Rangers: Newco or no go?

A liquidated Rangers start life again as a newco. The Rangers Football Club.

Rangers are no more.

Not quite, of course. The football team - its home and its training facilities if not its players - has a new owner in a new corporate structure.

For now ownership lies with a consortium led by Charles Green. Tomorrow, next week, next month it might be a consortium led by Walter Smith.

Even after liquidation Rangers are haunted by uncertainty and tussled over by businessmen to the bewilderment of the ordinary fan.

But a new Rangers have indeed risen from the liquidated shell of the old company.

Where do they go now?

The decision that most SPL chairmen didn't want to make now lies with them.

Yes to the Rangers newco?

No to the Rangers newco?

It makes me worry about the business acumen available to Scottish football if it is indeed true that representatives of the other 11 clubs sat round a table and allowed themselves to be persuaded that Rangers didn't face the prospect of liquidation.

I suspect, however, it's far easier to convince an audience if they already want to believe what you're saying.

And how the SPL chairmen must have hoped that they didn’t have to make this choice.

Vote "yes" to a newco and stick with the comfort of familiarity.

Maybe the odd sanction to give an impression of resoluteness - or hope that the SFA do that for you - and then carry on as before.

Or vote "no" and take a step into the unknown.

When Rangers first went into administration I wrote that what is a simple moral decision for fans wouldn't necessarily be reflected by directors facing more complex debates about what their choice would mean for their own clubs.

That remains the case.

Fans have been vocal and overwhelming in their opposition to Rangers being allowed entry to the league.

Supporters are often out of step with their chairmen and directors. No SPL club is yet run as a democracy, these are not elected officials and more often than not what they feel is best for us and our clubs doesn't chime with the wishes of large sections of their "customer base."

But the strength of opinion here is perhaps unprecedented across the clubs. Can the men who will ultimately make the decision afford to ignore that?

Ramifications for the TV deal and other potential losses of income will influence their decision. The clubs themselves should be better acquainted with the consequences of refusing entry than anyone else.

And yes, protecting revenue streams is important. But the sheer scale of the financial folly at Rangers means that being seen to capitulate to a newco might have even graver consequences.

The idea of "sporting integrity" risks being cheapened by over use in recent weeks.

But if the other clubs are prepared to let Rangers back simply so they can chug along in the shadow of two dominant clubs, unable to stand on their own two feet, then the SPL can make no pretence at being a sporting entity anyway.

We've seen what greed and bad management can do to football clubs. Now should be a time to readjust.

I suspect that the scale of Rangers' wrongdoing, the lack of humility in the face of that wrongdoing, the "you'll die without us" attitude and the weight of public opinion is beginning to tip the balance against a newco.

I've also got a feeling that clubs struggling with their own finances won't buy the line that Rangers have been punished enough with a European ban, a ten point deduction and a period of emotional turmoil.

Fans of Rangers and fans of other clubs will always be at loggerheads on these issues but "we've been punished enough" is a bad argument to make.

It focuses attention on the litany of misdemeanours and leads the listener to the conclusion that contrition is unlikely to follow.

Rangers cocked-a-snook at corporate governance, stiffed their creditors and were gobbled up for pennies by a man who didn't see any problem in discussing transfer targets even as football debtors went unpaid.

It sends out a very dangerous message for the future of football governance in this country if a place is set for them and they are warmly welcomed back to the top table.

That is really not punishment enough.

The issue of football governance also means that the inquiry into alleged impropriety in player's contracts must be allowed to run its course.

The outcome of that investigation will tell us much about the health of the game in this country.

If a vote on the newco is taken before any findings are delivered then that vote will be compromised, a decision made without full possession of the facts.

Like everything else in this sorry saga the timescales are rushed, the details murky, the outcomes uncertain.

Should new Rangers be allowed into the SPL?

No.

Will new Rangers be allowed into the SPL?

Possibly.

A month ago I would have said they almost certainly would be. I think they still probably will be but it's no longer such a certainty.

The next few weeks are going to be messy, divisive and nasty.

Whatever the decision, for better or for worse, I suspect Scottish football will never be the same again.

The history issue

Does a newco retain the history of the oldco?

The findings of the current SPL investigation notwithstanding I find it unlikely that any directive is going to be issued from Hampden denying "new" Rangers the list of trophies won by "old" Rangers.

That won't stop fans of other clubs trying to deny fans of Rangers that history.

And it won't stop Rangers fans trying to deny fans of other clubs the right to deny them of that history.

A difficult one to be sure.

If you've watched Rangers at Ibrox for 20 years and plan to watch them at Ibrox for another 20 years I find it unlikely that you're going to consider 2012 a dividing line separating the achievements of the old and the new.

History in this case is surely subjective. Fans will bicker over this forever and a day but they'll only be bickering over a perception of whether this is "Year Zero" or not.

Your own perception might depend if you love Rangers or if you hate them. If you're stuck in the middle you'll probably just hear "blah, blah, blah."

I'm not sure the next time Hibs host Rangers I'll be thinking "Well, this is jolly nice, this is the first time we've met these boys in blue at Easter Road, I do hope we go on to forge a superior record to them in our head-to-head clashes."

I don't really think it works like that. Rivalry understandably inspires glee that Rangers' history will be wiped out. But it doesn't give anyone "control" of that history or someone else's interpretation of history.

(If the SFA were to offer guidance on this - and what could possibly go wrong if that august body starts wrestling with the philosophical issues involved in taking ownership of history - might I also suggest they bring in some governance on the issue of stars above badges which has, frankly, given over to anarchy in recent seasons.)

My own view?

If you ask me when Hibs were formed I'll say "6th August 1875."

I won't mention the period in the early 1890s when the club was forced into what we might call abeyance.

The timeline goes back to the beginning, skipping over the break.

The history of football clubs is a powerful thing and it has always been about more than decisions made in committee rooms, law courts or tax offices.

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Scotland's Greatest Players

If you've got a moment or two to spare might I point you in the direction of The Away End?

They're on the lookout for the 100 greatest Scottish league players of all time.

That is the best players - of all nationalities - to have graced league football in Scotland over the decades.

I love a good list so I'm intrigued to see what the results are. Often these polls favour the Old Firm and the modern era but surely we've had characters enough over the years to come up with a richly varied list.

I've already made my choices but I'm not sharing them yet, we can all do without accusations of trying to influence the vote.

Mind you, if the abundant talents and unsurpassed league achievements of Gordon Smith are not recognised then hell mend you all.

You can vote for your Scottish league XI until February 29th

And if you know your history...

So yesterday was a day without Wikipedia.

How did we all cope?

Maybe by using the various workarounds that let you bypass Wiki's self-imposed protest blackout. Or whiling away the hours following STV's #fitbawiki chat on Twitter.

Or you could have gone old school and picked up a book.

A book like Maurice Dougan's Hibernian History Handbook.

It's a real treasure trove of information for Hibs fans and those with an interest in the history of the Scottish game.

Maurice is a big Hibee - although not as "big" as his brother - so this has been something of a labour of love.

Well worth the effort though.

The full history of the club is covered, season by season, from the very beginning to the end of the 2010-11 season.

There's a list of all 1399 squad members from 1875 to 2011, a complete list of club honours and a rather fetching infographic detailing Hibs' European exploits.

There's also a list of managers and their records. I note with interest that John Collins has the highest win percentage since Alex McLeish whose own record was the highest since Eddie Turnbull.

None come close to "The Board" though. They enjoyed a 100% record in the three games between the departure of Bob Shankly and the arrival of Willie McFarlane in 1969.

Maybe that will inspire Rod Petrie. Think of the money it would save him.

The Hibernian History Handbook is available at a number of outlets across Edinburgh including the emporium of delights that is The Football Programme Shop on Albion Road.

Or you can buy it online

Forgotten Scotland Players: Henry Renny-Tailyour

Meandering through The Sunday Post (the scrapes that Oor Wullie finds himself in!) I spotted something in Brian Fowlie's TV review of Scotland's spectacular win in Liechtenstein:

"Craig Mackail-Smith's goal calmed things for a while, I'll swear the commentators paused to take a breath.

"I did wonder if the Brighton striker was the first player with a hyphenated name to score for Scotland. That information wasn't forthcoming."

I'd wondered the same thing myself. And now I can reveal all.

He's not. Double-barrelled Scotland caps are almost as old as the international game itself and they have always carried a goal threat.

They're not common. My trawl of the archives suggest Mackail-Smith is only the second Scotland player to greedily snaffle two surnames all to himself.

But his predecessor had a storied career.

March 1873. Scotland, representing the burgeoning Scottish Football Association for the first time, travelled to London to take part in football's second international football match.

After a 0-0 draw in Glasgow in 1872, England claimed the first cross border bragging rights with a 4-2 victory in London. The visitors could only afford to send eight players down south. The team was supplemented by three exiles.

One of those exiles scored Scotland's first ever international goal in the 25th minute of the match.

Henry Renny-Tailyour. Not an ordinary name for a Scotland player. Not an ordinary life for a Scotland player either. Before the days of tanner ba' players learning their craft playing football on the streets there were internationals like Henry.

Scottish footballers should be born in Scotland? Henry wasn't. He was born in India in those far off days when the sun never set on the British Empire.

He grew up in Montrose. Or near Montrose. I have to assume that the Renny-Tailyour's family estate amounted to slightly more than a typical Montrosian dwelling of the time.

From Montrose to Cheltenham College and then, as was the way for gentleman of the age, the British Army.

It was as a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers that Renny-Tailyour cut a dash through the early days of organised sport.

He had played for Scotland against England in 1871 but the match was scratched from official records because the Scottish team was drawn entirely from the London area.

In 1872, the year of his sole Scotland cap, he played for the Royal Engineers in the first ever FA Cup Final. They lost that game to The Wanderers and were foiled again in 1874 by Oxford University.

In 1875 the Royal Engineers finally got their hands on the trophy. Lieutenant Renny-Taylour scored in a 1-1 draw and then again in 3-0 replay win. That it was the Old Etonians that were beaten in the final will have made the experience that bit sweeter for the goalscoring Old Cheltonian.

Given his football commitments it's difficult to see how much time Henry had for engineering - royal, military or otherwise - but he progressed to the rank of colonel in the Sappers.

Amazingly though he didn't confine himself to just football and the army.

Scotland and England had met in the very first rugby international in Edinburgh in 1871. In 1872 England hosted a return match. Lining up for Scotland that day was Henry Renny-Taylour.

It's a unique achievement.

He played in the second official football international and he played in the second official rugby international. He remains the only person to have represented Scotland in both sports. Both games were played, incidentally, at The Oval. Both were lost. But for a gentleman amateur like Henry that might not have been the point.

The venue was fitting: between his football, rugby and military careers he also found time to play 28 first class cricket matches as a middle order batsman and right arm bowler.

On retiring from the army, and sport, Henry topped off what sounds like a rather enjoyable career as managing director of Guinness. I suppose there just weren't the same punditry opportunities in those days.

He died in 1920 at the age of 70, back at home in Scotland.

It seems that, unhindered by a double barrelled surname, he gave life both barrels.

Forgotten Scotland Players Number 9: Henry Renny-Tailyour, Royal Engineers. 1 (official) cap.

Cheers Flash

The pleasure in supporting a team like Hibs lies not in the glory.

It's in the continuity of following a team as generations of your family have before you. It's in the laughs you have along the way, the shared disappointments and the friends you make.

Friends like my mate Flash.

Flash died last week, just short of his 78th birthday and 75 years since he first went to Easter Road.

Flash wasn't his real name. His name was Gordon Smith, although this Gordon Smith's first appearance on the terrace at Easter Road came five years before he was to be thrilled by another Gordon Smith signing for Hibs.

I suppose Flash was called "Flash" because he was a photographer -a damn fine one - and he was called Gordon. Nicknames are never wholly original. But the nickname and his camera became his trademarks.

He lived a fairly typical sort of life in Edinburgh. He worked for Ferranti, married with no children. Like many of his generation "gap" years were thrust upon him with a stint in Korea.

We maybe made a fairly odd couple. I might be old beyond my years (I certainly look it) but the best part of five decades and the experiences of different generations separated us.

But we had mutual friends, we liked a laugh, we loved a bar meal and we had Hibs.

So for pushing on the last ten years we've been mates.

Flash wasn't unique in supporting Hibs. He wasn't unique in supporting the same club for seven decades or more.

But maybe the dedication of guys like Flash - and it was often a myopic dedication, a couple of weeks ago he said he had a picture of me with that "stupid" manager and that might have been as critical of Hibs as he got - deserves to be celebrated as much as his storied namesake.

Players, managers, directors. They come and they go. The fans stay. The economics of football changes. But at their best our clubs are part of their communities. That's embodied by people like Flash.

Last year we happened to meet David Wotherspoon in the dressing room at Easter Road. Flash's opening gambit:

"Oh, aye. I was speaking to your granny on the bus last week."

There's not enough of that kind of connection left in the game. We should cherish it where it remains as much as we rail against rising prices and soaring wages.

Flash saw Hibs win the league when he was in his teens. In his 40s Pat Stanton inspired Turnbull's Tornadoes. In his 60s he saw Hibs play in Trinidad. In his 70s he followed them to Ukraine.

In his role as an unofficial Hibs photographer he probably captured every great - and many of the not so great - who have graced Easter Road over the years.

Being photographed by him could test your patience, the apparently never ending refrain of "just one more" a constant.

But the players - strangely maybe to our modern sensibilities - appreciated it. Jackie McNamara visited him when the extent of his illness became clear. John Collins phoned him.

Since being widowed Flash had created a "Hall of Fame" in his house. This was a personal history of Hibs.

It wouldn't be worth as much money as the baubles won by our most decorated stars.

It was full of faces so famous and players so talented I just wish I had seen them play live.

And it was also full of people you would never have heard of. Their connection with Flash was Hibs and friendship.

A pictorial tour through the life of a football club measured not just in cups, wins, losses, relegations. But also in friendships made, nights out, pre match drinks, marriages and births.

It's an alternative view of a club. But it's an important one and a story of clubs and supporters as communities that we should do more to preserve.

Flash would never have thought of all this. It was just his thing.

I probably wouldn't have either. It was just Flash. One of the nicest guys you could meet whose favourite team I happened to share.

But since I got the sadly inevitable phone call on Friday morning I've been thinking about it more.

About how it's people like Flash that are maybe the most valuable part of your football club or my football club.

About how football would do well to remember that.

And about how following Hibs won't be such fun anymore.

Third Lanark Remembered

Great little video looking at the life, times and eventual demise - "murder" - of Third Lanark, Glasgow's lost football team.

And a little more information on Cathkin Park here:



Third Lanark will be playing in Edinburgh tomorrow in a challenge match with an impressively rich historical context:

"Edinburgh's St Bernards FC are to play Third Lanark FC on July 30th 2011. Both clubs were born out of the Territorial Army in the 19th Century and have had a long and close relationship throughout the last hundred and twenty years, St Bernards from the 3rd Edinburgh Rifle Volunteers and Thirds from the 3rd Lanarkshire Rifle Volunteers. Both were founder league members, Scottish Cup Winners and shared many,many players over the years. One such player was Inside Right, John Ferguson, a popular University student at the time who would still guest for Saints during his 3rds career. Sadly John was to be the first professional footballer killed in the First World War. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross." (More on the Friends of Cathkin Park blog)

The game kicks off at Letham Park, Ferry Road, kicking off at 3.30pm.

Christmas cheers

As football reaches saturation point there are few days when a game is not within easy reach of the armchair fan. For those of who might, after reasoned argument, still consider ourselves to be young Christmas Day is football free zone.

But that’s not always been the case. League fixtures in Scotland were common on Christmas Day until relatively recently. I don’t know if this phenomenon had its roots in the tradition of celebrating New Year with rather more vigour than Christmas. It wasn’t until the mid fifties that Christmas Day became a national holiday in Scotland.

I’m sure there must be a link between that and the tradition of fulfilling fixtures on Christmas Day long after England had given up on the idea.

Anyway this mildly diverting bit of trivia was brought to my attention by The Guardian’s Knowledge page and it is from their site that I’ve gleaned the following:

As David Ross's website scottishleague points out, in Scotland, the last scheduled round of league fixtures was for Saturday December 25, 1976. However, a combination of reluctance to play and poor weather reduced the card. No Scottish top division matches were played, and these were shifted to Friday 24, Sunday 26 and Monday 27.

Of the two games that were played on Christmas Day itself, Clydebank and St Mirren drew 2-2 in a top-of-the-table first division clash and Alloa beat Cowdenbeath 2-1 at home in the second division. In addition, Dundee's official history lists them as winning 1-0 away to Montrose on Christmas Day - but another source suggests that this match was in fact played on Monday 27th.

The last time a full set of Christmas Day fixtures was played in Scotland was in 1971. Celtic beat Hearts 3-2 at home, Dundee United beat Dunfermline by the same score at Tannadice, and Kilmarnock overcame Morton 4-2 at Rugby Park. Other results that day were: Airdrie 1-1 Clyde, East Fife 1-1 Motherwell, Falkirk 0-3 Aberdeen, Hibs 0-1 Rangers, Partick 0-1 Ayr, and St Johnstone 0-0 Dundee.

Meanwhile, the last games played on Christmas Day in England were in 1959, when Blackburn beat Blackpool 1-0 at home in the old first division and Coventry beat Wrexham 5-3 in the third.

Friends reunited

Another European game rolls around and, refreshingly, we’re simply concentrating on what is likely to prove a mildly diverting match up of two teams keen to impress in Europe’s second tier competition to prove that they deserve to feast at the Champion’s League banquet.

Or not. One of these days Celtic or Rangers are going to enjoy a serene build up to a match. But not tonight for Celtic. Not when we can relive a glorious episode from 25 years ago involving a stunning fightback, fans misbehaving, Austrian play acting, UEFA dithering, fans losing the plot, players being attacked and Celtic getting dumped out in the Lancashire night.

Yes Celtic and Rapid Vienna. Do the names not just roll of your tongue, so redolent of the glamour of European football? Only if your idea of glamour is being sick round the back of Stagg’s nightclub after a dozen lagers and a dodgy kebab.

It’s getting rarer and rarer that I can say this but I’m too young to remember it all. Like Arthur Scargill, tight shorts and 5 Star I have only really experienced the madness of what went on second hand.

I summarise: Vienna beat Celtic 3-1 at home and turn up in Glasgow expecting to seal the deal with ease. On a raucous night Celtic lead the Austrians in a Vienese waltz and win 3-0. Relations between the players during the match are less than comradely, a legacy of alleged stamps by Peter Grant and Alan McInally in the first leg. Perhaps feeding off the players, or perhaps it’s the other way around, The Jungle is at its intimidating best.

Or worst. Because it now seems clear that objects were thrown on to the pitch that night. Bottles? Who knows? It’s almost certain that no Rapid players were hit by anything bigger than a coin but one of them claimed to have been hit by a bottle.

Sad, pathetic, unfortunate but forgotten. No, not quite. Rapid complain and UEFA do their normal twists and turns before deciding the match must be played again. A neutral venue, Old Trafford, is chosen.

Celtic have chances but Rapid take the game 1-0. That was the football. A hard one to take for sure but just another game really. Well, not quite. Celtic’s supporters behaved so badly that night - at least two Rapid players attacked, the team bus belted with bottles - that Celtic’s next European game was held behind closed doors.

Squalid, shameful etc, etc. But long gone now.

Aha. Not quite it would appear.

Rapid released a special red away shirt to pay tribute to the strip they wore that night so keen are they to celebrate a win on a night when 22 men were sent out to play football in a bearpit of violence - an atmosphere that was not intense or intimidating but actually threatening and ugly.

Former Celtic players, including current coach Peter Grant, hit back, talking of their hurt and anger at being "cheated" out of the game. Frank McGarvey actually seems to be in need of counselling such is the extent to which he still seems haunted by the manner of the defeat.

Such has been the ferocity of dormant anger being stirred up that Celtic have actually stepped back from their original stance - marketing the game as 25 Years On - to appeal for calm lest any over zealous supporters lose the plot.

It’s been a strange build up to be sure. The press have, of course, loved it. It’s all left Tony Mowbray keen to concentrate on the game but few people that keen to let him. Stephen McManus has spoken of being embarrassed at the build up - an admission that Peter Grant should probably have a long hard think about.

Anyway a game there most certainly is. And one Celtic could really do with winning after the Hapoel Tel-Aviv second half horror show.

After knocking out Aston Villa in qualifying and the putting three past Hamburg in their first group game Vienna would look to be favourites. Mowbray needs a reaction from his players to the roasting he gave them after their below par win over St Mirren. He’ll hope that and home advantage is enough.

But everything we’ve seen from Scottish teams in Europe this season points to it being a long night for Celtic. Our technical deficiences, and Celtic have played enough poor football this season to be lumped into the same SPL grouping, have been glaringly obvious. It’s those failings that lead Mowbray into the displays of frustration he showed last Saturday.

So a Rapid Vienna win? Possibly. Celtic are dangerous because they have the potential to confound us all, to come together and play some excellent football. Maybe they’ll do that tonight, maybe not.

They’ll miss McGeady and if he is proved unfit then they’ll need to refocus some of their attack because I doubt Mowbray will want to play Pat McCourt at this level just now. Big players like Scott Brown will need to raise their games and shake off the lethargy that had them huffing and puffing in Paisley.

This isn’t mission impossible for Celtic. It’s just that right now they don’t seem to be able to sustain enough form to make it mission very likely either.

Still it’s only a game. And let’s hope everyone remembers that and uses tonight to bury the lingering resentment of 25 years ago. Even in football life is simply too short.

*The game is on Five tonight. So if you're on Freeview and you've not retuned yet it might be best to leave it until after the final whistle.

The Life of Reilly

A belated happy 80th birthday to Lawrie Reilly.

The spearhead of the Famous Five that achieved such dominance in the Scottish game for Hibs in the early 1950's Reilly also performed spectacularly for Scotland and scored five times in five visits to Wembley.

He remains Hibs most capped player and it seems inconceivable now that someone playing for a side outside of Glasgow's big two could become such a mainstay of the international side.

Reilly's 22 goals from 38 caps gives him the second best goals average for any player who has pulled on the dark blue more than 10 times.

That it is Hughie Gallacher who leads him in the record table provides a fitting contrast: the tragic Gallacher's destructive retirement could not be further removed from the dignified life Reilly has led away from the game.

Still a regular at Easter Road, Reilly - and his surviving Famous Five comrade Eddie Turnbull - provides a welcome reminder of a different time in Scottish football.

And, yes, Lawrie remains as perplexed as anyone as to how the Easter Road Scottish Cup jinx survived the dominance of the Famous Five.

Book Review: Best and Edwards: Football, Fame and Oblivion by Gordon Burn

Duncan Edwards and George Best. Entwined in Manchester United’s history and mythology. Separated by only a few years, they may as well have been from different worlds.

Edwards, the man child, the phenomenal athlete who would run all day for Matt Busby and who stood to conquer the world. Best, a man child in a very different way, the prodigy who did conquer the world.

One life snubbed out on a snowy Munich runway. One life snubbed out by an inability to cope with a world that his talent had created.

Edwards was the epitome of a lost breed of footballer: he trained and he played to a phenomenal level. But when he was done he went home, went to the cinema, shyly courted a girl.

Best provided the blueprint for every player who has ever had the world at his feet and then pissed it all away.

Burn brilliantly examines their backgrounds, their motivation and their character. Bobby Charlton overshadows the book: sensible, dull Bobby, forever dealing with survivor guilt, battling to keep Big Dunc’s memory alive as Best created a new reality for footballers that Charlton could never understand.

Matt Busby is here to, more complex than the genial patrician of United legend, looking on them both as sons. And never understanding how he had lost them both.

Burn comes to grips with immortality: Edwards, still talked about in hushed tones, but remembered in the name of a boarded up pub that attracts nothing but junkies. And Best, remembered in full technicolour, but also as a gaunt, broke drunk who took every second chance and flung it away on booze and birds.

In their own ways Edwards and Best created the Manchester United we know today. They also created the idea of a modern footballer. One was left to go blameless into eternity. The other was left to kill himself.

Burn transports us back to Manchester in the late fifties when Edwards ruled the roost in a quiet understated way, full of optimism but level headed to the end. And then to the 1960’s when Best, always too complex to enjoy optimism, turned the professional dream that Edwards had into something squalid and dirty. Faced with the twin temptations of football and celebrity Best chose the latter. When he crossed that line the end was as inevitable as it was painful.

Burn handles all this expertly. We end up with a study of the nature of fame and celebrity. Munich denied Edwards the chance to live with celebrity. Charlton survived and chose the route he thought best honoured Edwards. Best chose the route that brought him adulation, the route that a hundred reality TV stars dream of. It was a life that Duncan Edwards could never have imagined and a life that George Best could never escape.

Sir Alex is more than United

When pundits hand out plaudits they can't help but buy into the great game of comparisons.

So Sir Alex Ferguson must be measured against Brian Clough, Bob Paisley, Matt Busby et al. They point to his singular European triumph as evidence that Paisley and Clough surpassed him, they point to his attitude as evidence that "gentleman" Sir Matt was somehow the bigger man.

But for the pundits down south football ends north of Newcastle (many of them would prefer it football stopped north of the trophyless citadel that is the Emirates and Wenger's Bash Street Kids) they rarely take into account what Ferguson did with Aberdeen.

Breaking the Old Firm stranglehold of the game, coming close in the European Cup and winning the Cup Winners Cup meant before he even travelled to Old Trafford Ferguson had already achieved greatness. With Aberdeen Ferguson had already "done a Clough" - although arguably Ferguson's successful run at the Dons was more sustained than Clough's at Forest - with a provincial side.

The achievements at Old Trafford - a bigger club than Clough ever succeeded at - surpass Busby. Which leaves only Bob Paisley and his three European Cups. For my money Ferguson's continued dominance domestically put him at the very least on a par with Paisley.

But when you take the achievements at Aberdeen and United together Ferguson's 10th Premiership is simply further proof that Sir Alex is the best of the best.

Alan and Jim: Memories are made of this!

Ooh, Aah, Alan Ball's Da'?

Alan Ball has died. England’s youngest World Cup winner (or England’s eleventh oldest World Cup winner) succumbed to a heart attack at the age of just 61.

Down south, of course, this gives the media the chance to revel in the kind of mass grief that they have perfected since ‘The People’s Princess’ died.

For those of us in Scotland it means we are reminded once again about 1966 and all that.

Ah, those painful memories of non goals and pitch invasions!

But at least it allows us our own spot of navel gazing: 1967 and Alan Ball’s entry into the Scottish Football Hall of Fame.

Ball it was that Jim Baxter targeted to feel the full force of his genius at Wembley that day. Sir Alex Ferguson has said that Baxter’s performance could have been set to music. It would be the sound of Alan Ball being tortured.

When Denis Law urged Baxter to cut the fancy stuff and go for goals Slim Jim just smiled and continued with his repertoire of tricks. This included exchanging more than 20 passes with Billy Bremner and Tommy Gemmell as Ball scurried between them trying in vain to get the ball. The masters became the tormented slaves.

Baxter would dine out on the story for years, often pretending to forget Ball’s name: to Slim Jim Ball would always be the “wee ginger boy, squeaky voice an’ that.”

And Jim, in his pomp, couldn’t resist ‘sledging’ Ball either. “Is it true” he enquired, “that Jimmy Clitheroe wis your faither.”

Jimmy Clitheroe, of course, was a comedian who happened to be Lancastrian, squeaky voiced and very, very short. The short, squeaky voiced Lancastrian Alan Ball recognised the force of the insult.

To his eternal credit Ball, though furious, kept his head. One always got the impression, however, that he was never quite able to forgive or forget the day Jim Baxter stole Wembley.

Both Baxter and Ball are gone now. They followed different paths in both life and death. But both left memories of great games and great talent. That, not the mocked up hysteria of the English press, should be their lasting legacy.

A Chick for Christmas

Christmas is nearly upon us. And the pantomime horse of Scottish football, Chick Young, is at it again.

In yet another column devoted to Rangers, the die hard St Mirren fan, waxes lyrical about Jock Wallace and the relative merits of Paul Le Guen.

The Murder Hills at Gullane beach are mentioned as Chick harks back to a simpler time when football was stuck in the dark ages.

Chick, never the brightest of boots in the kitbag and a man whose career defies any measure of quality, is entitled to his opinions.

But why does he mention Rangers signing Scott Brown in particular? I would guess that in January there will, at the most conservative estimate, be 50 players available for less money than Brown who could improve Rangers.

Indeed Chick himself would probably improve Rangers. At least he’d play for the jersey.

I’m sure Chick laughs at non-Old Firm fans when they speak of media conspiracies. Mostly I’d agree with him.

But Scott Brown is a Hibs player on a long term contract who has had a transfer request turned down.

So why does Chick mention him other than to stoke the flames of rumour and gossip that are licking at the doors of Easter Road? And in the week before Hibs play Rangers?

It’s that kind of journalism that annoys people who get their football fix away from Ibrox or Parkhead.

Chick Young. The most popular Buddy in Govan.