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IT'S almost as if they don’t want fans to go to the football any more.

As if they’re an inconvenience. Or at the very least an afterthought. A marginally more effective way to provide atmosphere for TV than canned applause.

How else do you explain the disdain of a supposedly new organisation making the same old mistakes?

Two examples in recent days.

Inverness being told to travel to Edinburgh for a League Cup semi-final with Hearts on Sunday, February 2, with a 12.15 kick-off.

A time and venue when the first public transport available will get supporters there just in time for the final whistle.

A date when forcing them on to the roads will see Inverness fans have to journey down – then back up – the worst route in the country, mostly in the dark and at a time of year renowned in the Highlands as being the worst imaginable for extreme weather.

For a team sitting second in the Premiership, their support are being treated like second-class citizens.

The SPFL are humouring the Beeb by avoiding a clash with a rugby match instead of fighting for the right balance between their broadcast deal and their paying customers.

I wish Inverness’ Supporters Trust all the best in their fight to change it, but guarantee they’ll get hee-haw.

Then in midweek I got a call about members of two Falkirk supporters’ buses cancelling their trip to Dens Park yesterday.

The problem?

The home side ripping off the away support. No kids’ prices at one end of the ground, yet they’re

available at the other.

If I’m Dundee Dad and want to take my five-year-old, it’s £22. If I’m a Bairn with a bairn, it costs me £30 to see the same game.

You thought there were rules to combat that, right?

Wrong. According to the SPFL, the only stipulation is that the adult price – in this case £20 – is the same at both ends.

So instead of one of their member clubs opening their arms and embracing future generations of fans from across the country, they’re cutting off their nose to spite their face and have driven away £1500-worth of business.

It’s beyond idiocy.

Yet are we surprised?

Nah. They’re just two more manifestations of the deeper malaise in the game that tells you, as the paying customer, that you’re the last person on the face of the earth the authorities give a toss about

keeping happy.

I sat in an office with SPFL chief executive Neil Doncaster and secretary Iain Blair three months ago to discuss a column I’d written about the total and utter lack of marketing of a game they were supposed to be rescuing under the banner of a new brand.

So they asked what I’d do. And I told them.

And they sighed and shrugged and huffed and puffed. I was pushing at an open door with them, preaching to the choir, yadda yadda yadda ...

But eventually they said to every suggestion: “The clubs will never allow it.”

Anything centralised covering pricing, or kids’ access, or merchandising. No chance. Takes away their control. Which is what leads to situations like the one at Dundee.

Which, in turn, is what drives people AWAY from the game, not draws them to it.

You look at falling attendances and directors talk about “lapsed” fans, as if they’re only a relapse away from coming back.

Duh. Pay attention. They’ve gone. You’ve driven them away for any number of reasons. They’ve already filled the void.

So if you can’t get the last generation back, and you’re struggling to hold on to the current one, is it too much of an exercise in the bleedin’ obvious to tell clubs they need to be force-feeding the next one?

There is NO good reason why every club in this country shouldn’t allow primary-aged schoolkids in to games for nothing.

They ALL have the capacity to do it. Yes, even Celtic, even Rangers.

Some of the more forward thinking – like Hamilton, Partick Thistle, Stenhousemuir, Falkirk (yes, that’s right Dundee Dad, only £18 for you and the wean) to name a few – already do.

But it needs to happen across the leagues. Part of a wider strategy for Scottish football’s future wellbeing. And once they’re in?

Dad, can I get a hot dog? Mum, can I have a drink? Grandma, can you get me the new strip for my Christmas?

There’s no downside to introducing young fans to the environment then doing your damndest to keep them.

I could have taken my son to see Scotland play one of the top 15 countries in the world for a fiver on Friday night. The night before I could have taken him to see the cream of Under-21 talent for two quid in Paisley.

Yet it would have cost a tenner for 90 minutes between two bang-average Championship sides?

If I’m Doncaster, all I should be hearing are alarm bells under my flat-top.

But what are they doing about it?

When are the leadership having the conversation with their clubs about uniform pricing policies, about supporter engagement to make their experience easier, not impossible?

When are the non-execs on the board going to hold the vested interests to account for a fairer deal across the board? They’re not.

Last man out, turn off the floodlights, eh?