24 is now the meaning of life

THE late Douglas Adams, in 'Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy' stated that 42 was the meaning of life. Perhaps old Douglas was dyslexic: because, in football terms, the meaning of life is 24.

Please, allow me to explain; the Beautiful Game is now a 24/7 obsession, 52 weeks of the year - 24x7x52 = 8376: 8+3+7+6 = 24. To extrapolate further: 2+4=6; 6 was the number worn by Bobby Moore, Jim Baxter, Duncan Edwards, Dave Mackay and Willie Miller - ergo, that too is an influential number in the game.

I write this on a Saturday morning, a Saturday morning on which, for the first time this year, there will be no significant football played in Scotland. I appreciate those whose interest in the world's most-popular sport extends no further than the SPL will scoff at this and declaim there has been no significant football for almost a month - but try telling the good people of Auchinleck, Barrhead, Newtongrange, Bo'ness and Hill o' Beath that the deeds of their local teams do not matter - then stand well back and prepare for a verbal roasting that will make Sir Alex Ferguson in the dressing room following a 6-0 defeat appear avuncular.

Certainly, with the new season a mere 39 days away, the ultra-keen, those seeking a fitness edge for the start of pre-season and those battling back from long-term injury will be breaking sweat, but today is as perhaps as close as we will ever come in Scotland to a "nae fitba day".

It is also the final Saturday before Wimbledon, and marks the mid-way point in this year's US Open Golf Championship. So, what is the back page splash in the Scottish newspapers - Gordon Smith's return to the game as the new Rangers' Director of Football, that's what.

I have to admit a certain sympathy for the view of 'Damo Lennon', a regular contributor to the marvellous 'Rumour Mill' thread on The Scotsman's website - www.scotsman.com. The mutual invective delivered on-line by the denizens of Ibrox and Celtic Parks has meant that it has become increasingly-difficult for the on-line football community in Scotland to discuss the merits of the oldest rivals in the game. Yes, there are avenues from the extremely-biased and at times stagnant waters of sites such as 'Follow Follow' to the all-purpose sites such as 'Pie and Bovril'. But, for me, the closest thing we have in Scotland - the Herald having opted-out of providing a platform for on-line discussion of the Old Firm - to the Times' letters page, is the 'Rumour Mill'.

I love it and its regular cast of contributors such as the afore-mentioned 'Damo Lennon', his even more pro-Celtic ally 'Syllogism' and the other tribunes of the 'Tattidome' - 'C_S_M', 'the Green Machine', 'TJGG21' 'Ivan Cutlery' and from the opposite end of the spectrum - 'Daillyman', 'Media for One', 'Invitager', 'Whatwasthescore', '54 and counting' and 'celtic r atrocious', men who attempt to prove with varying degrees of success that not all 'Scrapyard' regulars are knuckle-draggers, who have been spray-tanned bitter orange.

There are also 'the neutrals' - just a few, such as my fellow Ayrshireman 'Star o' Rabbie Burns' and the ex-pat, French-domicilied 'Malc F'. 'Star' or "Scabby Burns! as 'Syllogism', known in return as "Silly", has dubbed him stands tall in his support of Kilmarnock, while "Malc" claims to be a Dons fan. These claims cut little ice with the true-blue and green hordes, who frequently remark on their apparent obsession with their betters.

Certainly, in the wake of an Old Firm clash, the Rumour Mill can resemble down town Kabul after Friday prayers and has occasionally been closed down, but, it seldom descends to the level of vitriol which some of the douce citizens of our capital can pour on the Hearts and Hibs threads - these can be really nasty and on the whole, particularly when the older hands are discussing a juicy item, the level of debate on the Rumour Mill is higher.

But I digress. Last evening, when the news of Gordon Smith's return to the game as the new Rangers' Director of Football, 'Damo Lennon' made a telling observation - suggesting that nobody before had made such a paucity of talent go so far in the game as Smith. Certainly he never as a player made it to the heights of winning a full Scotland cap, but he was a front-line player who can, when invited to, show us his medals; he is remembered for an iconic "miss" - in truth more a stunning save, but it is over-looked that he did score in the same game. He is one of the few Scots to have enjoyed a successful spell abroad and if he has never managed at the top level, he did have a spell as assistant manager at St Mirren, where he had the mental strength to walk away uninvited when he disagreed with the direction in which his manager was taking the club.

He has business skills and has never hidden his affection for Rangers. He knows his way around football's corridors of power, he has worked as an agent and I can think of nobody else in Sottish football and few in British football, who ticks so many boxes when it comes to appointing a Director of Football.

But, there's the rub - Director of Football is a title and role with which British football, from the common spectator -"Terracing Tam", via the "prawn sandwich brigade" in the corporate hospitality areas to the directors' box is unfamiliar with and unsure of.

On this island, the Manager is king, he runs the football side of the club and has done so since football became a business rather than a sport - back in the period between Queen Victoria dying and an Austrian Archduke bumping into a Serbian anarchist in down town Sarajevo.

Sure, the directors still sign the cheques, pour the whisky and hold his career fate in their hards, but, by and large, it's the manager's ball. In the wider football world, however, the Director of Football runs the club, the Manager is Head Coach and he prepares the team - the buck still stops with him, but, while he has (at least in the well-run teams) a huge say in player identification, the Director of Football tends to handle the transfer negotiations and recruitment.

Smith knows how it should work and he should prove to be a stalwart ally to young Ally, as he faces his first season in one of the two biggest jobs in Scottish football. Craig Whyte, it is already evident, is not your normal club owner - he will do things differently and one of the biggest changes which my colleagues in the Scottish football-writing fraternity will have to get used to will be, he (Whyte) will do things his way and not the Sir David Murray way or the way it has traditionally been done.

Some thought Walter Smith was a shoo-in to be Director of Football, but, in appointing Gordon Smith, Whyte has, I feel, been very shrewd. Had Walter Smith remained at the club, it would have been reminiscent of the way, inadvertantly, Sir Matt Busby over-shadowed Wilf McGuinness and Frank O'Farrell in the aftermath of his (Busby's) renounciation of the manager's role at Old Trafford. McCoist will now be able to be his own man, but will have Gordon Smith there, looking after the areas of the job with which McCoist has least-experience and perhaps least talent.

A good move by White I think. Also, perhaps, with the right Director of Football, such as Davie Hay, Neil Lennon might have avoided some of the incidents which detracted from our appreciation of an impressive first season in management.

We live in interesting times.

And, as I was saying way back there at the start, there may be other games and sports, but, when it comes down to it, fitba is the only game in town and 24 is the meaning of life.