Dunfermline finished 2nd bottom of the 1st Division in Scotland thanks to a points penalty, so they're in the playoffs with 2nd-4th from Divsion 2. 1st leg away from home, they lost 3-1 to Forfar. Today is the 2nd leg, Dunfermline 1-0 down (4-1 on aggregate) within 10 minutes. Since then Dunfermline have scored 3 goals to level the tie and send it to extra-time, and Forfar have had 3 players sent off.
Even more oddly, it's 3 of the starting back 4 that have been sent off. I didn't twig at first because I thought that with Campbell scoring and being sent off it was the midfielder, but they've got 2 Campbells. Dunfermline 4-1 (5-4agg) now.
6-1 FT, 7-4 on aggregate. Just found out that at 1-4 on aggregate Dunfermline missed a penalty as well.
So you can finish bottom and not get relegated? That's a cracking idea. They'll be banning promotion next.
No, you can finish 2nd bottom and not get relegated (in a 10 team division). Bottom of the league is relegated and is replaced by the winners of the league below. 2nd bottom of the league goes into playoffs with the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th placed teams in the division below. The winners of the playoffs go in the higher division, the other 3 in the lower division. It's the equivalent of dropping Leicester out of the Championship playoffs and replacing them with Wigan. Obviously down here the financial differences are so big it's not viable as Wigan would have a massive advantage over Championship sides due to the money they've had available, but in Scotland there's not that much difference.
They did that with the play-offs in England when they first started...the third from bottom team battled it out with 3 teams from the league below, but that idea didn't last long.
It's been the way in Scotland for as long as I remember. It's probably more acceptable to do it in a smaller league than a bigger one. With 20+ teams you'd say 3 was fair, well 1+1 in the playoffs is the equivalent in a 10 team league so long as the higher division side doesn't win a disproportionate amount. If it was a straight 2 up 2 down (even if 1 up was done by playoffs) you'd be changing 40% of the teams in each division each year.
