The Offside Diaries – 9,4,16

I’ve just been watching the Fitba’ on the Telly – and I remembered a conversation I had with Callum a couple of weeks ago. We were discussing the Offside Law and how Shite it is. Callum said it was a throw back to it’s Victorian origins when everything had to have to have a Million Rules. We both decided, over an Assam or Two, that Fitba’ would be galvanised and enriched by the scrapping of this archaic and stifling rule. If you look back to the last Fitba’ season where a major change to the Offside rule was implemented, Ninety years ago, in the 1925/26 season, you’ll see that almost every team in the Six Leagues in Scotland and England scored a lot more goals than they did in the previous season. Huddersfield, Champions of England for the third time in a row, scored Twenty Three more goals – Bury, Fifth the previous season, scoring Fifty Four goals, got to Fourth place in 1926 and scored Eighty Five goals. Manchester City scored Eighty Nine goals and were relegated. In Scotland, Celtic were Champions, scoring Twenty One more goals than they did in their previous Fourth place finish. Also, in the 1925/26 Scottish League 2nd Division, Bathgate and Broxburn finished in the bottom Two places. The previous season, the pre offside change season, they were Sixteenth and Seventh, respectively. The new rule saw Bathgate score Two more goals but concede Thirty One more – Broxburn scored Fifty Five goals, Seven more than the previous season but conceded Seventy Six more goals, One Hundred and Twenty Six in total. I hated Offside – I was caught Offside more times than anybody else in the entire History of Fitba’ – probably in just One or Two matches. I couldn’t understand what it meant or what was it’s point – a totally ridiculous thing, F–k it.