A glance at the leagues will show Cowdenbeath FC propping up the whole of Scottish football but the venerable club faces much more than a mere fight against relegation.
The Blue Brazil are in a battle for their very survival with a risk the club that has been at the heart of a community since the early 1880s could soon be consigned to history.
I’m not a Cowden supporter but I covered games at Central Park for many years and it’s a club for which I have a fondness.
The stock car track circling the pitch gives the old ground that certain je ne sais quoi, and visitors are instantly made to feel welcome. It was always the case everyone associated with the club took great pride in it, working to succeed within modest means, which makes it all the more heartbreaking to see them on the brink.
The reasons for the perilous state are numerous. It no longer benefits from a large support drawn from the mining community and now has the lowest average gate of all 42 Scottish senior clubs.
Talented young players have been developed but the previously-huge income from transfer fees has dried up and the SFA targets youth funding to bigger clubs. The once-lucrative income from ground rental is gone.
Banks, badly-burnt in recent years, are not exactly queuing up to lend to football clubs and directors can only be asked to dip their hands in their pockets so many times.
Fans are doing what they can but apathy could yet prove the killer.
Clubs like Cowdenbeath try every trick in the book to attract younger fans and retain them, but the sight of people walking down Cowdenbeath High Street in Celtic and Rangers tops tells its own story.
Busloads of supporters head out of Fife to Ibrox and Parkhead every week and it is easy to imagine what difference could be made if even a fraction went along to support their local team.
I’m not having a go at those fans — the product on and off the pitch is hugely important and people have a right to seek a higher standard.
But if Cowdenbeath are going to survive, they are going to need more than just the hardcore support to rally.
Posthumous expressions of sadness from the wider community will be useless if the turnstiles are finally closed for good.
