Sir Kenny Dalglish: Decide all football issues out on the pitch, not in court

You would need to be very hard-hearted not to be delighted for Hearts and Partick Thistle winning their respective leagues this season.

Considering what happened to them last year, they both deserved a break.

The Jambos were relegated from the Premiership into the Championship, and the Jags were put down to League One – both on the back of a vote.

They felt that was grossly unfair as they still had games to play.

Both clubs absolutely had a point, and it ended up going to court to be settled.

My view has always been that things involving football are better being sorted out on the pitch, rather than in an office, or in front of a judge.

Thankfully, it was all settled on the park this season.

And what better way for any club to answer people they had bad feeling towards for what happened to them than by being successful?

My congratulations to Robbie Nielson for leading Hearts to their title. He is a good young manager, and has represented his football club very well in the past nine months.

Great credit is also due to Ian McCall at Thistle. He has been in management for more than 20 years, and I’m sure the past 15 months have been his most challenging.

The Firhill club made an impressive late run to wrap up League One, ahead of Cove Rangers and Falkirk.

My hope is that in the days and weeks ahead, the focus from both clubs is on their achievements on the park.

I don’t want them referring back to the injustices of last season. It’s time for them to move on and have a positive focus.

It’s also about the people who work hard behind the scenes.

They would also have felt the disappointments of what happened 12 months ago when Covid struck, and it’s to their credit that they have all worked as a collective unit.

The focus is now on how all the other promotion and relegation issues shake out, and also what happens in the Pyramid play-off between Brora Rangers and Kelty Hearts.

Again, lawyers were involved in the past few weeks to decide whether or not we should have a League Two play-off system.

I’m glad the legal minds decided Scottish football should have one as the winners of the Highland and Lowland Leagues need to be given the opportunity to get into League Two.

Brechin City avoided a play-off last season – but they will not avoid it this time.

There is plenty on the line, and they will need to do their stuff on the park and not in a courtroom.

The managers and players will now get down to focusing on trying to win important games of football in the next few weeks. That’s where they are most comfortable, and that’s what they understand.

They are not here to get involved in the legalities of it all. They will rightly leave that to others.

I will be keeping an eye on how it all unfolds in the all of the leagues, as there are many good play-off ties to come.

I’m also delighted to see Scottish football getting moving again at grassroots and amateur level.

The boys and girls are back into it, and this month will see them resume playing football games again. It’s long overdue.

Many of them will have recently started back training again, having not seen one another for several months.

There will be a number of them who have taken a stretch and may well be unrecognisable!

The coaches and volunteers will also be excited and eager to get underway.

My view is that we must never underestimate the importance of grassroots football. We must never take it for granted.

The bottom line is that if there are no grassroots games, there will be no professional football.

I just hope that all the young footballers get back into a rhythm, and get up to speed as quickly as possible.

They have all missed the best part of a year, if not longer, and we need to make sure we still have young footballers coming through.