CUP HEROES FACING FIGHT OF THEIR LIVES

GRETNA- what more can be said? Almost every superlative has been used about the nicotine millionaire, the goalscoring doctor and their eccentric journey to Hampden.

No one in love with football could resist the radiance Gretna have brought to the game. But that was the romance of the cup and the First Division is a much more grisly affair.

I 've said this before to the frustration of the league's managers but the First Division is like Alcatraz, a place you enter at your peril and one you will not easily escape.

It is frequently the most competitive league in Scotland and always the most difficult to call.

Gretna will begin as the punter's favourite. That will be their first hurdle. On their way to the Scottish Cup Final they disposed of Clyde and St Johnstone. If that was translated into league form, they would win the league comfortably. But the same fake logic puts Clyde in the Champions League, showboating over Celtic.

Others believe the big-spenders will simply throw money at the First Division. But money is not quite as simply thrown as people imagine. The higher you move in league football the greater the competitive risk.

A team that can win the First Division is different to a team that can go on a romantic cup run.That is why Rowan Alexander has already begun to dismantle his cup-final team.

So, in fact, Gretna are not building a team to win the First, they are re-building one, and that is a riskier challenge. Even the greatest clubs, with bigger resources, struggle to rebuild, even Scotland's greatest club side, the Lisbon Lions, proved a nightmare to re-fashion.

Nor has anyone asked what Gretna's cup-final stars will do now? Retire to the country and polish their loser's medal?

No. It's more likely they will sign for other First Division clubs, where they will hover around to haunt Gretna in the months and years to come.

And where will a dream team that can win the First actually come from? The answer is a mixture of fading SPL players, and the cream of the First, lured to Gretna for money and maybe a sojourn in Europe.

The SPL players that can be readily targeted are unlikely to be at the business-end of the market. More likely it will be those about to be freed by Falkirk, Livi, Dunfermline and Dundee United. This will hardly send a shiver of fear through the hardened cynics of the First Division.

With a cup - final hangover and the charming distraction of Europe to contend with, Gretna now has to face the internecine rivalry of a league that does not easily forgive.

Almost every player in the division has played for another team, been tapped by another team, or been sent-off for injuring a player that is either their teammate or their rival. Grudges and agendas run so deep you can barely translate them for outsiders.

Airdrie hate St Johnstone because they think Owen Coyle is poaching their best players. But they hate local rivals Hamilton even more.

Clyde can't stand Hamilton either, because they once stole their manager, Billy Reid. But hating Hamilton is small beer to Clyde fans, now that Partick are back.

Shopkeepers in Shawfield say that sales in voodoo dolls are already through the roof.

This is the festering world into which the Gretna dream has now been poured.A team with a tiny fan base and a big reputation are about to enter the most competitive, thankless and grudging division imaginable.

Worse still they enter the fray as that most despised of species - "media darlings".

The Galatasaray fans once coined the phrase but it was Gretna they had in mind - "Welcome to Hell".

Taken from the Daily Record