Bogeymen from the past justify howls of protest
SCOTTISH football can feel like that scene from the Slaughtered Lamb pub. Fans of classic horror movie An American Werewolf In London will know the one.
Two American backpackers hiking their way round Europe pitch up on the Yorkshire Moors.
They find a boozer full of chat and laughter until they open the door and walk in.
Suddenly a deathly hush descends over the locals and they fall still. The interlopers are studied through suspicious, hostile eyes and it all gets horribly awkward.
Imagine Neil Lennon wandering into the Louden Tavern for a pint and you get the picture.
A few owners of Scottish football clubs have found themselves playing the roles of hikers Jack and David in recent years. And they were lucky to get out of the pub alive.
It’s not small-minded xenophobia to point out that Scottish football is hardly brimming with money. When people ask what the hell Klondike hunters are doing buying into an SPFL club in the first place, it’s a fair question.
Rangers have seen a cast of these characters. Sir David Murray should have lost his knighthood for what happened in 2012. Craig Whyte was supposed to be a multi-millionaire, but didn’t have a pot to plant in.
Charles Green had big Yorkshire hands and laid them on every penny he could find. Mike Ashley wrapped himself around the club’s retail operation like a Boa constrictor and is still squeezing tight. And chairman Dave King needed the SFA to change their own fit-and-proper protocols to seize office.
At Hearts, Vladimir Romanov promised league titles and the Champions League. And finished up facing charges of fraud, embezzlement and money
laundering. Italian Angelo Massone exuded charm and a gleaming sun tan. Then plunged Livingston into a dark place before moving his travelling circus on to Romania.
The romance went out of Gretna when the marriage with Brooks Mileson ended in a messy divorce.
Dundee have had Ron Dixon, Angus Cook and Giovanni Di Stefano. And the less said about the ruinous Dunfermline legacy of banker Gavin Masterton the better.
Now comes 46-year-old Englishman Mark Campbell with a plan to take control of Falkirk before the end of August.
Based in New York, the stockbroker originally wanted to take over Sunderland and use the Bairns as a feeder club.
For reasons best known to himself, the Sunderland bid collapsed and there’s no shortage of speculation as to why.
The Back The Bairns fans’ group led a community takeover bid of their own and appear to have taken defeat to Campbell very badly indeed.
A dossier of allegations concerning the new man’s business past has been presented to a board currently carrying out a process of due diligence.
Former Celtic scouting chief John Park, meanwhile, is considering if he still wants to associate himself with the whole shooting match.
Campbell claims the smears over his background are unfounded and a case of mistaken identity.
He feels a sense of injustice that Back the Bairns aired their concerns in public without speaking to him first and, at a fans’ question and answer on Monday, he assured everyone he’s no Craig Whyte or Vladimir Romanov.
The problem is this. When people challenged Whyte and Romanov on their business backgrounds and what the hell they were doing buying a Scottish football club, they were always ready with an answer. Rangers and Hearts fans, meanwhile, were quick to point accusing fingers at anyone asking awkward questions, accusing them of being enemies of the club.
By the time the truth dawned and they finally saw the full picture, the damage was done.
That’s why Back The Bairns deserve to be treated like more than bad losers.
The time for supporters to subject prospective fly-by-nights to full and rigorous scrutiny is not when the bailiffs roll up.
It’s before they seize the title deeds in the first place.
Mark Campbell might think Back The Bairns have been feasting on sour grapes.
But the new man says he wants to give supporters some transparency. If he has nothing to hide, then he also has nothing to fear.
Due diligence at a football club shouldn’t begin in the boardroom. It should start in the stands.
That’s why Campbell is currently getting the Slaughtered Lamb treatment.
In contrast with the welcome given to some of the charlatans who waltzed into Scottish football and reaped havoc, it’s only right and proper.