The SRU AGM - A Very Dispiriting Experience

MOST OF US, when we sign-up to join HM Press Corps, particularly if we are accepted into that elite group the Tartan Army Apologists Regiment, sign our names in blood, because we love football or rugby, or in extremely-rare cases both equally.

Sure, we enjoy the perks, allowing the likes of Gordon Strachan to patronise us, Gregor Townsend to treat our sometimes inane questions as worthy of honest answers and, of course, TCD to demonstrate his total mastery of the principles of mushroom management – as he shuts us away in a dark cupboard and occasionally throws shite at us. Aye, we love it.

TCD - an ego the size of Jupiter and a hide like a rhinocerous

Our beloved Great Leader has an ego so large and a hide so thick, he seems impervious to all our arrows, but, I for one will carry-on goading him, and enjoy it when he receives his comeuppance.

To carry-on as TCD does, accentuating the positives to the nth degree, while ignoring the negatives, such as the fact that costs are rising faster than income, smallish empires are being created within the overall corporate structure, and, beneath a good and talented full international squad, we don't have a lot of really-promising youngsters coming through – and serious concerns exist around the quality of coaching and management these boys and girls are receiving.

Any way, if the Mancunian Midas's Master Plan works, he will have so-impressed some of the Hedge Fund Heroes sniffing around rugby, they will offer him a job which ensures his continued place in the corporate nirvana of five star hotels and global air travel in First Class or corporate jets.

But, to get there, he needs willing worker ants to sustain the under-pinning of his empire. And, while there are one or two first-rate operators inside the BT Murrayfield Big Top, we also have quivers full of what the good guys in Scottish Rugby refer to as: “broken arrows.” These are SRU employees of whom it has been said: “They are useless, but, we cannot fire them.”

As regular readers will be aware, I am a non person as far as TCD and his faithful elves are concerned. Thus, I wasn't allowed anywhere near BT Murrayfield for Saturday's Nuremburg Ral.., whoops! Sorry, Annual General Meeting. But, I did have my spies in the room, who reported back:

“Well, they allowed some questions to be asked, but, didn't really answer them properly.

“Dee Bradbury has been coached to within an inch of her life on how to give non answers to questions. She earned her Stonewall Jackson badge for evasion and deflection.

Grassie was even-more slippery and Dodson said fuck all.”

In the build-up, TCD was faithfully reported by the MSM (Mainstream Scottish Media) equivalent of Pravda and Isvestia as being “Debt Free,” but, under questioning, Finance Director Andrew Healy admitted, with working capital facility, debentures and trade creditors – they are NOT debt free.

Then, straight after the meeting, TCD emerged from 14 months of purdah to speak to the written press, and immediately went back to pushing the debt free script.

Does he think our heads button up the back?

I have since spoken to one of the few rugby writers who hasn't been cowed and bullied into following the party line. I put it to him: “It reads like a case of: nothing to see here, everything is tickety-boo, please stand and don't forget to shout Seig Heil as TCD leave the hall.”

“Aye, that's pretty-much how it was,” was his response.

But, most disheartening of all was the comment from one club official who was at the meeting, who told me: “There is big stuff coming down the pike. My take is that the CVC stuff is agreed and they are just finessing the announcement.

“I expect Bill Gammell to propose radical change. Its all about the money and I expect the board will be released to do what they think best with this new cash. Will that go anywhere near clubs? Tepid comment from top table on this.

“I also expect the agm to be punted - to be fair the last two have been poor with the SRU completely on top of the bye laws to manage things.

“All in all a very dispiriting experience.”

I will admit, TCD and Chief Operating Officer LL-B have done well, in difficult times, on the commercial side – and yes, we need commercial success to keep the rugby side going. But, the underlying trends are not encouraging, and we live in interesting times.

I fear we are losing ground on the rugby side, and this concerns me greatly. I am sure it also concerns the ordinary club men too. A poor World Cup followed by a poor Six Nations, and we are in trouble.

Finally, it was obvious this morning, some of those journalists previously filed by BTM as “compliant and can be whipped to follow the party line,” were less than effusive in their praise of how TCD and the top table handled things on Saturday. The seeds of disquiet are growing.