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Conspiracy’s nuts……

Date: 28th September 2024

Conspiracy’s nuts……

After much less than a year in charge Ayr United’s current boss, Scott Brown was quoted muchly, as likely to be the new manager at St. Johnstone.

Except he decided not to be. According to Celtic supremo, Brendan Rodgers, he gave Brown some advice and he may have heeded it and pulled out of the race to go to Perth. There is even some talk of him having signed a contract extension at Somerset Park.

When the news broke, t’internet was awash with diehard fans giving the man pelters. Hardly in the door for five minutes, leaving the club was going to relegate him from being the best signing we have made in years to lower than a Rugby Park ballboy. Never mind the fact that almost every one of us would fail to glance over our shoulders on the way out if someone came knocking on our door and offered a higher salary to go and work at a competitor to the employer we currently serve. And we would not hear anyone talk of loyalty in our houses when the first pay cheque hit the account.

Brown has therefore been the victim of his own success. Craig Levein, it could be argued, is the victim of his own failures. And inability to get the Perth Saints singing at all, never mind marching in, has been the source of his latest P45. Like Brown, his tenure was measured in months rather than years, but it was hardly a short period of time to make things happen in the measurement of football managerial effectiveness.

As the current obsession online is about the 44 days of tenure enjoyed by Brian Clough at Leeds United, measurements around that figure can lead to conspiracies being aired and exercised on forums up and down t’internet.

The latest may well be around the news that Jon Moss has left the SFA as VAR chief after only 52 days. Brought in to work alongside Willie Collum from England, he was seen as a hugely experienced professional who could add a great deal to steady the VAR ship after last year. People can get on their conspiracy horses and gallop into the dark realms of obscurity, and some may well do so, but the man is off to what has been described as a once in a lifetime opportunity that could change his life and that of his family for the better.

What’s to turn down?

Like the people throwing metaphorical brick bats at Scott Brown for daring to consider leaving the holy grail of Somerset Park, someone will no doubt, wonder if all is well at the SFA?

Is there something we are not being told? Undoubtedly, but I reckon it has nothing to do with VAR.

But there is a bigger issue at play here – Scottish football is awfully good at hiding things and then, once they are discovered using a variety of excuses, like an episode of Yes Minister at having these excuses wrapped up in a decision based fantasy, inside the enigmatic personality of a technocrat fighting technophobes in a virtual game of cat and mouse which has the effect of obfuscating, deliberating, decision making and creating a smokescreen sufficient and ample enough to make the temperature of the debate one unworthy of consideration in the light of the day, with the fullness of time leading to a report which shall be considered until it has had ample opportunity to be shelved amongst the previous 998 that were a priority at one point but are now obscure.

And then the whole idea is forgotten about.

Until it is a problem again. But here, there is nothing to see. For fans, perhaps one of the most pressing issues, as clubs are using Supporter Liaison Officers to strengthen their commitment to the fan base, is in Kirkcaldy. Having mismanaged the transfer in of David Goodwillie, and lost the support of lifelong fan Val McDermid, what happened with Ian Murray? Fans should be entitled to a frank, open and honest explanation. Right now, there are quite a few who have made their own minds up but faith in your club can really be about how it conducts itself in a wider sense and not just which pies are on offer at half time. There is a need for candour in their operation because fans commit more than their hard-earned cash to their club. They place their convictions on tap for the club to turn on and when they turn them off, everyone suffers. It is in the gap between what should be said and what is said that conspiracies exist. If you don’t want people to get the wrong impression, you need to give them the right impression first.

Today at home against Greenock Morton, Scott Brown can prove his worth and continue his managerial journey. The SFA shall no doubt get a new guy in to support Collum and VAR. Raith Rovers have moved on with a new manager – but will their fans embrace their new guy with gusto or harbour a doubt in their minds over the direction their club is heading in? If they do not end up in the playoffs, will they revolt? Who knows but I can confirm that I, for one, will not have any conspiracy theory over which of the three above has the dark arts attached…


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