Why do Sevco always wait until I’m taking a day off?
I owe Derek McInnes an apology.
Or rather I owe him an explanation.
I really did believe he’d been involved in some nefarious plot which would end in him breaking his contract and going to Ibrox on the cheap. Look, there was no other scenario that made even the remotest sense in a sane world.
When he and Stewart Milne came out a fortnight or so ago and told the media that he was committed to the club they telegraphed the events of today in advance, and if no contact had been made, and the club knew McInnes was amendable to the move, then the media briefing of the last fourteen or so days was rank insanity.
I did not believe they could possibly be so stupid and I write that and cannot believe that I have. Because I should know as well as anyone, perhaps better than most, how dysfunctional and ridiculous is it over there. They are a shambles, an utter shambles, to a mind-boggling degree.
I know all this and yet I did not believe it was possible that they would be relying on the “name” of the club and an arrogant belief that no-one who had played for them could resist .
Who does these people think they are?
Tonight they’ve been snubbed by their number one choice, after a six-week farce which ended just up the road. The global hunt was a joke and the joke was on their fans. Sevco played cynical games here, they treated Aberdeen with contempt. As it so happens they’ve also treated McInnes the same way.
Most incredibly, they allowed this to drag on for the sake of two football matches; I said a few weeks ago that it would be just like them to bet the long term future of the club on the outcome of a couple of games, but Jesus … I didn’t believe it. Who would be that reckless?
No club in the country would roll the dice in such a mind-bending manner.
And yet that’s exactly what they did.
I am literally gobsmacked. Gobsmacked. This is a reversal of epic proportions and the number of people with egg all over their faces is longer than a queue at a Krispy Kreme stand outside a Glasgow Weightwatchers.
Top of the charts, of course, is the colossally ignorant Kris Boyd, and every outlet which has employed this eejit and trumpeted his every monumentally stupid word over the last few days has to be heartily ashamed of it.
But above all this is a disastrous defeat for the Sevco board.
It is a public relations catastrophe, and I know they are hopelessly trying to spin it as I write this, just as I know that some of their pet hacks will rush to print their lies as they’ve rushed to do their bidding since the Ibrox manager’s job became available and the McInnes stories started.
Clearly there’s more to write on this subject, but for tonight I want to offer congratulations to Aberdeen and all involved with their club.
The last week or two has been astonishingly stressful for everyone at their club, but since Monday they have played an absolute blinder and Sevco were totally wrong footed. My information is that they didn’t even bother to offer a fee in exchange for talking to the manager, and that gave Aberdeen every right to refuse. The moment that offer was in the public domain the obvious move was to get McInnes in, ask him if he was still committed to the club and then drop the bombshell into the top of the evening news cycle.
Sevco’s PR efforts have backfired spectacularly.
When I wrote an article at the end of last month in which I mentioned the movie The Edge one of the guys in the comments section reminded me about the deadfall; it’s the means by which Hopkins and his party solve the bear problem. I am grateful to him for that, because Aberdeen used the blundering weight of Sevco’s own PR machine against them here, to stunning effect. For days the press has been discussing this as if he was already Sevco boss; this morning’s Sun contained a piece of sycophantic nonsense that made even its readers, with their iron constitutions and stomach for bullshit, sick as dogs.
What the Hell are they going to write tomorrow? I know what they should write; Sevco In Crisis. But I somehow doubt that they will. Them ignoring this will not make it go away.
I know I will be writing about it tomorrow; tonight I’m simply trying to wrap my brain around the idea that Sevco are even more amateurish and backward than I imagined.
Sevco fans have been gloating over this for weeks, and yesterday there was joy in the hearts about an impending appointment and Celtic’s shocking European defeat.
It never dawned on them for a second that this might happen; the idea that they were a bigger club than Aberdeen was simply assumed by right, and that, too has been torpedoed.
Their club is, once again, at the centre of its own comedy sketch show.
Who’s laughing now, Sevconuts?