Great Heroes are needed

I hereby promise, (after this paragraph), on pain of drinking alcohol-free lager, to refrain for evermore in addressing the events, endured along with everyone else here, of the balls-up in Bratislava, the misery that was Motherwell, and without wanting to go overboard about the horror that we found ourselves embroiled in on Saturday in hell’s kitchen, I think that we can fairly say that it has stoked the fires of those who would wish us ill!

It’s the coming weeks, months and years that matter, and there are only two things which will have an influence on the fruits which we will harvest.

Firstly knowing what the vision is for the team, the style, the supporters and every variegated piece of jigsaw that forms and drives our club.

Secondly we must pick the ingredients and the recipe which will cook and blend with a little bit more paprika there, or turmeric here, a touch of salt and a sprinkling of magic dust formed from that marvellous diaspora of historic necessity, willpower, stubbornness and romantic imagination.

It is in this way that we will create a team not only fit to wear but deliberately fashioned to wear with pride ‘the shirt that does not shrink……’!, simmering and boiling with an intensity and quality which realises that vision in dramatic and multi-cultural flavours of outrageous imagination and skill.

And the main ingredients of that recipe are simply an unrelenting ambition, a hunger to succeed, and a total refusal to accept defeat.

We need once more the essence of the heroes of the past to whom we may very well have been a football club, but a football club with a greater calling and a responsibility which was not a burden but a motivation in bad times and a justification in good days!

It is in the exact circumstances facing us now that the giants of the past strode the sands of time and left their indelible footprints for us not only to marvel but to dare to follow ‘on the one road, sharing the one load, we're on the road to God knows where, we're on the one road, maybe the wrong road, but we're together now who cares………..’.

Willie Maley, Jimmy Quinn, Jimmy McGrory, Robert Kelly, Jock Stein, Billy McNeil!

It doesn’t matter if you agreed with them or not, these were characters many of whom were hewn from the rocks of abject poverty. When it came to being in the vanguard of a fight for what they believed in and what they felt was of value, these men would lead those who at times didn’t even recognise the need, towards a future of hope.

Nothing could knock them off their chosen path and in times of adversity, the hope they instilled, realised or not, was in itself spiritually inspirational in its simplicity and honesty.

Read about them, but don’t weep that we have no-one of their calibre around now, for I believe that we just might have!

Men such as these are master craftsmen and while it is only when the work of art is finished that we can fully enjoy its being, we can also revel in the delights of watching him at work as he sets out his tools, selects his ingredients, and the way he moulds, and chips, and sculpts to create a reflection of his dream.

Through the mists of disappointment I see a shape manifesting itself in the early stages of fast accurate passing from back to front, supported by midfield thrusts of the unexpected, attacking left, attacking right, attacking through the middle, all built on a foundation of versatility, determination and the will to win!

Are we stuttering? Darn tootin’ we are!

Does that make the vision wrong? No way.

Do we need to allow the ingredients to blend? Of course we do!

Do we need to replace some ingredients? Probably!

Do we change the recipe? NO!

We are not going to be served with the score-line centric overpriced, fat-filled burger with a fast hit of artificially satisfying stimulants and e-numbers.

Our fare is that of not necessarily the finest ingredients, but definitely of those which have been selected and prepared individually, and then added to the mix at the right time in the right place.

This will be a feast not of the production line, but of the master chef in the finest of kitchens with a twinkle in his eye and the essence of magic dust at his finger tips which Midas like will once more return the gold standard of association football to its rightful home and its rightful owners!

I believe that Gordon Strachan is that master chef.

We all need to support him in his vision.

Even more we all need him to be our hero!

We’re all getting hungry Gordon so…..

Ready! Steady! Cook!