Poor Gary Locke - Or Was He?

I THINK they will be beeling in Kerrydale Street and Edmiston Drive, today is the second successive day that Hearts have grabbed the Scottish football headlines - which is no bad thing.

 

Ruminating as I have been on yesterday's events at Tynecastle, I note, with regret, that my colleagues in the mainstream Scottish football media have gone to their default position - they have concentrated on the personalities rather than the facts.

 

Of course, it is always a personal tragedy when someone loses their job, as Gary Locke did yesterday. However, we are always being told: "Football is a results-driven industry". Let's hold that thought.

 

Hearts went into administration and were handed a 15-points deduction; at that moment, they became the odds-on favourites to go down. Administration also meant goodbye to the club's well-paid foreign imports and the situation whereby manager Locke would have to see-out the season with a more-or-less all-Scottish squad.

 

Locke has been lauded for managing to accrue 38 points from the difficult managerial situation he found himself in, fair enough.

 

But, even if those 15 points had not been deducted and everything else had remained the same - what would today's situation be?

 

Simples, Hibs would have taken the automatic relegation slot and Hearts would be preparing to face the winner of the Hamilton v Falkirk match in the promotion/relegation play-off.

 

OK, if we accept that being relegated on account of a 15-point deduction was a false position for Hearts, does the fact that the club's position, with those 15-points, would have been second-bottom rather than bottom make Locke a success as manager?

 

I think not. In fact, had Hearts still finished second-bottom, the calls for Locke's head would have been strident and, had Ms Budge then come in and sacked him, he'd have got precious little sympathy.

 

Ms Budge is, by all accounts a hard-nosed business-woman. There is no sentiment in business, and while we understand she likes Gary Locke as a person, well, her business head demanded that he depart.

 

The new Levein/Neilson team will be charged with getting Hearts back into the top flight ASAP. However, their longer-term programme is to put in place a system whereby Hearts attracts the creak of the young talent in the Lothians to the club and nurtures them properly.

 

This will be no easy task, particularly since, with the gap between player wages south of the Solway and here on the north shore widening every season - with the English clubs pulling away; it will become ever-harder to maintain a core of experienced Scottish players in any would-be top Scottish club.

 

Levein and Neilson, both having, however briefly, tasted football in England, just might be the guys to caution their young players against moving too-quickly and, by so doing, ensure some continuity and stability at the club.

 

 

 

ONE of the drawbacks to great age is, the old memory function declines. That is the excuse I am giving for my failure to comment on an interesting article which I saw in one of the Scottish Sundays a couple of weeks ago.

 

It dwelt on our ignominious first entry to the World Cup qualifying stages, back in season 1949-50. The gospel according to Scottish football has always been that, Scotland having qualified for the 1950 finals in Brazil, the SFA opted not to go, because we hadn't won the Home International Championship.

 

However, what I had never seen explained, prior to a couple of weeks ago, was the reason behind that refusal to travel. This was, when the four Home Nations rejoined FIFA in 1947, one of the many special deals they arranged was that the 1949-50 Home Internationals would be the UK qualifying group for Brazil. When that group was set-up, the deal from FIFA was that only the British Champions would travel. All four nations knew, before a ball was kicked, that to be sure of getting to Brazil, they had to win the Home Internationals.

 

But, as the tournament progressed and the finals hove to on the horizon, one or two countries in mainland Europe, where the infrastructure was still badly fractured by the ravaged of World War II, suddenly realised - they couldn't afford to send their international team on what was then a lengthy, protracted and tiring journey to South America, so, they pulled-out.

 

FIFA needed as many European nations as they could get in Brazil, they still remembered how poorly Europe had supported the inaugural World Cup, in Uruguay just 20-years before. So, they approached the Home Nations and offered a place in Brazil to the runners-up in the Home Internationals, as well as the winners.

 

The SFA, however, said, even if they finished second, they would not go, since they had entered under one set of rules and didn't believe these rules should have been changed mid-way through the qualifying.

 

For that decision to stand by the agreement they had made and their refusal to agree to a mid-match change of rules, the SFA has been taking flak ever since. Maybe now, with hindsight over many disappointing forays to the World Cup, we should compliment the late Sir George Graham and his committee for their decision.

 

I mean, England lost to the USA, just imagine what Scotland, with our glorious tradition of falling on our faces on the biggest stage, might have managed. No, on second thoughts - don't.