Take a bow!

Tomorrow, there will be an exodus of as many as 6000 fans from Dundee as Tangerines head north and Dark Blues southeast for the final games of the SPL season.

That these punters are heading off, not to see their teams chase glory, but fight for their survival in the top flight is a crying shame.

Regular readers of the words in this space may, on the odd occasion, have detected a less-than-congenial attitude towards supporters.

Unlike politics, in journalism there is no golden rule about turning your wrath on the electorate, so to speak.

And, let’s be fair, lads and lasses, sometimes you are a pain in the backside.

Too often, your expectations of your teams are unrealistic. Too often, the demands you place on individual players are unfair.

Putting it bluntly, try as they do, the guys turning out for your teams each week are no Zinedine Zidanes or David Beckhams. If they were, they’d be playing at the Bernabeu, not Tannadice and Dens.

And, despite your frequent protestations to the contrary, we in the Press have no hidden agenda. We don’t revel in bad news — well, most of us don’t.

For this writer, a perfect weekend is Dundee United winning and Dundee winning, except when they play each other and a high-scoring draw will do nicely. Honest!

Spleen vented, I’ll get back to the intended point, namely what the fans of the City of Discovery clubs deserve tomorrow — victories.

Once the dust has settled in Inverness and Livingston, if there is one group who can put hand on heart and honestly say they did all they could during this campaign, then it is the fans.

Historically, east-coast supporters have been regarded as less vociferous and often more critical than their west-coast counterparts.

During recent difficult games, United and Dundee fans have exploded that theory. Despite, at times, having to endure awful performances, they have stayed right behind the players and done their bit. No-one deserves away wins at Caley Stadium and Almondvale more than these people.

Trying not to be parochial for a moment — if there is a football god, there can be no doubt who is going down to the First Division.

While the backing they’ve received has proved without question that, in terms of size, United, Dundee and Dunfermline, for that matter, are all top-flight clubs, all Livi’s has done has shown that, in terms of Scottish football as a whole, the West Lothian club have very little to offer.

The Pars took nearly 3000 fans to Tannadice on Sunday, Dundee not much less when they went to East End Park eight days earlier. Thousands from the City of Discovery will be hitting the road tomorrow.

That means valuable cash income for other clubs, but what do you get when Livi visit — zilch.

In their big game at Tannadice immediately after the split, free buses were provided to take fans from West Lothian to Tayside. That resulted in a doubling of their normal away support — from 250 to 500. That’s barely enough to justify opening a pie stand for them.

However much money is backing Livi from the boardroom, in terms of fan power that makes them a Second Division club.

There are a lot of nice people at Almondvale and I wish them no offence, but, if I don’t see them again, I won’t be sorry.

PREDICTIONS — ICT v. Dundee United — DRAW; Killie v. Dunfermline — HOME; Livi v. Dundee — HOME; Aberdeen v. Hearts — HOME; Hibs v. Rangers — AWAY; Motherwell v. Celtic — AWAY.