Gary Keown on why Alex McLeish must be forgiven
MOST things can be forgiven in football. Just consider the fact that Allan McGregor finds himself in a position where he can reclaim the honour of being first-choice goalkeeper for Scotland over the course of the upcoming double-header with Costa Rica and Hungary.
By rights, he should be nowhere near the squad. His international career should have ended nine years ago with that ludicrous drinking session in the team hotel after returning from a World Cup thumping in Holland and those petulant, embarrassing V-signs in the Hampden stand during the visit of Iceland several days later.
He was banned by the SFA for his behaviour. He should still be banned now. Yet, within 16 months, he was back in the team and, thanks to an injury to Craig Gordon and a lack of other viable alternatives, has been presented with an opportunity to begin the Euro 2020 campaign as the country’s No1.
This, of course, will barely be a matter of conversation when Costa Rica come calling on Friday evening. ‘Boozegate’ was a long time ago.
McGregor is older and, presumably, wiser. He has won a number of caps since and has, by all accounts, been one of the better performers in a mixed season for Hull City.
It will no doubt be seen as churlish in some quarters to even bring up his past misdemeanours. We’ve got Malky Mackay running the show as performance director, after all.
It is why Alex McLeish ought not to worry too deeply about the Hampden reception he will receive from the sections of the Tartan Army who voiced opposition to his return on the basis that he walked out for a job at Birmingham City after running France and Italy so close in Euro 2008 qualifying.
Get results and all will be forgotten. That’s how it has always been in football.
Sure, Big Eck’s timing left a bit to be desired back in the day, resigning shortly after returning from the draw for the World Cup qualifiers in South Africa, but the bad blood that has existed within a faction of Scotland supporters since then has been rather silly.
McLeish had completed a campaign, was still relatively young in managerial terms, and fancied a crack at the English Premier League.
It wasn’t terribly difficult to understand. We all reserve the right to move jobs during our lives, don’t we?
What’s more, he has a collection of players at his disposal right now that is, undoubtedly, capable of ending our 20-year wait to make it to a major finals.
His first squad contained a welcome injection of fresh faces to start winning round some of the doubters and, although the omissions of the likes of James McArthur and Christophe Berra were a little surprising, the capture of Manchester United’s Scott McTominay was a big win in an encouraging start.
If there is to be any degree of dissension within the crowd on Friday, it should not be directed at the dugout. Undermining McLeish before he has even got going would be petty and counterproductive.
That is not to say, though, that people ought not to ask questions of the process that saw him appointed after a period in the footballing wilderness. Indeed, if supporters do want to march on the national stadium with the intention of making a point, there will be others sitting considerably higher up the south stand deserving of their attention in the wake of another week of intrigue within the SFA.
Are the public happy with Neil Doncaster, chief executive of the SPFL, now holding a seat on the main SFA board? Doncaster is a guy who does what others tell him to do. You have about as much chance of getting an original opinion on the state of Scottish football out of a frothing raccoon in the paralytic stage of rabies.
Is that what is required in such an important decision-making role?
There is already much talk of carve-ups and politicking. That SFA vice-president Rod Petrie was allowed to give McLeish the manager’s job in return for agreeing to a chief executive more friendly towards the major clubs.
Ian Maxwell has already resigned from the SFA board, making way for Doncaster, as he prepares to further his own application for that role. Ex-St Mirren chairman Stewart Gilmour said in an entertaining radio interview in midweek that the Partick Thistle managing director is already being discussed in some circles as a ‘shoo-in’ for CEO, even though the position was publicly advertised and is being handled by an external recruitment firm.
Everyone expected Scotland’s bigger clubs to stage a power grab at the SFA after the removal of the hapless Stewart Regan — and that is certainly what this looks like.
Of the many things Gilmour said, though, two stood out. If Maxwell is already pencilled in to be Regan’s successor, can the SFA say it has exhausted all possibilities to get the very best person to lead the organisation?
Also, what have the SFA’s non-executive directors, Gary Hughes and Ana Stewart, got to say about these alleged backroom machinations? These are two people who run the game and, yet, have the public profile of your average KGB operative.
Perhaps all of this will be to the eventual betterment of the game. Perhaps no one really cares.
Maybe we’ll find out on Friday. Certainly, asking questions of those at the top of the SFA would seem a more fruitful use of energy for the public than casting up ill-considered old grudges against McLeish.