History Is Bunkum

HENRY Ford, hardly the epitome of the billionaire benefactor, is credited with thinking-up the heading to this piece. Ford, of course, ruthlessly introduced the concept of the production line and among his many failings was a total disregard for the dignity of labour.

What's he got to do with football? You ask.

Other than the fact that today the Ford Motor Company is a major sponsor of FIFA and UEFA, very little actually. However, certain factions within the game seem to share the late Henry's view of history.

Yes West Ham United, I mean you - with your decision to rename the Bobby Moore Cup, played for annually in a pre-season charity match - after your on-line betting firm sponsors.

Well you'd expect nothing less from a club prepared to take the odious David Sullivan on as its figure-head. But to ditch the Moore name, well that stinks with every football fan.

Let me say here, I never bought into the Bobby Moore for God school of thought. Sure, he was a good player, but he was never as good as the English made him out to be, even before he was deified as captain of the Boys of '66.

Moore was lucky. Had Duncan Edwards not perished after Munich in 1958, he and not Moore would have lifted the Jules Rimet Trophy at Wembley in July, 1966. Edwards would then have been 29 and at his peak. He would surely have been the England captain and while Moore would still have won England caps, he would never have achieved the position he now holds in the affection of the English.

But he would still have been a West Ham legend and, particularly given his stature and status, to drop the name Bobby Moore Cup from the albeit meaningless prize from a meaningless tournament is the sign of a club which has forgotten what it is and where it came from.

Just like Henry Ford, the guys running West Ham and much of English football now care only for the money.

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MIND you, there are some people in Scottish football who don't even care about themselves, if what I saw yesterday was any indication.

I was having a rare sight of the bottom tier in Scottish senior football, as I helped-out a mate by covering a Division Three match for him. I was pleasantly surprised too, it wasn't the hoof-it-up-in-the-air-and-chase-it type of game I was half expecting. Both teams got the ball down and played passes, one marginally better than the other.

The trouble was, the team with the better passing game also contained several players who, quite frankly hadn't enough self-respect to be fit. I haven't seen so many beer guts on a park since the last time I was dog-walking round our local park when the Sunday Pub League teams were playing.

I'm 17 stones and I reckon at least two of the guys on the park wear trousers with a bigger waist size than mine. They had the skill, but not the fitness.

I realise training for professional football is a balancing act between skill and fitness and I know how hard it is for part-time players to balance home, work, fitness and skills, but these guys were letting themselves down, they were letting their club down and they were letting the fans down.

And what about their team manager? Maybe he was taking the money and not caring either - or is he just another victim of Scottish football's core value - so long as I can keep my nose in the trough, bugger the game.

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TRAVELLING back from covering away games in Aberdeen and Dundee, back in the days when we went by train, the Intelligence Corps of the Tartan Army, or the Scottish Football Writers Association members as they were better known, would sometimes pass the time by playing: What I would do with Scottish football.

The idea was, you were a millionaire who wanted to get involved in football - which club would you buy and how would you run it?

I always went for Queen of the South as the team I would buy and run.

Perhaps not a sleeping giant, but a slumbering club which could be a contender if run properly. Far enough away from Glasgow to not be totally under the Old Firm's shadow, no near-by competition, a decent core support which could be built-on, no glittering past history to overly-raise expectations.

Properly run, the Doonhamers I felt and still feel, ought to be a top six to top eight SPL club, competing in the cups with realistic expectations of European entry.

For years it was run as wee Willie Harkness's personal fiefdom. The club has come through the hard times, has a trim ground ripe for upgrading to SPL standard and a hard-working board under a fine man in fan and chairman Davie Rae.

Rae and his directors are pragmatic, allowing first Gordon Chisholm and now Kenny Brannigan to base the football side of the club in Glasgow, to better attract the level of Scottish player they think they need - upper SFL1/lower SPL standard Scottish players who can still cut it as full-timers, but don't want to move too far from their west-central Scotland comfort zone.

But this means, other than the estimable Jim Thomson and the club's community coaches, Queens don't have a local presence in Dumfries other than every second Saturday, and I think this is hampering them.

What they don't need, however, is this week's newspaper outburst from manager Brannigan. Own goal there Kenny boy. And if the board is forcing you to manage with one hand tied behind your back, as you claim - maybe it's because they reckon, with both hands free you'd make a real mess, with just one, your ability to cause damage is limited.

I'm certainly not impressed with some of the new players KB has recruited and fear Queens will struggle to match their finishes of recent seasons; in which case it's: "Taxi for Brannigan".

I'd still think about buying the club if I ever win the lottery.