Time to give this decent man a break

JIM DUFFY

I HAVE been genuinely shocked by the incredibly vicious and vindictive comments about Graham Rix since his appointment as Hearts head coach. That has nothing to do with the fact that he is a good friend and someone I believe to be a decent coach and a decent person. But outrageous double standards are at work here. Many are in a rush to damn him for a past crime when so many others in football and public life have been forgiven theirs.

Not for one second should that be read as an attempt to justify what Graham was tried and convicted for. Eight years ago, he was wrong to have sex with a 15-year-old girl. Irrespective of the fact that I have known him for 13 years, and was at Chelsea when it happened simply because he gave me a job there, I was no less bitterly disappointed in him. I told him so then and, despite him later making me his assistant at Portsmouth, he knows my views have never changed. Graham caused massive hurt to his family and friends. He put them, and the family of the girl, through terrible trauma and will have to live with that all his days.

In going to jail for six months in 1999, he paid heavily for it and continues to do so as he is on the sex offenders' register until 2009. Even if many who have transgressed as he did avoid a term in prison, I believe when his name was placed on the register it was a more severe punishment than any custodial sentence. It has allowed those simply unwilling to consider the specifics of his case, and the grey areas within it, to stigmatise him - even as far as labelling him as some sort of pervert.

That is horrific and unfair. Without attracting any of the moral outrage Graham has attracted, many in the game have been allowed to get their careers back on track following unlawful killings through drink driving, rape allegations, domestic violence and drug taking. Who has decided Graham's misdemeanour is so much less forgivable than these illegalities? He is being castigated in the media eight years after he made an awful mistake that he never attempted to weasel out of. Yet, the interest in young girls taken by Bill Wyman, Woody Allen and Jerry Lee Lewis is not raised every time those celebrities' lives are discussed.

Graham's greatest crime is not fitting the profile of the head coach expected by Hearts supporters and the media after Bobby Robson, Ottmar Hitzfeld and Claudio Ranieri were floated as possibles. I know from experience that Graham's moves to Portsmouth and Oxford United did not generate the assassination of his character that have been practically universal from the press and Tynecastle punters. People were willing to give him a chance then, and that is all he asks for now.

Graham will carry a heavy burden around with him forever but deserves to be judged solely on his professional abilities. I am flabbergasted at the crassness of things said to, and about, him this past week. To have been asked at a press conference on Tuesday if he can allay fears supporters might have over bringing their young teenage daughters to Tynecastle beggars belief. As does the suggestion that there is a "soullessness in his eyes", as I read in one report. Talk to Graham - a straight, pleasant Yorkshireman - about football and you will see a twinkle. Working with footballers makes him come alive. In being the most successful English first-team coach at Stamford Bridge he consistently demonstrated he could bring out the best from players on the training pitch. Yet the experience of being placed in a secure unit at Wandsworth prison did change him, there is no question of that. God knows, it cannot have been easy sharing a cell with a man known as The Beast of the Buses.

I didn't go to see Graham in prison, but that was only because there was limited access for visitors. We exchanged letters regularly but the man who emerged from jail was a quieter, more subdued individual. Life changed for him in that period, too.

Effectively, he lost his job because Ray Wilkins stepped up to perform the duties that Graham had previously undertaken. Soon after, it altered for him in another crucial respect. He has been married to Linda for five years and the fact she has a teenage daughter of her own is surely the best evidence that Graham's character should not now come into question.

Unquestionably, Hearts have taken a massive risk in recruiting Graham. For the first time in the Vladimir Romanov era, some fans have been moved to publicly protest over one of his decisions. However angry they felt over George Burley leaving and the departures of Phil Anderton and George Foulkes, they stayed on-side with the Lithuanian. A number have now broken rank and that piles the pressure on the Hearts owner and his new head coach.

I would never say Graham is the finest coach or manager in the world and I'm sure Romanov could have brought in someone of similar standing who would have spared Hearts the almighty flak they have taken this week. But the six-month contract he has been handed has given Graham a fantastic opportunity at a great club with outstanding players. After applying for more than a dozen jobs including non-league posts, in his wildest dreams he could not have envisaged such a wonderful chance to resurrect his career. But his willingness to work anywhere shows what incredible hunger he has for the game. Hearts can be assured, therefore, that no coach would have given them more effort on the training pitch than Graham will.

There is more to running a team than that, of course, and Graham has had his ups and downs in managerial posts. Yet, his 13 months at Portsmouth from February 2001, despite the difficulties created when Harry Redknapp arrived as director of football, were a qualified success. Buying Peter Crouch for £1m and selling him for £5m financed a complete overhaul of the squad. Under Graham, the Fratton Park club were latterly better placed in the First Division than at any time in the previous six years.

It didn't happen in the eight months he spent with Oxford last year. But by the time he moved aside there were signs it was coming together, with Lee Bradbury and Tommy Mooney beginning to form an effective striking partnership. He had set out to change the entire playing system and that requires time he was not given. At Hearts, the encouraging aspect is that the foundations already exist. He has been entrusted with maintaining their present standing and introducing a little more flair. I am convinced he can do that and I sincerely hope Hearts fans will support him as he strives to achieve something remarkable. He is under enormous pressure in the short term and if the Tynecastle side don't finish in the top two, and so qualify for the Champions League, he won't survive in the job beyond May.

I have heard it said that, because his jail term made him a changed man, that has adversely affected his ability to work in football. He took plenty of stick from opposition supporters for his past at Portsmouth. Not the incessant, merciless chanting that is being predicted for him now, though. People got bored quickly with baiting him down south. My hope is that once he has gone round all the grounds in Scotland, and once fans have had their "fun" at his expense, it might be recognised he is a decent human being full of remorse for a past indiscretion.

Graham is mentally strong enough to cope but does wear his heart on his sleeve. I'll never forget him sobbing uncontrollably at the funeral of young Portsmouth keeper Aaron Flahavan, who had been killed in a car crash. In fact, for all that he has been painted in some quarters as a manipulative ogre, one criticism that might be levelled at him is that he is too soft. I would lose patience with many a player at Portsmouth but when I would demand they were shown the door he would look to give them another chance.

Graham was shaken and drained by his media bludgeoning, but is confident that once he is in the thick of picking teams and playing matches, the focus on him will be for footballing reasons.

With Hearts still to appoint a director of football, and uncertainty over whether Graham will be given the free hand in team selections promised, professional considerations in themselves mean he is in for an incredibly testing time.

That goes with the territory. The scandalous stuff Graham has had to deal with last week should not.

Taken from the Scotsman