ONE of my favourite views in Scottish football has always been looking down the hill from Hampden to Cathkin Park.

If I close my eyes, I can still remember a cross coming over from the right and me, then a youngster at Clyde, making a dash to the front post.

The ball landed slightly behind me but I managed to stick out my right foot and back-heel a brilliant effort towards goal, flat-footing the keeper in the process.

It would have been the best goal I ever scored in my career. It hit the bloody post.

I can still smile at the memory but these days visions of Cathkin Park, its terraces long since overgrown with weeds, makes me want to weep for the future of Scottish football.

Third Lanark went to the wall almost 40 years ago but I fear other clubs will follow, including one in the city I've come to call home.

Dundee sacked manager Alan Kernaghan this week, a few days after Craig Brewster signalled the start of a new era at Dundee United by getting rid of some high earners.

There's an old saying that it's better late than never but I fear it's already too late for many clubs in the Scottish game, including my former rivals at Dens.

I'd love to invite everyone involved in our game to stand on that hill above Cathkin Park and think long and hard about the future of our game and where their clubs are going.

Everyone has an image of me as a dour-faced character and this article is hardly going to lead to somersaults in public perception.

Tommy Burns stuck his neck out a few years ago and said we're heading the way of the Irish League. I'll be happy if, in a few years' time, we're even as competitive as our Celtic cousins in the Emerald Isle.

The situation in Dundee this week has sharply underlined the financial crisis in our game and which I fear is going to get worse now that the Bank of Scotland, the biggest creditor in the game, has withdrawn support to the SPL.

In recent years, Scottish football has been heading down a road many believed offered riches and prosperity but which, in truth, has been a dead end of financial oblivion.

Hibs have been one of the few teams with the vision to perform a U-turn before disaster struck and deserve credit for the way the club have been managed.

I've always admired the way Celtic directors have run their club and some people still don't realise the significance of Gordon Strachan's achievements this season in leading his team to the title when the club are clearly in a period of downsizing. The root of the problems has been the appalling financial management of freedom of contract - too much money began to go out of the game at a time when transfer fees also collapsed.

In addition, clubs were forced to fund all-seater stadia when, really, Scottish clubs should have been allowed to keep standing areas at least behind both goals.

Unfortunately, I don't have the answers but club directors must stop digging holes and settle instead for building a base from which their clubs can grow again.

I fear too many clubs are already in too deep and with debts far outstripping assets, they are effectively at the mercy of the banks and operating bankrupt.

Supporters must also accept the situation and acknowledge that if they want to see top-quality players at their clubs they will have to pay three or four times the admission costs.

Of course, that is never going to happen so they've got to get realistic instead - and that beings me back to Kernaghan.

I was surprised he was given such a short period of time in charge but the fans were apparently getting restless and the directors decided to act. Honestly, the expectation of those supporters made his job almost impossible.

I believe it is too late for Dundee now and they will go to the wall eventually.

At best, they will soon be forced to go part-time and whatever they become will be a sad, shadow of a once-great club.

It's a statement I don't like making, not least because I know Jimmy and Peter Marr have been great financial supporters of the club and tried to do what they felt was best.

But I bet you they wish they had never become involved in senior football - and the same almost certainly applies to Eddie Thompson at Tannadice.

It's not too late for Dundee United but only because Eddie has the resources to keep the banks happy, although he has now recognised there must be changes in the way the club is run, hence the departures of players such as David Fernandez, Jim McIntyre and Paul Ritchie.

Eddie continually says he's a supporter of the club and I don't want to row with him but every director at every club is a fan of their team. There's an inference that others don't feel the same way as him but that's a lot of rubbish.

It's up to everyone involved in the game - fans, directors and chairmen - to realise that it's most important hard decisions are taken, rather than popular ones.

It's not just the future of many of our clubs at stake but the long-term standing of the Scottish game as well.

As told to Gary Ralston

Taken from the Daily Record