It isn’t the time for sentiment, Sir Alex

LIKE the bat signal over Gotham City, Scottish football has developed its own distress call. The problems might change, but the solution is always the same. Call Sir Alex. Whether it’s recommending a Scotland manager, persuading UEFA to pick Glasgow as a venue for Euro 2020 games, or talking Manchester United’s Scott McTominay into knocking back England, there’s no ailment for which Sir Alex Ferguson isn’t the cure.

When the great and the good need help, they don’t fire a flare into the sky. They phone a friend.

So it is, then, that Scottish football’s knight of the realm was wheeled out this week in a quest to keep Hampden from the knacker’s yard.

The SFA have set a deadline of June to choose between signing a new lease at the iconic home of Scottish football or flitting along the M8 to Scottish rugby’s HQ at Murrayfield.

And for those who want Hampden to survive another 115 years, calling Sir Alex was like playing the joker.

He spoke in emotive terms of playing for the Scottish League there. Losing Celtic’s Billy McNeill at a corner when Rangers suffered a hefty defeat in the 1969 Scottish Cup final. Winning cup finals with Aberdeen. The only thing missing was a violin playing the theme from Schindler’s List in the background.

Listen, nostalgia is a wonderful thing. In Scottish football, it might be all we have left.

But the idea that Sir Alex’s past should somehow have a bearing on the future of Hampden doesn’t stack up.

SFA president Alan McRae might be a personal friend. Malky Mackay senior, a Queen’s Park committee member, is another.

But a decision over the home of Scottish football shouldn’t be based on an old pals’ act.

It shouldn’t be shrouded in sentiment. Or unduly influenced by the views of a retired football manager who hasn’t lived or worked in Scotland for 32 years.

When Sir Alex visits Hampden, he sees its good side. The padded VIP seats on the halfway line. The hospitality suites with half-time pakora.

He doesn’t sit in the seats behind the goal peering through a pair of binoculars. He doesn’t face a long walk from the streets where supporters’ buses park. He doesn’t stand in the queues at Mount Florida station wishing Scotrail would lay on a few more trains after Scotland games.

He certainly doesn’t have to foot the bill for patching up an ageing stadium better suited to athletics than football.

When he speaks, his record compels people to listen.

The minute he lifts the phone to recommend a manager to a club chairman, the deal is as good as done.

But there’s really no reason why his views on Hampden’s future should carry additional weight.

The idea SFA board members might delay a show of hands until they see what Sir Alex had to say on the matter in a couple of set-piece interviews just doesn’t stack up.

There’s no harm in a man doing his old muckers at Queen’s Park a favour. It’s how the world works.

But the decision won’t be based on memories or history or tradition. It will be based on detailed reports and the criteria which dictates everything in football. Money.

Murrayfield wouldn’t be my choice. Yet, had a vote been taken in January, Hampden would already be a goner.

The old place has been given time and opportunity to get its act together.

Facing ruinous liabilities if the SFA leave, Queen’s Park are finally willing to talk about handing over the keys.

But if Sir Alex really wants to help, there’s a better way of doing so than harking back to the Good Old Days.

He could use his significant clout to lobby First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. He could persuade the Scottish Government that the national stadium is worth saving.

Right now, Hampden has a credibility problem. To make it an arena fit for the 21st century, the SFA want public money. Some think an unaccountable governing body has already squandered enough taxpayers’ cash. Others feel that Hampden has to become a stadium for the many rather than the few.

Either way, it makes no sense to throw the tens of millions of pounds already spent on the place down a manhole.

And it doesn’t need a state-ofthe-nation address from Sir Alex Ferguson to see it.