Sunday Herald - 26 June 2005

The new SRU president has a massive task ahead of him, says Neil Drysdale
The election of Andy Irvine as SRU president on Friday night has been regarded by some dewy-eyed observers with a hint of the messianic optimism which greeted Tony Blair’s arrival in Downing Street eight years ago. Yet, before we all crack open the bubbly and celebrate the dawning of a glorious new era in Caledonian rugby, it might be wise to listen to some trenchant views on the state of the game in these parts.
According to one experienced fellow: “We are under-funded at every level, our clubs are struggling to stay afloat, there don’t appear to be any Scottish entrepreneurs inclined to buy into professional rugby and, in the current climate, you can’t really blame them.”

Yes, this was the same Irvine, earlier this month, casting an astute glance over the frailties of a sport which has been consigned to near-oblivion by the Murrayfield blazerati’s disregard for democracy and wasteful, myopic stewardship over the past decade.

Obviously, the appointment of the former Scotland and Lions legend represents a positive move – even if it is remarkable that his opponent, George Blackie, a member of the unlamented former general committee, only lost the vote by 107-64 – but nobody, least of all Irvine, should be under any illusions about the scale of the challenge in resuscitating Scotland’s fortunes.

It wasn’t simply the figures presented on Friday, which showed the SRU’s overdraft has increased by £3million over the last financial year to a staggering £21.5m – despite the union hosting more international matches in 2004 than ever before – but also evidence of the depression-laced atmosphere at the grassroots which suggests that Irvine will have to use the same breathtaking feints and shimmies in his commercial dealings which he once paraded on the pitch.

His first assignment will be to fast-track the franchising of the districts, without which it is impossible for the governing body to return to solvency. Yet, as he admits, the relentless internecine warfare which has raged around the SRU since the advent of professionalism has been as much of a turn-off for would-be sponsors and financial backers as it has been for spectators, and Irvine is honest enough to dismiss the idea that he is some rugger-style Harry Potter, blessed with a magic wand at his disposal.

“The new chief executive and chairman will be the people who have to make the real difference and tackle the level of debt and shrinking participation numbers which I think are the biggest problems facing rugby in Scotland,” says Irvine. “But frankly, we have taken a number of backward steps in the last 18 months. Basically, we are a backwater, in danger of being completely left behind by our rivals.”

This speaks volumes for previous mismanagement, but it cuts to the chase. While Edinburgh, Glasgow and the Borders are centrally-funded behemoths, haemorrhaging millions of pounds every year and attracting average crowds of less than 3,000, they will be a millstone around the SRU’s neck. They are unloved by the vast majority of supporters, as indeed is the Celtic League, and they will never thrive as long as the national coach can pluck personnel from their ranks whenever he chooses.




Hence the necessity of contacting Brian Kennedy at Sale Sharks and using his expertise on how to transform a sleeping giant into a vibrant commodity. Personally, I doubt whether the Gunners, Warriors and Sheep-shearers (or whatever name the Borders have this week) will ever command the popularity or respect of their Irish counter-parts, but that’s beside the point. As Irvine says: “These organisations must be allowed to develop without an excess of intervention from the national coaches, or their fans will be justified in complaining that they are watching a different team every week.”

He might also have added, but it wasn’t politically expedient to do so, that it’s overdue for those faceless consortiums, allegedly poised to invest in the districts, to emerge from the shadows and declare their interest in public. There has been sufficient secrecy to satisfy the most avid Le Carre reader: time for the cash, if it exists, to be laid on the table.

Irvine’s other main priority lies in rekindling enthusiasm at the bottom of the pyramid and divesting the sport of its relentlessly middle-class image. For years, I have heard various SRU panjandrums declaring their intention to go into the schemes of Glasgow, Ediburgh and so on, to preach to the unconverted, yet most schools in the west of Scotland still have no rugby on the curriculum. Until this is rectified and the administrators adopt a truly egalitarian philosophy – sadly lacking during Ian McGeechan’s tenure as director of rugby – the old prejudices will linger and fester. If the game can flourish in Livingston, a club with no antiquated notions of traditionalism, then why not elsewhere?

To be fair, Irvine is only one link in the chain. He inherited a shambles not of his own creation and has just 12 months to start the healing process. But significantly, as opposed to Blackie, he can’t be accused of culpability in past misdemea-nours, and he is known and admired all over the globe.

“We have a strategy, we have a business plan. What we need now is to sort out our fragile finances and be cleverer than most in avoiding the expensive mistakes of the past,” he said. “I can detect a new sense of unity, but we shouldn’t kid ourselves that there’s not a growing gulf between ourselves and England and France and, logically, we shouldn’t have an earthly against these countries. It’s like Raith Rovers tackling the Old Firm.”

At least with Irvine, there is always the feeling that something special is imminent. There had better be, or the banks will find their own solution.

This article was posted on 26-Jun-2005, 17:10 by Hugh Barrow.