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Terry's All Gold
As I write this, it is not known if Motherwell will be relegated depending on the Falkirk saga. There are so many people saying the should be promoted if they are champions - wrong, wrong, wrong!!! The rules of the SPL, written some years ago, state that grounds have to meet a certain standard. Falkirk don't. Sharing grounds and promising you have a new one starting to be built does not fit the criteria.
Leamington supporters had first hand knowledge of ground grading. They were founder members of the Alliance (now Conference) League. Football and ground-wise they met the league's rules, but after three years they were relegated into the Southern Premier League. However, at the first time of asking and with one of their finest ever teams they won the Southern. Throughout the campaign the club believed that by winning the league they would be automatically promoted back to the Alliance only to receive a devastating blow on the last day of season. Despite clinching the championship that day they were told their ground did not meet the league's grading despite the fact they had played in the Alliance for the three years previous without any concerns being voiced. The club could do nothing about it even though they were only advised at the eleventh hour.
So when you read remarks in the papers that the SPL is the only league in the world that refuses the likes of Falkirk promotion on the grounds of facility grading, they need to think again. the whole of England's non-league pyramid is based on ground grading, going back through the years clubs have won the right to move up on the football field only to be denied after the ground inspection. In Leamington's league, the Midland Combination, a number of teams share grounds meaning that if they won their league they couldn't be promoted.
Motherwell did not suffer financially through the years upgrading Fir Park only to have the likes of Falkirk jumping over them into the SPL.
The transfer window seems to have upset some people in football. To me it is something that should have happened years ago. In fact I would go as far as to say that the only transfers shoould occur in the summer. This would stop all the weekly conjecture about who is going where and clubs trying to bale themselves out of trouble. What the hell are clubs doing carrying huge squads of players and paying them not to kick a ball. Motherwell have proved this season that there are players champing at the bit to prove they are good enough to play in the top team. Think about it - if there had been no financial troubles at Fir Park and John Boyle had carried on pouring money into inflated players' wages, the likes of Goram etc would still be with us. How good were the 'Well with the people, and what chance of a look-in would the players now wearing the Claret and Amber have had. These lads have had a right good go in the name of Motherwell Football Club.
Who would you rather see wearing our favourite's colours - Spencer & Co or Pearson and the boys? I have ached for the time that another Ancell regime would enter Fir Park, never thinking it could in today's world. Of course this situation has been forced onto the club, and supporters, by a nightmare scenario and we currently sit bottom of the league, but despite this ( and I don't know about you fellow Steelmen ) I have not felt such optimism as I do now about our club since Bobby Ancell's days. One reservationI da have is if the financial scene changes for the better, will there be a u-turn in policy? I just hope that Mr Butcher and all involved do not return to recent ways that failed miserably.
As a 'Well supporter I have never looked for win, win, win or hunting for trophies. I have longed for rearing our own players who will give their all and entertain us with skilful football. Our players of today are trying to do that, and as supporters we have a big part to play in turning up to encourage them. One big downside to running a club like this is if our players keep improving ( which is what we hope happens ) in fly the vultures with their great promises of wonderous riches and trophies there for the taking where the grass is greener - remember the McCrae's, O'Donnell's etc, etc, etc.
Thatis why when I keep reading about McFadden and how he is only passing through, my blood boils - in fact I go bonkers! Everybody accepts the inevitable it seems so let's just swim with the tide - I just cannot do that. OK then, accuse me of living in the 'Sailor' Hunter era, I suppose you are right having been born right in the middle of that epoch it is forever with me. I just hate the greedy manipulative way of the agents in the football world today.
Picking up the papers each day, the football world get crazier. I keep thinking that the madness must stop some time, but then I read articles onour team the same day. Motherwell are in financial trouble because they lack undersoil heating. To install it carries a three-pronged penalty;
a bill for £100,000 would mean the wage bill would have to be reduced further
it would make it more difficult to find a buyer due to the additional debt at the club
the possibilty of having to sell another player as we would be unable to borrow
Then I turn over the page of the newspaper and find that an individual player at the same club, just out of school, is about to have a fortune thrown at him for wearing Adidas boots. So one individual can be made for life very early in his career - and don't forget, as brilliant a talent as McFadden is, he hasn't even come out of his apprenticeship yet. Just think what that Adidas money could have done for Motherwell, but this is riddled throughout football - as the individual becomes richer by the day, the club the play for become more and more embroiled in a financial mess. The lunatics are running the asylum.
Just to add a neat touch to this ridiculous sponsorship by Adidas, a few days ago an article condemned the firm because the boots are made from kangaroo and the killing of these animals is on a wide scale seeing baby kangaroos being clubbed to death. The League of Animal Cruelty is attempting to stop players from wearing them. How the football world has changed. Glorified carpet slippers as football boots. Of course girlie Beckham has to go one step further by having his children's names on them - Peuk!
Also thinking back to Fir Park and their unsuitable pitch, years ago matches would have been played on rock hard frosted ground, covered with snow and not to mention a mud heap. I wonder how the kangaroo boots would have fared, and what price Beckham bending the old cannonball used for a football?
So Rangers call once again and pinch one of our men, George Adams this time. No wonder the likes of McLeish can become super managers, strengthen their own side and weaken everybody else - easy isn't it. What price contracts? Worthless as we all know. George Adams found it easy to move.
Despite that news, the fresh club set up looks good. Chris McCart looks a good bet following on from Adams - he is a true Claret and Amber man, what a delight to see this appointment. I am also pleased to see a man like Malpas at Fir Park, a real genuine football man who knows his stuff. Welcome to Fir Park Maurice and hope it's a long stay.
One thing that mystifies me is the dislike ( or should that be hatred ) between 'Well and Hearts supporters. I has a friend who was Hearts-daft who is sadly now dead, but he used to tell me of the camaraderie between the two clubs and sets of supporters. Everybody, incluing neutrals, looked forward to the Motherwell v Hearts fixture as a noted game on the soccer calendar guaranteed to be a top-class sporting game. Of course for may years two of football's classiest gentlemen players led these two teams - George Stevenson and Tommy Walker - is it a case that we will never see their likes again, and that era and players are gone forever along with the supporters.
A sad day if this is so.
KEEP UP THE SUPPORT
TERRY WILLOUGHBY
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