In Whom Do We Trust

IN God We Trust is the core belief of the USA - we Scots tend to be a bit less trusting that that.

So, while in common with most Scots I welcome the establishment of Stirling Albion as a community-owned club, with the fans in charge, when it comes to the venture's success: ah hae ma doots.

Bill Shankly said the secret to success in English football was to have just enough Scots to make a difference, but not so many that they started fighting amongst themselves. As with so many of Shankly's aphorisms, there was a huge grain of truth therein.

For hundreds of years, when the Scots weren't fighting with the English, they fought among themselves. If 300 years of largely English rule within the United Kingdom was supposed to cure this Caledonian culture of fighting, how come we still have the Old Firm and Ayrshire Junior Football? How come if England wants to give Johnny Foreigner a bloody nose, the first British troops in are generally the Argylls and the Black Watch?

So, I await with interest the first time a clutch of Beanos fans from the Raploch fall out with a clique from Milton, there will be a full and frank exchange of views, with blood and snotters on the carpet.

Of course we all like to moan about our own club's board of directors; they are always making mistakes: hiring the wrong manager, pitching the cost of the pies too high, allowing clowns to write in the programme, not giving enough local boys a chance, not hiring enough technically-gifted foreign players.

Fans of other clubs can do little more than moan, Beanos fans, if they don't like it, can get involved and change matters from within.

Except, not everyone wants to get involved and those that do, frequently fall-out.

While serving my journalistic apprenticeship, I covered the local council. This body was 100 per cent Labour, council meetings were exercises in fending-off tedium as items on the agenda were pased unanimously. There was one elderly lady councillor who occasionally rocked the boat and was ejected from the Labour Group, but she was always taken back after what amounted to little more than a four-game suspension.

We journalists were bored and one day, over coffee and biscuits in the Members Lounge, we tackled the Provost about the blandness of the meetings.

"Aye, but you want to be at the group meetings - when there's blood on the carpet; that's where we do the arguing, behind closed doors, so you lot never know our differences", he admitted - in the process revealing community politics, Scottish style.

We never did get into the group meetings. Let's hope the Albion Supporters Trust also do their fighting behind closed doors and pose a united front for the world.

But, community ownership of clubs is not a new thing - almost every one of Scotland's 170 junior clubs is a community club and by and large they work well. However, ask the secretary of any junior club and he'll tell you, all but the most-successful never have enough committee members, to do all the unseen work which goes into putting a team on the park on a Saturday.

Then there are the Scottish tensions - Tam will not work with Jock, because back in 1853 Jock's great-great-great grand-father's young brother left Tam's great-great-great grand-mother's sister pregnant and decamped to India with the HLI, never to be seen again in the village.

Wullie is a fan who runs a successful landscape gardening business. He has state-of-the-art ride-on mowers which could do a great job of cutting the grass, but the club cannot have the use of them, because Wullie and Hughie, the club secretary haven't spoken, since falling-out over Senga, the Treasurer's wife, 25-years previously, when all were single and the Treasurer wasn't around.

On such delicate social nuances have clubs succeeded or failed - Albion will be no different.

Community ownership of clubs can work - just look at Green Bay Packers - but hey, that's in the USA, not Scotland.

Good luck Albion - you'll need it.