FORMER Dunfermline Athletic captain Scott Thomson has joined a new team to launch an online Scottish Football Channel.

Together with former pop star and sports broadcaster Ally Begg, the goal is to promote the beautiful game north of the border to a worldwide audience.

Working with Scott's media production company, MBP, they're focusing on all 42 league clubs and want to go behind the scenes and find the stories that fans want to hear.

A subscription to SFC will cost £2 a month – "less than the price of a cup of coffee" – and the 51-year-old told the Press: "Rangers and Celtic get a lot of the coverage, the Premiership teams too, but the rest of the teams no-one really hears about.

"Take the game last Tuesday night, Dunfermline and Falkirk, the best part of 10,000 fans there.

"It reminded me of games I played in at East End Park against Celtic, Rangers, Aberdeen, Hearts and Hibs, huge crowds. It was a brilliant atmosphere and yet they barely get a mention.

"We will still cover the top teams, as they're really important to Scottish football, but so are clubs like Stirling Albion, Stenhousemuir and Stranraer. We'll feature all of them.

"It could be the CEO or the volunteer that heats up the sausage rolls, we want to make it positive and fun and hear their great stories."

Scott, who made more than 320 appearances for Dunfermline between 1998 and 2009, continued: "I've had the idea for a while.

"Ally and I spoke about it ages ago, and looked at how we could make it work.

"I've got my own media production company and we felt this was something we could do to fill a gap in the market and help and improve Scottish football.

"That's what it's all about, to show the game in a better light."

The channel, due to launch next week, has sponsorship and backing from Saltire Energy, with the hope that in time it will take off and pay for itself through subscriptions.

They've already filmed a bank of interviews, with insights from Peterhead boss David Robertson, Paul Hartley at Cove Rangers and Greig McDonald at East Fife, and a look at the game with renowned sports journalists such as Bill Leckie and Stephen McGowan.

There's plenty of content with a Pars flavour too, with Athletic chief executive David Cook discussing the challenges of running a football club in League One, striker Nikolay Todorov and his footballing family, homegrown hero Matty Todd, coaching the kids with Greg Shields, the young stars coming through and behind the scenes with Mo Hutton.

Scott said: "I could sit and listen to Mo's stories for hours, although we did have to use the bleep machine about 45 times when we were speaking to him!

"No, he was great, but every single club has characters like that.

"I'm in the Dunfermline Athletic former players association and when I go to the games I love listening to people like Roy Barry and Bert Paton, I'm good friends with Dick and Ian Campbell too, their stories are absolutely brilliant.

"We're speaking to current players and managers, we'll ask the fans about who they want to hear from, the former players and heroes of their club, and also the staff who are there on a day-to-day basis, like the hospitality team, groundsman, physio and volunteers.

"A lot of these people go unnoticed, but they are the ones that really make a football club click.

"It gives us a chance to interview them, let people know who they are and what they do."

Ally, an Aberdeen fan who Scott has known for years, was in the boy band Bad Boys Inc from 1993 to 1995 before carving out a career in football as a presenter and producer.

He worked for Man United's in-house TV station, MUTV, before moving on to Setanta Sports, ESPN and beIN Sports, and is the channel's interim presenter until the time he can concentrate more on the production side and help develop young, upcoming talent.

Ally said: “We have big plans, and this is just the beginning, but over the next few months we will be filling gaps left by other platforms by producing, interesting, insightful and editorially strong content as well as bringing you in depth interviews with current stars and legends of the Scottish game."

Scott concluded: "To be fair all of the clubs we spoke to, when we said we were going to start this channel and asked what they thought, have given us their backing, invited us in and said we can speak to their players and staff.

"If we get it right there's no reason why it can't be successful and help Scottish football to really move forward."

You can find out more via their You Tube channel https://www.youtube.com/@official_s.f.c and the website https://www.patreon.com/ScottishFootballChannel