Offer of friendly reveals Sir Alex’s love for Pars

clubs will not gain entry, he does so in the certain knowledge that no court on earth has the authority to dictate which football clubs should be granted membership. A legal judgment which legitimises the principle of cross-border trade is not an obligation on established organisations to admit anyone who applies. The most difficult task in the entire process will always be to persuade the potential hosts to accept the evacuees.

But no amount of flaws in Green’s case (there are others apart from the aforementioned) seems to be enough to discourage the easily swayed. One especially limited thinker proposed in print recently that, the courts having opened the gateway, all the SPl clubs should play in England, with Celtic and rangers in the top division and the others spread among the lower tiers according to strength and status.

The suggestion of tion south doubtless national team, “i would happily have stayed Jock’s assistant for the rest of my life.”

it was what he added that explains his concern for the financially-stricken Dunfermline and his readiness to stage a game that could raise enough money to have a reviving effect on his old club. “Being Jock’s assistant gave mass migraappealed to the author of the plan as an original thought, but it seems to have been formed without due consideration of the high probability of harrowing consequences.

The most obvious – and potentially the most harmful – among these is that the formation of what would be undeniably an authentic British league would be the short route to disbandment of the home countries and the termination of separate identities on the football field.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s keenness to send a full-strength Manchester United team to Dunfermline for a fund-raising pre-season friendly is simply a practical demonstration of the affection he has felt for the club since the day he signed in 1964. The gesture chimes perfectly with comments he made during a conversation we had in his Carrington office a few years ago.

The subject was Jock Stein and the Old Trafford manager’s reverence for his late mentor could not have been more tellingly – or more startlingly – expressed.

“You know,” he said, when recalling his time as Stein’s assistant with the me my best times as a manager,” he said “And my happiest days as a player were unquestionably at Dunfermline. it was never better than at East End Park.”

Since he had six clubs in a 17-year career, including rangers, from which to choose, the tribute could hardly have been more meaningful.