THE HERALD REPORTS
KEVIN FERRIE, Chief Rugby Writer April 09 2009
The office of president of the Scottish Rugby Union is in danger of being politicised and it is hard to escape the conclusion that if it is it will be down to one man's petulance.

Jimmy Stevenson has made no secret of how miffed he was when, after being voted in as president last year, he was not then elected chairman of the SRU council as his two predecessors, Andy Irvine and George Jack, had been.

That in turn meant he was not on the SRU board. His friends have spent much of the intervening time telling people how outrageous that is.


Yet that was thoroughly covered in the restructuring of SRU governance four years ago.

The position of president was to be ambassadorial, ensuring that those who did not want to become career committee men were not discouraged from standing, therefore ensuring the widest possible range of people could be considered.

The president would in turn take a seat on the newly formed SRU council, but not necessarily as its chairman or as a member of the SRU board. It was deemed important that the council - itself largely made up of people elected by clubs - be represented at board level by those it felt best qualified to do so.

If not elected council chairman it was recommended that the president be invited to board meetings, as a non-voting member, so he was fully briefed on important issues when visiting clubs.

Irvine had been an all-time great of the game and a highly regarded businessman whose two terms as president were vital in re-establishing order after the crisis created by the old SRU general committee. Jack, a general committee survivor, had those two years to rebuild his reputation and did so effectively.

For whatever reason, council members did not have the same confidence in Stevenson so did not make him their chairman. It was not that he was a completely unknown quantity, having previously been a council member, but for whatever reason he had not impressed enough of them.

Nor did Stevenson have any excuse for not knowing how this all worked, having had that spell on the council.

He has, in line with the recommendations, been invited to all board gatherings, yet Stevenson's friends are telling anyone who will listen how hard done by he has been and how disgraceful it is that he was not given a formal job description.

Stevenson has now produced his own ludicrous proposal that would effectively give the president executive powers over the chief executive and board chairman. It does not take an astute business brain to realise how impossible that would make strategic planning if those running the business were to be subjected to a complete change of direction every year or two as a new president arrived with his new agenda.

What currently makes that particularly dangerous is that the present SRU hierarchy has itself done a dreadful job of dealing with clubs and customers lately. That is letting the pro-Stevenson lobby portray him as having been ostracised because he is a "real club man" who is championing their cause.

Such administrative bungling has also lent a smidgeon of credibility to the bid to regain Murrayfield office of Jim Gracie, the former general committee man who is apparently set to stand for the presidency.

Clubs should consider whether more personal agendas are at play.

A year ago Stevenson seemed delighted by suggestions that it was wrong for Jack to stand for a second term of office because Irvine's two-year-term had been a special case. Now, apparently, he no longer thinks that applies.

In Gracie's case, things appear rather more straightforward. He was believed to be deeply disappointed that a life's ambition had gone unfulfilled when, as then vice-president, he did not get his shot at the presidency because of the restructuring.

Matters took another sorry turn this week when Stevenson supporters tried to insinuate a connection between Finlay Calder choosing to stand and the fact that the club he is most closely associated with, Stewart's Melville FP, is also SRU board chairman Allan Munro's club.

The idea of Calder being anyone's patsy is utterly preposterous. Yet this is precisely why, as another of the game's all-time greats Ian McLauchlan explained last week, so few former international players have sought involvement with the SRU. They have neither been made to feel welcome, nor have they fancied grubby politicking.

As Calder said this week, Scottish rugby and Scotland generally needs to get its head up and start carrying itself with some pride and dignity.

Would-be presidential candidates have until the end of this month to declare themselves. Thereafter Scotland's clubs need to give serious consideration to how they want to be represented both at home and abroad.

This article was posted on 9-Apr-2009, 07:11 by Hugh Barrow.