What Would Wee Fergus Say

IT IS one of those games which congregations of fans of a particular team indulge in at this time of year, perhaps when they are forced to sit in a pub of a Saturday afternoon, because their team's game has been called off. That game is: pick your all-time greats.

Greatest manager/goal/captain/win/whatever; the discussion will make many a slow afternoon pass quickly, cause a few real arguments and test friendships to the limit.

The ultimate form of the game is - pick your greatest team, wherein one guys shoo-in will surely be on another guy's list of biggest diddies ever to shame the jersey.

I doubt if the fans have ever played: pick your greatest director, after all, it is the lot of the men who back their club with hard cash, who have to make some of the hardest decisions, to be universally despised by the paying punters, most of whom would give their eye teeth for the kudos, while running a mile from the responsibilities.

I suppose, in any debate about who was Scotland's greatest club director, wee Fergus McCann would be on most short leets. After all, that mighty Scottish institution Glasgow Celtic FC was minutes away from bankruptcy when the slight wee man from Croy, no doubt wearing his trade mark bunnet, stepped in to take charge.

Celtic has never been the same since, as the sleeping monolith, seemingly dedicated to providing a nice life style for "the families" was shaken-up, kicked into life and finally began to make real money.

Fergus was one director who kept his word - he said he would step-in, put Celtic's woes right, set the club in the right direction, then get-out, but only after allowing the fans to have their say.

He opened-up the shareholding and if a good proportion of the fans whom he converted into shareholders subsequently sold out, allowing another small cadre of money men to take control, well that wasn't Fergus's fault.

Fergus also drove a hard bargain in negotiations, as an accountant he knew the price of everything, but, unlike so many others in his profession, he also knew the value of things.

Sure, he sanctioned the purchase of some big-name players, notably the "Three Amigos" - Cadete, De Canio and Van Hoojdonk, but he knew enough about running a football club to insist on good management.

I don't for a moment think Fergus would have handed the reins to such an untried tyro as Neil Lennon, after all, Tommy Burns was already cutting his managerial teeth at Killie when handed control at Celtic Park. With hindsight, the job probably came too-soon for one of the all-time Celtic legends, but, it was never the gamble appointing the ginger one was.

I also don't think Fergus would have tholed the recent transfer activity which Lennon and Tony Mowbray indulged in. It seems to some of us that over the past couple of seasons, Celtic's buys have all-too-often been buying for buying's sake, rather than a studied approach to getting a winning team onto the park.

Fergus would certainly have approved of developing and opening Lennoxtown and of that relatively unpublicised Celtic initiative of getting some hand-picked youngsters into a Kirkintilloch school and into Lennoxtown on a daily basis.

But, I also feel, having made the financial commitment to Lennoxtown and youth development, he would have insisted that the top youngsters be thrown onto the park far more readily than Neil Lennon seems prepared to do.

I know all about the argument that neither half of the Old Firm can gamble on youth, that they have to win every match and that winning matches calls for experienced players. That said, I also believe: if they're good enough, they're old enough and when you look at the impact which just one unheard of Lennoxtown product, James Forrest, made when introduced at the start of the season, you wonder: surely there are others out there worth giving a chance.

David Marshall, Paul Caddis, Scott Cuthbert, Marc Miller, Rocco Quinn, Rod Wallace, Des Lafferty, Michael McGovern,Cillian Sheridan - just a few of the Celtic youngsters to have won Under-21 or full caps in the last five years, who have been allowed to leave. I accept that not all might have matured to be "Celtic Class", but I vouch, they would not have been the waste of money which too many recent foreign acquisitions have proved to be.

In short, if he was still in charge, I feel wee Fergus would be saying plenty to Neil Lennon about his acquisitions policy - and not all of it would be complimentary.