GLF 42: Terry's All Gold

Terry's All Gold

Terry's All Gold

Has there been a worse season than the last one? I cannot remember one. Yes, we have suffered relegation in the past and that hasn't happened this time, but to me what has been going on this year is the breakdown of football as we used to know it.

It's something that's been waiting to happen, but has now escalated out of all proportion. Players are now only interested in the highest bidder - who would have imagined Motherwell losing over half a team within weeks? Yet I'm not too bothered at the players that have gone - what did they really achieve at the club? They were certainly overpaid. It's a pity two players who came through the youth system, McMillan and McCulloch, had no wish to stay with the club and instead further their ambitions where the grass is greener, or so they think.

So as the likes of 'Well are losing out more and more, there is page upon page of great euphoria in the media about a team from Glasgow winning the SCOTTISH HANDICAP LEAGUE and other sundry competitions. How papers can write such guff about a team that has such a big advantage over everybody else bar one is beyond my comprehension. The stuff written about Martin O'Neill is way over the top. Ever since I've followed his career from non-league I knew hew was a bit special, but to rant on and on about his great achievement in Scotland is laughable. If what he has done is remarkable, how come he has never won the Premiership with Leicester. Simple, money and competition, the two things lacking in Scotland. Ask that so-called great Scottish manager Walter Smith, he is with one of England's best supported clubs but those two words did not enter the equation when he bulldozed everything before him with the Glasgow Rancids. What a difference those words now mean in England.

Just imagine Eric Black managing us year after year in the Scottish Third Division - we would be wondering what the hell was going on if he didn't keep winning us the title. With money king of football, that's today's scenario. If I was involved with these so-called top clubs today I would have to walk away from it as I couldn't stand these shirt-kissing mercenaries. I just hope Motherwell give the young players the chance they deserve. Although 'Well didn't make the Top Six I felt far happier seeing the younger members of the club being given their chance of playing first team football - please may it continue.

How about all this Larsson hype for scoring in the HANDICAP LEAGUE. Did any of you read about the real goal scoring record holder. Of course you didn't because he came from outwith the Old Obsessed. Our own Willie McFadyen was from 1930-31 to 1934-35 Scotland's most prolific goal scorer, breaking a Scottish League Record with 52 goals in one season. The record still stands, he scored many more that season in other competitions. It was not the one-sided affair back then that it is today. Thankfully we didn't get from Willie what we do from Larsson after a goal - his tongue sticking out, pass the sick bag. Willie played for 'Well over sixteen years, sigh, 'they were the days'. he went on to manage Dundee United, brother Ian also played at Fir Park as did Willie's son, Ian MacFadyen. A few facts on Willie's goal scoring feats - he scored five goals in four different matches, four goals in eight different matches (one of these against Cetic) and sixteen hat-tricks. Of course, another of our great scorers, the wonderful Hugh Ferguson, twice netted five in a game, scored four in five games and grabbed twenty hat-tricks in all in the Claret and Amber. Larsson - who's that!

I see the crazy testimonial matches for the wealthiest players are still alive and flourishing. Who are the idiots paying to go to these matches, giving to men who live on another planet to them. They don't seem to mind all that much, they even travel miles to see them, yet I bet they are the first to moan if the tax in their wage packet goes up of cigs & drink go the same way. It really is mind boggling when you read all the hype over Boyd and Giggs' testimonials, even to have the match on TV . If somebody can tell me why these players need more money on the mountain they have now, please give me a sensible answer.

Another over-the-top bit of reporting was Andy Goram on the way to Champions Cup glory according to the news. More like Chumpions Cup - what a farce, a sub now and again or even subbed off twice, humiliation I would have thought for the so-called Scotland's best-ever 'keeper. Still, I expect the money was good. I found the Goram transfer preposterous - great for Motherwell though. What about the piece comparing his girlfriend to Mrs Beckham - UGH! I found it all comical. People like Goram come on the scene for a meal ticket. I wouldn't mention him in the same breath as Alan McClory and John Johnstone.

Thinking of the crazy money in the game, I go back to those National Service days and those chaps in the Service teams who would have gone up to the pay desk where they were stationed each week, saluted, and be handed £1 - that being their wage packet. I had been playing for our R.A.F. station team, but was dropped in favour of a chap called McKenzie, who played for Rangers at the time, when he was drafted into our camp as he played the same position as me. I've never forgotten that, he was in the R.A.F. police and was being groomed by Rangers to succeed George Young, but he never made that big step.

Thought you might like to know that Leamington FC, after being mothballed for 12 years, came back last season to win the Third Division Midland Combination, and with it promotion to the Second Division, seven rungs below the Nationwide Conference where they were founder members - it's a start. They beat all Midland Combination attendance records since records began with a home league aggregate of 9,114 over seventeen matches. The ground (just outside Whitnash, one mile from my home) is the first they have owned in their history. So 'Well fans, we're lucky to have a great ground with its history alongside a team to support week in week out.