THEY TURNED A BLIND EYE...
Warnings on ‘creepy’ McCafferty ignored, claims ex-Hibs star
FORMER Hibernian striker Tam McManus last night claimed many figures within Scottish football opted to ignore repeated warnings about the conduct of self-confessed paedophile Jim McCafferty.
The child abuse scandal that first rocked the English game two weeks ago has now engulfed Scotland following the sickening confession of the former Celtic, Hibernian and Falkirk employee yesterday.
The 71-year-old has confessed to a campaign of sexual abuse of young footballers over a 20-year period. One of the players McCafferty preyed on, John Gaffney, took his own life 30 years later.
And McManus, who encountered ‘creepy’ McCafferty as a 14-year-old at Celtic then as a professional at Hibs, believes too many people in positions of authority were too willing to dismiss the rumours of vile conduct as fantasy.
‘I hope that today will be a watershed for Scottish Football and victims of sexual abuse within it,’ the 35-year-old wrote on his blog.
‘That men like Jim McCafferty can spend so much time working at top clubs in our country is scandalous.
‘There is no doubt in my mind people knew what Jim McCafferty was and chose to turn a blind eye to it. These people must be taken to task as they let down those boys as much as anyone else. More and more people will start to come out now. Unfortunately this is only the tip of a very large iceberg.’
McManus, who played for Hibs between 1997 and 2005, says he was not surprised when McCafferty’s confession came into the public domain yesterday.
‘Having woken up this morning to the front page headlines of Jim McCafferty admitting he sexually abused boys in the 80’s and 90s when he was a boy’s club manager and scout, my stomach turned as would everyone else’s reading the article,’ he added.
‘A lot of people would have been shocked and stunned by these revelations. I wish I could say the same.
‘His utter lack of remorse in his confession interview for the damage he done to those poor boys who trusted him makes my blood boil. It was as if he (has) done the victims a favour by coming forward and admitting it. After all he didn’t force them into anything right? He is a horrible sexual predator who hopefully will get locked away for a long time for what he did.
‘This news unfortunately never came as a surprise to me or no doubt countless other boys who came into contact with McCafferty.
‘He was the one constant name in my mind when the sex abuse stories within football started to break this past month.’
Recalling his encounters with Lanarkshire-born McCafferty as both an aspiring pro and a Hibernian first-team player, McManus said he never felt fully at ease in his company.
HAvInG learned that the kitman left Celtic following allegations of sexual related misconduct in 1996, he was staggered that he was subsequently taken on by Hibs after a period of lying low in northern Ireland.
‘I was fortunately never abused by Jim McCafferty but rumours dogged him ever since I first came into contact with him back in 1994 aged 14 when I went in and trained with Celtic,’ he continued.
‘Jim was a scout and also the kit man and he used to drive the boys in the minibus to and from games. Even then looking back I didn’t feel entirely at ease with the way he acted and spoke around young boys. He seemed to have a tight group and as an outsider coming in I felt like the black sheep in the corner. I wasn’t in the inner circle.
‘He was just a bit creepy and I never felt comfortable in his company back then albeit it was only briefly. Stories of young boys going to his house for sleepovers after games back then were rife.
‘McCafferty was a bachelor with no kids who lived alone and whilst of course this doesn’t make you a paedophile surely it’s a tick in the alarm bells ringing column. Also his favourite boys being given new boots, kit or trips to watch big games began to surface. I played a couple of games for Celtic but decided to knock them back and sign for Hibs.
‘When I signed on full-time in 1997-98 McCafferty was now the kit man at Hibs, having left Celtic for ‘personal reasons’ amid sex abuse claims in a national newspaper. He was a pretty popular guy among all the players and coaches to be honest.
‘Again he would drive the youth teams to training and games all over the country. How he ended up at Hibs dealing with young players day-in day-out amid the abuse allegations and rumours then later on at Falkirk for a brief spell needs firmly looked at.
‘At Hibernian he enlisted young boys to sit with him in his kit room and help wash, clean and set out the training kit as part of our YTS duties.
‘He was also in and out the youth team dressing room every day whilst we got showered picking up dirty kit.
‘All in all McCafferty was at Hibs for 4-5 years. It makes my skin crawl just thinking about it. We even used to joke that you didn’t want to get dropped off last in the minibus with Big Jim at night after games. Unfortunately as it turned out it was no laughing matter. But there was always that seed of doubt about him for me.’