David Innes Archives - Page 3 of 4

Former Dons Dig Deep To Preserve Club Heritage

Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Featured, Information, Sport, Sport Comments Off

Mar 042011

Wary of getting too optimistic following too many recent kicks in the teeth, in spite of tangible improvements, Dons fans are still coming out of rehab from the barrel-scraping lows of 2010’s onfield results. Some are on to solids now in the form of a lightly-boiled egg, but many are still just capable of sitting upright and sooking a little clear soup through a straw. A few hard core stoics have gone back to full-strength half time pie consumption, the wee soldiers. David Innes sounds an uncharacteristically optimistic note.

Despite the trauma Dons fans have been through and the current murmurings of discontent over the almost rubber-stamped move to Loirston, there is still a lot of love out there for the Reds.

Despite what the detractors and backbiters say, and sometimes it seems that the Grey Toon has more than its fair share of those ready to glory in the club’s problems, AFC is still a massive part of the North East community and remains, in spite of all the gloom, a cultural and sporting focal point and beacon for thousands.

The AFC Heritage Trust exists to preserve the history of the club and its links with communities in the city and hinterland and we’ve publicised it before https://aberdeenvoice.com/2010/06/down-pittodrie-way/#more-122 .

A measure of the importance with which the Trust’s work is regarded is the impressive £740 collected from fans’ donations at extremely short notice at last week’s home fixture with Hearts. It was heartening to have Dons fans drop change into a bucket once they realised the common cause for which hard cash was being solicited. Many took the opportunity to take the publicity leaflets offered by collectors to find out more about the Trust, its work and its aspirations. You can do so here http://www.afcheritage.org

Of course, a large part of the club’s community are those fortunate enough to have pulled the sacred Red or, formerly, the blessed Black and Gold over their heads before going out to do battle on behalf of the North East in over a century of mostly proud history. The club’s Former Players Association is thriving. Many members who did not spend their entire careers at Pittodrie, or who are only tiny bit part players in Aberdeen’s history, retain huge affection for the club and describe their time at Pittodrie as being among the best times of their lives.

The FPs realise the importance of the work being done by the Heritage Trust and to help the Trust’s efforts, donated a thousand pounds to Trust funds at half time in last week’s game.

The Trust’s treasurer, Bob Bain, was delighted to accept the cheque from FP representatives and Dons stalwarts of yesteryear, Bobby Wishart, of the 1954-55 League-winning side and Jimmy Wilson from the mid-60s who was the first player I ever saw place a penalty kick into a corner of the net, having fooled the Motherwell goalkeeper into diving in the wrong direction.

That was on 3 December 1966, it happened at the King Street End, it was a day of typical Aberdeen driving sleet and we won 2-1. Instant recall, but yet I can forget where I left the car in the airport car park after two days away. That’s the impact the Dons have on many of us, and if you are also thus afflicted, the Trust would be glad to have you aboard.

Thanks to the FPs, the collectors and the fans who donated.

‘Taylor Made’ Teles, ‘Strat’ From City Workshop

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Feb 182011

In Aberdeen’s residential west end, there are hundreds of commodious, well-tended gardens set amid streets and avenues of solid, no-nonsense granite dwellings. At the foot of one such garden, a modern building, unobtrusive and fairly non-descript, conceals one of the city’s best kept secrets with a master craftsman at work inside. Voice’s David Innes spent an hour or two in his company then went home, intent on sawing up his Mexican-made Fender Telecaster.

That craftsman is Ian Taylor, sometime member of several top Aberdeen rock n roll acts, including the Original Diamonds, the first Aberdeen band to play Hamburg’s legendary Top Ten Cub in the wake of The Beatles’ success over there, and he’s building guitars.

“A hobby,” he declares, “A bit of extra-mural activity but I hope to sell what I build. Whether or not it becomes a business I’ll wait and see”.

Interspersing our conversation about Guyatones, Futuramas, Les Paul Juniors, Fit Like New York? Ian being the first Stratocaster owner in Aberdeen and mutual musical acquaintances and influences, he talked with energetic enthusiasm about his labour of love, which has developed from an instrument maintenance venture to the creation of high-specification, superbly-finished electric instruments.

For technically-minded muso readers, Ian creates two basic instruments, based on the Fender Stratocaster and its older sister, the Telecaster. One can’t argue. When Leo Fender first unleashed the solid slab of the Esquire, later to morph into the Telecaster with the addition of a neck pick-up, on an unsuspecting post-war world, most musicians agree that he achieved the extreme rarity of getting it spot on first time. Many have tried to improve on Leo’s original design, but really they’ve only been tinkering with near perfection.

Admitting that modern CNC technology makes hand-crafting guitar necks and bodies too labour-intensive on a small scale, Ian imports top-end finished Strat and Tele bodies and necks from across the Atlantic.

He then matches them to user’s requirements for pick-up choice – single coils or humbuckers – and configuration. This influences how the guitar will look, sound and perform in finished form under the lights and behind the monitors.

A work in progress is a Tele-shaped instrument and Ian has agreed with the guitarist who will be road-testing it that this will be a single pick-up model. With no switch needed, this has allowed Ian to rout out the cavity for the volume and tone controls from behind, meaning no need for a mounting plate. The control knobs will be fitted directly to the body, giving an attractive, unadorned look to a beautiful instrument taking shape. The most remarkable feature for me was seeing Tele bodies with wrist and abdomen chamfers, a guarantee that these solid slabs will be slightly lighter and more comfortable to play over an evening’s gigging….

Taylor guitars are fitted with the best electrics available too, all hand-assembled by this craftsman’s hands. He also fits the frets and other hardware, and in a fully-equipped and environmentally-friendly spray booth – only water-based lacquer is used – he applies billiard ball-smooth finishes which are outstanding to look at and will have any appreciative musician desperate to plug in, turn up and rock out.

Right now, I reckon that this friendly, knowledgeable and interesting Aberdonian has the best job in the city.

Are Ye Dancin’?: The Story of Scotland’s Dance Halls

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Feb 112011

Are Ye Dancin’?: The Story of Scotland’s Dance Halls – And How Yer Dad Met Yer Ma! – Eddie Tobin with Martin Kielty.

Apparently published 6 months ago, this seems to have a had a marketing push recently so the Voice’s David Innes hangs on grimly as erstwhile promoter Tobin’s history of Scottish dancehalls spins him and his two left feet around an over-slipperened dancefloor.

My favourite story about dancehalls isn’t included in Tobin’s memoirs of the heydays of small town ballrooms and city Locarnos.

Abridged, it concerns a Borders village school full of NE lorry drivers in the early 1960s pre-motorway days, billeted there temporarily for the weekend due to the A74’s closure by snow.

As all the boys wash and dress, apply Brylcreem and polish their shoes preparing to go to the Saturday night dance, one worthy, possibly a Charlie Alexander’s driver, is lying on his mattress, unshaven, smoking and reading the paper. When asked if he’s intending getting ready to demonstrate his slow-slow-quick-quick-slow prowess to the good burghers of Kirkpatrick Fleming, his response is, “Na na, I’m nae muckle o’ a dancer, but be sure and gie’s a shout eence the f***ing starts”.

To anyone who has ever smuggled a half bottle into the toilets at Aberlour’s Fleming Hall, who stood back in awe and no little fear as the Buckpool Boot Boys terrorised 1970s weekends in Cullen and Rothienorman, who “bonded” with a member of the opposite gender in the lanie behind St K’s, or who used the business end of a Guild Bass as an improvised bat as the missiles flew at a Grantown-Rothes contretemps at Archiestown (that Kabul to the locals), Are Ye Dancin’? will be like reading a diary of their mis-spent youth.

Although Tobin’s account of those supposedly-innocent days concentrates mainly on his own reminiscences of wheeling and dealing behind the scenes to promote his own acts, considerable space is given over to the personal anecdotes of agents, managers, patrons and performers from the heyday of dancehalls from post-war onwards, even touching on the modern club scene.

the ensuing three nights of frenetic frugging and torso-torturing twisting were looked forward to all week

In addition, despite much of the collection of memories focussing on palaces of hedonistic delight far removed from our own shared and blessed region of Scotland, the mere mention of Bapper Hendry and Albert Bonici and the premises and acts they guarded fiercely, will delight anyone of that era who ever had to transact with these two lovable but canny entrepreneurs.

The 60s and 70s dominate, a period during which, in the words of the opening credits to Friday evening’s Ready Steady Go, “the weekend starts here” and the ensuing three nights of frenetic frugging and torso-torturing twisting were looked forward to all week as social release by dance addicts holed up in offices and factories throughout the land.

It is a worthy companion piece to Torry’s own incorrigible rogue, Peter Innes’s, marvellous ‘Fit Like New York?’ although not nearly so in-depth or painstakingly-researched. Even at 180 pages, it’ll take no more than half a day to read and wallow in memories of the joys, sorrows and ever-present optimism of youth.

Glance down the index and assimilate the names of temples of weekend pleasure long gone, falling apart or still limping along and you’ll be back in ‘68, anticipating that sweaty crush, the hellishly-blended aroma of smoke, perfume, beer, hair oil, damp and nail varnish in the Broch’s Dalrymple Hall, the Railway Hall, Inverurie, St Congan’s in Turriff, Elgin’s classy Two Red Shoes or the Beach Ballroom itself.

As Wordsworth once wrote, possibly as he anticipated a Friday night huckle-bucking to The Lakes Showband at Grasmere Parish Hall,

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven.

Are Ye Dancin’? Eddie Tobin with Martin Kielty. Waverley Books. 180 pages. £9.99.

Standing Room Only At Loirston Public Meeting

Aberdeen City, Articles, Breaking, Environment, Featured, News, Sport No Responses »

Jan 142011

Dons attract standing room only crowd! Not at a Pittodrie fixture, unfortunately. David Innes calls in from the joint Community Councils’ public meeting on the Loirston stadium plans.

It is a measure of the interest being taken by citizens – mostly residents of the area affected – in the proposed Dons stadium development at Loirston that the Altens Thistle Hotel had to provide additional seating to accommodate those who attended.
Latecomers were left to stand. This is not a problem the Dons are likely to suffer in their current home nor in any new 21000 capacity stadium.

All four community councils for the area united to host the meeting and local councillors attended, in “listening mode”, as they are prohibited from offering opinions on the development before the Council meets to vote on it. They were able, however, to give input on the planning process, being at pains to point out that this was consultation but that did not mean a majority opposing the development could stop it. That sounded very familiar…..

An early show of hands showed that nobody in attendance was in favour of the facility, or perhaps any proponents were not prepared to admit it their support.

Although not always on-topic, questions were asked politely, points were made passionately and despite the general feeling that the development is almost a fait accompli, several contributors urged attendees that it is not too late, that statements for and against the development may be made right up to the time our representatives begin the final debate.

Discussion was along predictable lines – irreversible loss of green belt, traffic and parking issues, light pollution, the financial impact on Pittodrie area businesses on match days, the competition with the AECC for lucrative conferences and, bizarrely, potential noise nuisance from late evening gigs featuring bands “like Black Sabbath”.

More probing issues were also examined – why cannot the facility be shared between the Dons and Cove Rangers? What would the impact be if the Reds and Cove played at home at the same time? How would visiting fans arriving by means other than supporters’ buses be safely segregated from the home support? What about the four distinct natural habitats unlikely to be protected by the guaranteed 50m “no go area” between the stadium area and Loirston Loch?

The plan goes to a Pre-Determination Hearing of the Development Management Sub-Committee on 14 January. 144 objections have been received. Messages of support and representations from interested groups have been gathered. Details are here http://tinyurl.com/65n32af Voice will be in attendance and will give its view on proceedings next week.

Back Home Again To Steamboat Row

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Jan 072011

By David Innes.

No matter how lurid were the stories of Gerry Rafferty’s personal demise in summer 2010’s tabloids, it was still shocking to hear that he had died on 4 January, aged only 63. His career is well-documented elsewhere. This is a fan’s view of his talent.

I first heard of The Humblebums in the late 1960s. They may even have appeared on one of the low-budget, dodgily-shot, poorly-recorded, grainy Scottish music TV shows of my youth. I may even have been attracted to them by the fact that the word ‘bum’ was in their name. I cannot remember. Neither can I recall anything about any performance I may have witnessed.

What did affect me though, was a friend’s copy of a record in what looked like a hand-painted sleeve, in the days when sleeves were constructed from stout cardboard, were a foot square and served well as temporary indoor hats, worn to display to fellow listeners your own excellent personal taste in listening choice. Maybe that was just me and my teenage trusties, come to think of it. I later discovered that the sleeve, credited to “Patrick” was the work of the scarily-gifted, all-round good guy John Byrne, Gerry’s enduring pal, commemorated in The Humblebums’ Patrick.

Can I Have My Money Back, on Transatlantic subsidiary Blue Thumb Records was to have made a star of young Rafferty. His material was the melodic bedrock on which The Humblebums’ live reputation was founded whilst Billy Connolly took care of the gags, in his unique, hilarious and anarchic way. Comparisons to Paul McCartney are no exaggeration when the title track, with its still-relevant lines

Listen to the lies of the politician man

Saying that we live in a democratic land
One land for the rich, another for the poor
And if you try to change it, they’ll nail you to the floor

is considered along with melodic tours de force, Mary Skeffington and Long Way Round and the subtle brashness of New Street Blues.

Can I Have My Money Back still sounds amazing today. The songs themselves are sublime, the arrangements precise and sympathetic and the delivery proof that young Rafferty had a supreme pop sensibility. Alas, this landmark release did not sell in the numbers it deserved to.

There was no other identifiable solo releases until City To City, which is not to dismiss the three Stealer’s Wheel efforts Stealer’s Wheel, (it included THAT single) Ferguslie Park and Right Or Wrong, but Transatlantic had the foresight – at least it seemed so to Rafferty addicts – to release Gerry’s Humblebums’ material in a variety of guises during the mid-70s. Anyone with an ear for melody could not fail to be moved by the wistful beauty of Her Father Didn’t Like Me Anyway, the resignation to fate of Rick Rack and the strolling funk of Steamboat Row.

When it was announced in 1977 that a first solo album for six years was to be released, I ordered the title track released on 45rpm single, from Aberdeen’s emporium of dreams The Other Record Shop. I asked for another brand new release to be popped in the bag with it. Were there ever two more incongruous purchases than City To City and The Sex Pistols’ Holidays In The Sun? That was VERY 1977.

There was greater success. Royalties from Baker Street and from Stuck In The Middle accompanying a cop lug-ectomy in Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, meant that Rafferty was able to live comfortably and securely until he bowed out this week.

In some ways, given his recent history, he wrote his own epitaph early on

But when he took to drinking we knew that he was thinking
That his days were quickly coming to an end
He’d only speak of Steamboat Row, he said someday we ought to go
And walk along that dusty road
Fifteen miles to get there, fifteen miles to go
Fifteen miles back home again, home to Steamboat Row

That’s how I’ll remember Gerry Rafferty, 1947-2011.

107th Dons AGM

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Dec 232010

An AGM in these testing times? Is the Pittodrie Board some sort of masochist collective? David Innes reports on the lack of blood and hair on the walls at the 107th Dons AGM held this week.

Before the meeting’s business got underway, a select few of us agreed that had the board not recruited Brown and Knox last week, the chairman would have been issuing SMG construction hard hats to his top table peers, such is the anger among fans about how this season has slumped from hope to despair.

Out of respect for the new managers who attended, but were not called on to speak, politeness and reason prevailed.

The main business such meetings is formal and, to be honest, dull. Suffice to say, directors Milne, Buchan and Gilbert were re-elected and the current beancounters Deloitte and Touche approved as auditors.

The real meat of the AGM is always in the questions from the floor, and this year’s subjects were predictable, which does not mean dull or uninteresting, given the club’s current position.

Directors are not renowned for being wholly open. Like many politicians, they will tell you what they want to tell you rather than answer the questions posed. There were hints of that, although to be fair, not all the floor questions were questions, rather statements of opinion, which made them hard to answer.

On the new stadium, we were informed that staying at AB24 5QH is a non-starter in that new regulations would see the crowd capacity cut to 12000, the disruption during redevelopment would be considerable and that funding it would be impossible. No mention of the destruction of Loirston’s beauty and tranquillity though.

…along with the forecasts for inflation, there may well have to be a rethink. Or a downsize

The funding rationale for The Aberdeen Voice Arena (aye, OK…) didn’t totally stack up either. Pittodrie’s value in the club accounts is a generous £17m, but this had mysteriously inflated to “around £20m” in the chairman’s review, although this did include, he said, another share issue and a mortgage.

Naming rights, and one can only guess at what corporate horror that will be, letting of spare office capacity and other – unspecified – gains from Loirston developments will net another £15m. Funny, I thought £38m was the last estimate I saw and with The Big Society’s VAT rise coming up in a few days time along with the forecasts for inflation, there may well have to be a rethink. Or a downsize. To 12000 capacity, perhaps?

On fitba matters, The Best Number 6 Ever gave his views, although only once did he admit that we do not have enough experience in the squad. Interesting though his contribution was, his focus was almost exclusively on youth development, which in itself is a very good thing, but will not get us out of the current downhill arse over tit panic in which we’re stuck. His claim that seven of the current first 22 are contributing well to the top team is tenuous – Paton has failed to develop, Megginson and Robertson are loons trying to do a man’s job, and the latter and Ryan Jack could have their careers ruined before they start through the trauma of having to cope with train wreck performances around them week upon week. Hints of new signings in January – also mentioned by Archie Knox when I buttonholed him for a short chat after the meeting – may help us finish somewhere between 7th and 9th (8th?) but did not seem to hold out hope of any sort of breakthrough success for a drifting, dozing club.

Hindsight’s a fabulous musing pastime but doesn’t help us get out of the torpor we’re in. We are where we are. We have a large debt underwritten by two major corporate shareholders with nobody seemingly willing to step forward and offer an alternative to the stagnation this engenders. In the wider context, the SPL is a devalued competition, destined to be won by the bully boys in perpetuity unless someone grows a pair and has a go at their warm fuzzy duopoly.

The 107th AGM suggests that this won’t be Aberdeen FC.

Broon n’ Knoxy – Old Heads For A New Era?

Aberdeen City, Articles, Featured, Opinion, Sport No Responses »

Dec 172010

By David Innes.

On Dexys Midnight Runners’ 1982 fiddle-fest Too Rye Ay, Kevin Rowland, with remarkable prescience nailed down the dilemma that Dons fans are facing following the appointment of Craig Brown and Archie Knox to replace Mark McGhee in the dugout and padded Team Recruitment jacket….

Old, may I sit down here and learn today? I’ll hear all you say, I won’t go away (Old)

You’re the voice of experience, every word you choose….. (Liars A to E)

So, is this pairing old, or experienced?

That they are both in the twilight of their years in football cannot be questioned, Brown is already 70 and Knox is 63, but these are men who have kept abreast of every development in football and approach the game from a contemporary angle. I have no doubt that they will stiffen up our midfield and defence and with a bit of wily wheeling and dealing stop the rot and nudge the Dons to a place of relative SPL sanctuary.

Brown has said that he wants the players to be happy and for the fans to enjoy spectating again. That will be tough. Spirits are low in the squad, confidence has been shattered and there is dangerous apathy among the fans, whose passion in the past has helped drag previous underachieving disgraces to the Sacred Red from the edge of the abyss more than once.

Both know football psychology in and out. Whilst the perception is that there will be a good cop-bad cop culture with Knox in the enforcer role, Brown’s spine of steel must have reminded Motherwell fans that their town used to make the stuff, for he too is capable of being a hard man. His preference though, is to get inside the minds of players – there’s often plenty room in there – find out which buttons need pressing and to work with them to build their strengths and underpin their weaknesses. He is no sentimentalist though and it would be no surprise to see some of the current squad being ‘allowed to leave’ if they cannot or will not accept the changes the pair will bring in.

The next few fixtures, Motherwell at home, Hibs away, Hamilton away and Dundee United at home will be a huge test, not of Brown and Knox’s abilities, but of the players’ attitudes, of their personal and professional pride, of their resilience and their willingness to try to keep the fans, well short of patience, backing them.

We can all point the finger at the Board, which will make Monday evening’s AGM ‘interesting’, we can carp and argue about managerial appointments and man-management techniques, can put forward ideas on emotional intelligence, but come 2.55 every Saturday, or whatever time Murdoch dictates matches will kick off, the only club representatives who can do anything about the Dons’ situation are the players. And they’d better not fail us.

Win A Copy Of ‘On Fire with Fergie’

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Dec 102010

Stuart Donald reads from On Fire With Fergie.

David Innes presents Voice’s historic first online competition….

Thanks to a generous offer from publishers Hachette, we have two signed copies of Stuart Donald’s rather wonderful book On Fire With Fergie to give away as prizes, just in time for Christmas.

We reviewed it here https://aberdeenvoice.com/2010/08/on-fire-with-fergie/ after attending the book launch https://aberdeenvoice.com/2010/08/stuart-donald-charms-the-richard-donald/

We liked it a lot. So will you. In fact, why haven’t you bought it already? Time’s a bit tight, so the competition will be open for entry for one week only. Just use our contact form and send to the competition address, with the subject of Footie Competition

So that we can remember him in happier circumstances:

Against which European opposition did fallen idol Mark McGhee score a Pittodrie hat trick in 1984’s European Cup-Winners’ Cup?

You’ll need to include a home address so that we can post the book to you if you’re a winner. And no, we can’t post it down the fibre optic cable, you gype. We won’t publish details other than your name, of course.

There, easier than Fix The Ball.

Two winners will be drawn from all the correct entries, and we’ll announce the winners next Friday (17 December), give the publishers your details and hope that Santa arrives early.

All the usual rules apply – family members of Voice regulars aren’t eligible to take part (sorry, Granny, you’ll have to buy your own copy) and we’re not open to bribery or coercion.

Good luck.

McGhee McGone – Legend Gets The Boot From Pittodrie

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Dec 032010

So, another one bites the dust…The cycle continues… Sack. Hire. Don’t back. Fire.
Put that to a 120BPM scratch beat and you’ve got a rap smash. Shall we say 20%?

Angry and Frustrated of .com (OK, OK, it’s resident fitba curmudgeon David Innes) gives his take on this week’s everyday tale of Pittodrie folk.

This time it’s Mark McGhee, brought to the club in June 2009 to “take us to the next level”. Was he capable? We’ll never know, for once again, we’ll be doling out a considerable six figure sum to bin a management team rather than allocate it to where it’s most needed – the playing budget.

With £400,000 at his disposal, I’m sure McGhee would have had us far higher up the table than we are. What we can almost guarantee is that having spent what appears to be over £2 million in compensating both Jimmies and Sandy Clark, weighing in with a wedge to prise Dingus from Fir Park and now filling his and the bank accounts of Leitch and Meldrum, we won’t be spending on contractual compensation when it comes to hiring this time.

Where does that leave us? Pretty much with those who are not in meaningful full-time club employment and who won’t need their clubs compensating. John Hughes? Binned by Hibs for a horrendous start to the season – would he do any better here? Billy Stark? Relegated St Johnstone and manages under-21 loons for fewer than ten games per year. Gordon Strachan – I think he wants to stay as far away from football as possible. That might of course make him a contender, since there’s not been much coincident with the finer points of the game at AB24 5QH in the past few years.

I had high hopes for Mark. His introductory press conference oozed ambition. He didn’t want to start the season droning the losers’ mantra about finishing third. He wanted to challenge “them”, he wanted to use home-reared players to add energy and spark to a squad and if necessary sell them on to allow purchase of others for the overall good of the squad. Hard-bitten hacks were almost in tears and I swear that Willie Miller was behind the scenes manipulating a C90 cassette tape as the haunting melodies of The Northern Lights of Old Aberdeen and Jerusalem played softly in the background. Maybe I made up that last bit.

Given that he inherited a squad decimated by transfers – Nicholson, Severin, Hart, Clark – and had no time to get replacements signed before the transfer window closed last season, McGhee was forgiven by those who actually think about the situation if not by those whose first instinct is to replace the manager. In summer 2010, he signed a formidable number of players, some of whom have been successes – Folly, Hartley and Vernon – and others who have found it more difficult to match their skills to the SPL. November’s been a torrid month. Apart from the results, the injury list has not eased and there have been key suspensions. The squad must currently number around 18, and the average squad age cannot be much more than that.

Hicham Zerouali lit up the SPL with his outrageous fitba conjuring act

I’m not making excuses, I’m just pointing out that those who make the decisions have panicked and followed the only path they know, with little thought, it seems, given to where we go now. They have failed to match the manager’s ambition, and he’s the fall guy.

Ten years ago, we endured the depths of despair as Ebbe Skovdahl’s first season saw us finish bottom of the SPL, even though we reached both cup finals and experienced some thrills as the likes of the late Hicham Zerouali lit up the SPL with his outrageous fitba conjuring act. As we gnashed our teeth, our families’ teeth, the teeth of close friends and neighbours, we were promised that the new post-Bosman reality had kicked in and that the Dons were at the forefront in pioneering a new financial model which would match wages to hard facts economics and that we would outstrip our high-spending, deep-in-debt rivals as they too had to change.

Well, since then we’ve had the misery of bottom six finishes, harrowing cup defeats, dreadful football, some of the worst players in my forty five years supporting the Dons wear the sacred red and a litany of managers who have not counted among their abilities the skills necessary to turn base metal or straw into gold, or even silverware. Those profligate rivals occupy the ten places above us in the SPL.

There have been two constants during this time – the Board of Directors and the club’s continuing willingness to soak the fans for ever-higher admission prices with improvement neither to the standard of football nor the club’s position.

Imagine, if you will, we had, say, a leading builder on the board, would he continue to charge the same or higher prices for his houses during a recession and a dip in demand? If, perchance, a couple of international financial investment gurus were on our board, do you think that they would fail to speculate to accumulate when they returned from the board lunch to manage their clients’ investment portfolios?

Other opinions are available, but mine is right.

The Management – Book Review

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Nov 262010

Ever-mindful of the need for Voice’s readership to get their letters up the lum shortly, David Innes tries a lucky dip in his book review in-tray and picks out:

The Management – Scotland’s Great Football Bosses by Michael Grant and Rob Robertson. Birlinn. 418 pages. £18.99.

When it comes to fitba literature, a term which itself looks like an oxymoron, I can normally race through books in the manner of a marauding Arthur Graham terrorising First Division full backs in 1971. The Management does not lend itself to such cursory treatment.

Grant and Robertson are proper journalists, you see. They have pride in their craft, a genuine love for their subject and back up their writing with well-researched fact-based insights rather than red top reader-baiting populist conjecture. This is a serious work which demands your attention.

The premise is that Scotland, diminutive in population and hardly a world fitba power despite our often inflated boasts, has produced far more than its fair share of iconic managers with trophy hauls and reputations to match. The Management doesn’t stop there. The authors analyse these great figures’ shared backgrounds in mining, heavy engineering and working class hardship and conclude that the trust, comradeship and leadership skills forged in these often brutal environments provided the ideal grounding for commanding respect in the dressing room and on the training pitch.

Whilst The Management gives deserved coverage of the careers, personalities and backgrounds of the giants – Busby, Shankly, Stein and Ferguson – Grant and Robertson are not tempted to leave it at that.

Who, beyond those Old Firm fans who have mastered the art of reading, knows all that much about Parkhead stalwart Willie Maley’s 52 (aye, that’s fifty two) years in charge of Celtic, or Bill Struth’s benign dictatorship of the mid twentieth century Ibrox monolith? Who was George Ramsay and why does Aston Villa have a lion rampant on its club crest? What IS ‘The Largs Mafia’, and why is it regarded disdainfully in Scotland by the hard of thinking whilst it’s revered throughout Europe and beyond?

Others, regarded as minor footnotes in fitba folklore, are also featured. Although almost viewed as caricatures due to their public images, sketches of John Lambie, Jim Leishman and our own blessed Ally McLeod show that these guys were no fools, that they had a deep understanding of the game, stoical resilience, but an innate ability to laugh at themselves and not take the world too seriously. It’s only a game, right?

There are laugh out loud moments too. Who could possibly suppress a hysterical hoot at the mental image of Dons-era Fergie, raging in the away dressing room at Forfar at half time, telling a reserve player,“Get those fucking pants off your head”, not realising that it was his own trashing of a laundry basket that had caused the kecks to land on the loon and that he was too terrified to remove them?

This is a serious work which demands your attention

I would also have given a sizeable wedge to charity to have witnessed Jim Traynor’s riposte on ‘shite’ and ‘socialism’ to a bullying Graeme Souness as Traynor was barred from Ibrox press conferences for refusing to tow the party line.

The Management is several cuts above the average ghost-written, bland memoirs typical of players and managers who feel they have something to offer us. For those who demand higher standards and a cerebral take on some huge personalities, it’s an essential volume.

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