Last week brought the quite stunning news that Bonnyrigg Rose had been deducted six points during the midst of their League Two campaign.

Calum Elliot’s boys became the second team to suffer such a setback in the SPFL season after Inverness Caledonian Thistle, but while the Highlanders were handed down the standard 15-point penalty for financial mismanagement that led them into administration, Bonnyrigg were sanctioned for something altogether more benign. It was due to their pitch being uneven and having a slope that rode up towards one of the corners.

It’s now the second time the league has intervened on sporting matters after denying Buckie Thistle the chance to contest the SPFL play-off semi-final against East Kilbride at the end of last season. It comes amidst new demands that every single SPFL club must meet bronze licensing criteria, whereas before an entry-level licence was all that was required.

It all feels a bit ridiculous for Scottish football. Sure there must be certain standards clubs have to meet for playing in the SPFL as opposed to the Lowland League or Highland League, but we can’t set them so high that it makes attainment difficult for clubs like Bonnyrigg coming up through the system. 

The Rosey Posey had been different to promotion-through-the-pyramid predecessors Cove Rangers and Kelty Hearts in that they didn’t appear to be spending in excess for a club their size in which to do so. Sure, they had ambition, but they were backed by bumper crowds as the local community bought into the idea of having a team in their doorstep in the big leagues. And unlike Edinburgh City and Spartans, their recruitment drives were fairly modest once they came up. They were supposed to be what opening up the pyramid was all about; for clubs to organically move up and down the funnel and not just smash their way in through significant, and potentially unsustainable, spending.

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The pitch at New Dundas Park has been a part of their identity since they won promotion. If it wasn’t the slope being commented on then it was the rest of the field, which wasn’t exactly known for being conducive to passing football, with many dents and bobbles littered throughout. But while it may have drawn the ire of opposing fans, players and managers, it was still a surface which passed inspection from the officials on a weekly basis. 

We only have to look back to last season to find a club in the top-flight who couldn’t fulfill their fixtures at a time when everybody else was participating on a Saturday, but Dundee were hit with no points deduction. The new bronze standard hadn’t taken effect by that point, but it still feels unlikely that someone from the top division would be hammered in such a ruthless manner were it to happen again in the near future, nor should they (within reason).

There’s also the example of Clyde, who are a nomadic club playing without a permanent home. Is that better for the SPFL than a club who own their ground but have a quirk in their pitch? And what about Queen’s Park? They did such a bad job of building their new City Stadium home from scratch that they routinely switch back to Hampden Park because they cannot accomodate anywhere near enough away supporters for the second-tier level. How is that set-up deserving of a bronze licence more than a slopey pitch?

I know the standard argument here: Bonnyrigg’s quirk gives them an unfair sporting advantage because they’re used to playing on it while their opponents are not. But if that were the case then they’d surely have a much superior home record than away, right? They don’t, not significantly so anyway. In fact, in their first season after promotion to League Two they picked up more points on their travels than they did at Midlothian. It could also be argued that they were gain a bigger long-term sporting advantage — over any grass-pitch opponents — if forced into installing an artificial surface because it would allow them to train on their pitch as well as play.

It just feels like we’re moving further and further towards a homogenised set-up where idiosyncrasies of individual clubs are driven into extinction. And for what real purpose? To continue chasing the dream of having a product that we can compare to the English leagues? It’s never going to happen!

This mindset is why we have a discount VAR system that is barely fit for purpose and daft league names which make little to no sense. We strive to replicate the success of down south at a time when more and more football supporters are getting fed up of the plastic nature of the English top-flight and football, in general, at the highest level.

The SPFL is allowed to be a little tinpot, especially at the fourth-tier level. Every single club operates on a part-time basis and, other than special exceptions like Rangers in their 2012/13 season, this is the case each and every campaign. Crowds are often around the 400 mark, the quality on offer is light years away from what you’ll see on your Sky Sports subscription every weekend, and pitches will either be plastic or bobbly. The purpose is the sense of community, the sense of belonging to someone with neighbours and like-minded people. It’s about enjoying football in its purest form. Like we did when we were younger, falling in love with the sport as we kicked a ball around a bumpy park, trying our best to navigate the slope.