Reconstruction became one of the major talking points in Scottish football in the last year.
But having been involved in the fruitless attempt to change the structure of the Scottish league set-up Highland League secretary Rod Houston admits he became disillusioned with the whole process.
It’s a year since the coronavirus pandemic led to the shutdown of football.
The Highland League moved swiftly last March to declare Brora Rangers champions and end the 2019-20 season. The following month the SPFL and the Lowland League declared their campaigns over.
However, with last season being ended before all fixtures had been fulfilled the SPFL set-up a 15-person reconstruction panel which was tasked with producing a rejig proposal to ensure no club was unfairly punished as a result of the campaign being cut short in exceptional circumstances.
With Highland League champions Brora and Lowland League counterparts Kelty Hearts missing out on a crack at the pyramid play-offs Houston was put forward as the Highland League representative on the panel.
The process, however, was far from straightforward and the panel was eventually disbanded before a final proposal had been put forward for SPFL clubs to vote on.
Hearts chair Ann Budge – who was co-chair of the taskforce – did later put forward a reconstruction plan which was rejected by the SPFL clubs, which meant Brora’s hopes of promotion went up in smoke.
As part of the reconstruction panel Houston was disappointed with how things panned out.
Reflecting on the challenges of the last year, he said: “George Fraser from the Lowland League, and I, were the people from tier five on the reconstruction panel.
“On all these things the Lowland League and the Highland League have worked very closely.
“We won’t agree on everything all the time, but we do know when togetherness is necessary and it was on that occasion.
“I found myself quite disillusioned by that process. There were a lot of very able people on it and a lot of well-intentioned people.
“But it was overwhelmingly dominated by two things which caused a sense of disillusionment.
“One was an apparent inability for a lot of people to look beyond their club scarf and I felt the whole scenario was much bigger than a single club’s interests.
“And it was bedevilled by figures from outwith the working group making statements in public which key figures within the working group then felt they had to respond to.
“The business of the working group was being compromised and in actual fact we never got a final proposal because of the extent of the impact of those two factors.
“By late May I was very disillusioned and it took a long weekend of quiet contemplation and walking the dog to keep going because it was very disappointing.”
