is ‘artificial’ with the main reason for this being that for all the money that Livi are supposed to have spent, they couldn’t buy supporters. I would hope not too!

People will decide in their own time if and when they want to follow their local team, and not be shamed into doing so by a journalist who writes for a downmarket English based tabloid. I can just imagine the bile that would spew from this ‘wordsmith’ if money could buy fans!

It’s a bit rich that Leckie, a St Mirren supporter, feels he has the right to comment on crowd sizes as he has probably not paid to get into a game in years. Amid a flurry of complimentary tickets and expense account receipts, I’d be surprised if he could even tell us how much it costs to watch top-level football these days.

And did you know that the last time his ‘team’ St. Mirren managed a season in the top flight of Scottish football, four years ago, they didn’t to fill their ground to capacity even once?

This is despite the fact St Mirren have well over 100 years’ history on their side and that Love Street is virtually on the doorstep of Glasgow giants, Rangers and Celtic. Over that season they managed to fill approx 53% of their seats for league games compared to Livi’s 65% for the three seasons between seasons 2001-02 and 2003-04.

Does he check his facts before he dusts down his lap-top? It would seem not – the words ‘pot’ and ‘kettle’ spring to mind.

In his anti-Livi diatribe, Leckie also offered Ross County and Inverness Caley Thistle as models for

YOUR OFF!

Scottish football clubs in the way they have forged links with the local community and increased their support from grass root level upwards.

Maybe he has a point with County, but it seems he has conveniently forgotten about the sizeable number of disenchanted Inverness Thistle fans who have been lost to football since the so-called merger with Caledonian saw their club’s identity squashed in a desperate attempt to secure league football in the North?

Anyway, the Caley Stadium attendance figures have never been what you could call ‘healthy’ and it’s amiss of Leckie to suggest otherwise.

Could it be that he has taken ‘freedom of the press’ too far and his ego has lost sight of ‘truthful and objective’ reporting? I think so.

And for that Mr Leckie, you’re out of order - if I had one, I’d show you the red card, and send you for an early shower.