It might seem strange to some that the demise of Gretna, a so-called "fairytale club" from such a romantic spot on the Scottish map, should provoke such few tears, and certainly from this writer's eyes. Yet Gretna FC have proved to be a pesky, unruly irritant on the Scottish football scene, and I'm almost tempted to suggest that the sooner they are out of all our hair, the better.

Perhaps that is too harsh a judgement. We are, after all, talking about the livelihoods of footballers and the feelings of the club's supporters, few though the latter really are. In that sense Gretna's announcement yesterday that they were resigning from the Scottish Football League, on an inevitable road to being wound-up, is regrettable.

Sympathy, however, remains in short supply. Last season there was much disruption and embarrassment for the Scottish game, and much of it had Gretna bubbling away somewhere in the system as a recurring cause.

Motherwell's Fir Park pitch became a fiasco, partly because Gretna were playing there, having no facilities of their own. That, in turn, led to the end-of-season jam-up of fixtures, embroiling everyone, especially Rangers. Then the race to avoid relegation from the Clydesdale Bank Premier League became a non-event, because Gretna, docked 15 points for going into administration, became certainties to go down.

At one point last season there was chaos and embarrassment engulfing the Scottish game, and the name of Gretna was never far from the carnage. It is one reason why quite a few today are saying "good riddance" to the club for all the havoc it has caused.

Gretna FC playing in the Scottish Premier League was always a peculiar notion in the first place. A football club, first and foremost, is built upon a community and its tradition, its folklore, yet Gretna seemed phantom-like in this regard. The town itself has 4,000 occupants, yet an estimated 10,000 Gretna fans went to Hampden for the 2006 Scottish Cup final against Heart of Midlothian.

What kind of football club was this? It seemed to some of us that Gretna had become a grotesque distortion - an otherwise happy and contented village football team that, through the millions of Brooks Mileson, had become a caricature. As small as the club was, Gretna proved to have the stability of a house of cards.

Moreover, something mysterious remains about Mileson's sudden disengagement and Gretna's swift decline. Mileson may have meant well, but the relationship he had with Gretna was evidently no way to run a football club. No sooner did Mileson's illness take him away from Gretna than the whole structure of the club collapsed.

Gretna FC as a caricature of a football club is a hard conclusion to avoid. If the club had a support-base, a tradition and a folklore to tap into, prospective buyers would be sniffing around. As it is, though, cold outsiders look at this club and see nothing but a powder-puff concept.