Nail Hit On Head, But, Will Someone Else Keep Hammering

ONCE UPON A TIME real journalists set the agenda on sporting topics. Back in the monochrome days of very little TV, with radio concentrating on simply reporting what was happening, the print media discussed sporting issues with a gravitas we rarely encounter in these dumbed-down days of the 21st century.

The major football writers were a power in the land. The Daily Express, back then a serious newspaper, with a circulation measured in millions – a far cry from today's ludicrous “comic” would almost wallpaper a town with billboards saying: “Desmond Hackett is here today.” Hackett, their lead football writer in the English edition, was, truth be told – a fairly-average writer, but, on reflection, he was probably a Jeremy Clarkson for the football pages – an animal our English neighbours seem inordinately fond of.

Up here, in the 1960s, their main football writer was John McKenzie – the Voice of Football. The USP here was the illusion that the Voice was best mates with the Old Firm and Scotland managers of the time, and thus had the inside track on what was going-on. I had my doubts about McKenzie, after, in the wake of a late collapse against Norway in Bergen, which saw Scotland collapse from 3-2 up with 14 minutes left, to lose 4-3.

His take on the game was that it had all been the fault of Denis Law, who scored all three Scotland goals. Truth to tell, with 12 minutes to play

, we lost skipper Davde Mackay to injury, then Baxter started pissing about, and, without Mackay to rein him in, we lost focus and the game.

Then, in 1973, after Ayr United were in the one game, kicked, then refereed out of a Scottish Cup semi-final against Rangers, McKenzie produced the ludicrous analysis that referee RH “Bobby” Davidson's “honest mistake,” when he blatantly and wrongly disallowed a superb Alex Ingram header, which would have given United the lead, had been: “From my seat, high in the Hampden press box, totally correct.”

McKenzie's seat was level with the 18-yard line at the “Celtic End” of the ground. “Dixie” Ingram ran between and past Derek Johnstone and John Greig to head Davie Wells' cross past Peter McCloy. Honest mistake my erse.

The Voice was silenced shortly afterwards; his untimely death seeing Gerry McNee promoted into his post as the new “Voice.” I have always liked old Gerry and got on well with him. Any journalist who can, in turn, be punched by both Graeme Souness and Billy McNeill, has to be doing his job without fear or favour. Of course, Gerry is a member of “the Celtic Family,” but, this never held him back from criticising “the Four Families.” He was perhaps the last front-line Scottish football writer to really “get tore intae” the “blazeratti.”

“Where's the doddery old fool going here?” I hear you ask. Well, the previous 460 word meander down Memory Lane is my long-winded way of saying, today's journalists don't have the time or space to fully-discuss crucial issues, the way McKenzie, McNee or their predecessors such as “Waverley” of the Daily Record, Rex Kingsley of the Sunday Mail, Cyril Horne or Ian Archer in the Glasgow Herald or John Rafferty in The Scotsman could.

Keith Wallace - did not miss in TOL

Today, if you want to bring an important point into public discussion, it is often better to get someone, not a journalist, with an insider's knowledge, to do a guest piece. This is something David Barnes in the excellent (TOL) The Offside Line, does very well. At the weekend, he got constant fly in the Murrayfield ointment, Keith Wallace, vice president of Haddington RFC, to pen a “long read” on the stare of governance within HQ.

It is a wonderful piece of work, coruscating in its criticism of “The Three Amigos” - TCD, J Cheever Loophole and “Stanley Holloway,” as I like to refer to CEO Dodson, General Counsel Howat and Gavin MacColl QC. (Stanley Holloway, because, apparently his nickname within the College of Advocates is: “The Dustman.”)

Keith Wallace's piece is required reading for everyone within Scottish Rugby, particularly the SRU Council members and the “Independent” members of the main SRU Board.

I have made this point repeatedly, and sad to say, it looks as if I am going to have to go on saying it. David Barnes in TOL has also said it frequently, and has had another trenchant Murrayfield critic, former international centre and lawyer David Johnston say it too.

The paid executives - TCD, MH33 (Chief Operating Officer Dominic McKay), J Cheever Loophole and Finance Director Andrew Healy are supposed to be the servants of the Union. They are supposed to be answerable to the Council, who are the guardians of the game, on behalf of the clubs. The impression abroad is – the four executives tell the Council to jump, and the Council doesn't even ask: “How high?” before jumping.

I have no objection to the hired help running the organisation's commercial arm, provided they do this under the overview of the Council. However, to again quote former President and Board Member, Ian McLauchlan:

"You have to let the rugby people get on with running the rugby side of things."

I cannot repeat this often enough. The impression, however, is that this is not happening. The SRU Board is twelve-strong. I have already identified the four paid executives – the hired help. There are also four supposedly “independent” board members, Lesley Thomson QC, Julia Bracewell (the new girl), David McMillan and Graeme Scott. Willie Gardner and Adam Gray are the two Council representatives on the Board, which is completed by Chairman Colin Grassie and President Dee Bradbury.

Bradbury, Gardner, Gray and Scott, who is Hon Secretary of Whitecraigs are seen as the representatives of the clubs – the main stakeholders. Rightly or wrongly, the clubs look to these four to uphold their interests and to be a bulwark against the machinations, perceived or otherwise, of the hired help.

Messrs Gardner and Gray, I know, put-in long hours and a hell of a lot of effort as Council members and representatives of the club game. If this was Chewin' the Fat, they would be identified as: “Good Guys.” Dee Bradbury, however, and it pains me to say this, has been a let-down. She has been largely anonymous within the club game during her first presidential year.

The feeling among clubmen to whom I have spoken is that she has to do better, to get round more clubs and be more-visible, and to listen to what the clubs are saying.

Chairman Grassie is another who has not endeared himself to the body of the kirk; he is seen as another who has TCD's hand up his arse working him. For the good of the game, the four club-centred Board members, plus a combination of the Chairman and at least two of the other three independent members need to form an alliance, to offset the apparent rampant self-interest of the hired help.

And, at the same time, the remaining Council members need to start representing their constituencies better, and helping to bring the hired help to heel – or, we're awe doomed.