Politically incorrect

Bryan Cooney

OUT of employment and demonstrably out of sorts, Graham Rix had surrounded himself with so much cynicism two years ago that those people infiltrating his personal space risked incurring collateral damage.

Whilst attempting to make sense of a temporarily derailed professional life, he warmed to the idea of writing his autobiography. His agent wanted him to call it Keep On Smiling, because a portion pertained to his salutary, six-month experience in a London penitentiary.

Rix was mindful that some of the characters he had encountered in football had been perhaps more pernicious than those with whom he had been obliged to fraternise in the Wandsworth pokey. So he presented an alternative, more abrasive and appropriate, suggestion. Namely: Great Game: Full Of C****!

He had just applied for the vacancy at Partick Thistle when we met in a hotel near Southampton. Incidentally, it had been his 30th application in 20 months and, in due course, it suffered the same fate as all its predecessors. But his theme on December 2, 2003, was a provocative indictment on professional football and some of those who participated in it.

“There are so many crooks in this game that it stinks,” he said. “Football in general, the players, the people who run it, the media to a certain extent and the supporters – the lifeblood of the game – they all just need a massive injection of honesty, integrity and respect ’cos no-one gives a toss about anybody any more.

“If the fans knew, they would be very disappointed. There is so little honesty. People attempt to paint a pretty picture, but pretty it ain’t. There are too many people telling lies, making money. It’s a shame because it’s such a great game and so popular. It’s so full of s***. It’s getting worse and it worries me.”

I wondered that day whether Rix was equipped to venture near the septic tank of football ever again. Marriage, children and an essential love of the game determined there was no option. And yet I left England’s south coast fearing it would take a substantial compromise on his part if he were ever to find future employers and workmates who would meet his exacting ideals.

In the event, after a debilitating sojourn at Oxford, the compromise was made. Hearts chose Rix. And that entailed him working for Vladimir Romanov, a man, shall we say, who could live to be a centurion without being considered for association with the Baden Powell movement.

At this juncture, I would love to ask Rix all sorts of questions; for example, how does the air smell in Edinburgh? Has his cynicism dissipated or intensified since we last met, and is any or all of that colourful invective (crooks and c****, etc) applicable to his new paymasters at Gorgie Road?

These questions cannot be answered. We have not talked since he telephoned my home early one Sunday morning, shortly after our meeting, to ostensibly accuse this newspaper of betraying him in the article I had subsequently written (our headline underlined the fact that he was a convicted sex offender).

Now, let us put aside the crime to which he pleaded guilty and for which he served his time. Basically, Rix is an extremely likeable Doncaster lad who would far rather help his fellow man than hinder him. Politically, however, he is a pygmy, and he has just stepped into the land of political behemoths.

But, even allowing for football’s never say never factor, I could never have envisaged his working for a man like Romanov, who has now de-listed Hearts from the Stock Exchange and consequently is free to do with the club whatsoever he chooses.

The latter was the subject of a BBC programme last Wednesday, and the portrait painted of him was scarcely a flattering one.

On a business front, the Bosnian Government claims he has avoided paying millions of pounds’ worth of tax on his aluminium plant; its senior citizens, meanwhile, are demanding a return on their near 10% investment in his company in order to supplement their pitiful pensions.

Back on the football front, the man who considers himself a pawn caught up in a political game has done his utmost to cruelly diminish the efforts of his former employees who had bought into his Tynecastle dream – George Burley, Phil Anderton and George Foulkes – and demolish the reputation of the girl with whom Rix had unlawful sex.

I have never met Vladimir Romanov, nor have I any wish to. But is he the kind of man to whom Rix can warm? Today, Romanov calls him a hero, but what epithet will tomorrow bring? Will it be so kind?

Mark my words, it will all eventually be explained in a football autobiography; one mainlining on cynicism.

04 December 2005

Taken from the Sunday Herald