I try not to read Hugh Keevins. I would rather read the writing on novelty bog paper.
It gives me no pleasure to do it at all.
But over the weekend someone sent me a link to his latest article and suggested that I give it the once over. I was shocked.
The poor quality of the work came as no surprise; The Record really knows how to scrape the bottom of the barrel and with Keevins they are almost through the wood. Keevins was a dreadful writer and a terrible journalist when he quit in the first place; what possessed someone at that paper to bring him back for another go?
This is how far standards have dropped.
It is the worst decision by a media company since the resurrection of Bobby Ewing.
His article was on the SPFL board and their attempts to get their hands on the executive authority to end the season again, if that becomes necessary. Look at the rising number of cases, not just here but across Europe. It might well be that it has to happen.
The clubs don’t want to give that authority up. Keevins says the SPFL board is dismayed by this.
I can imagine they are. But he says that two members of the previous board resigned because they felt threatened. He offers not one shred of evidence for this, but suggests that it was because of pressure from fans. Which fans in particular though?
I remember only one set of supporters going OTT over this, and they were the ones at Ibrox. One club made all the early noise and that was the one at Ibrox. Yes, they put together a shaky wee coalition in the end, but this was all about them and their board toadies.
Keevins suggests that the game needs calm and rational decision making, but then points out that the board is dominated by Peter Lawwell and his allies.
That, coupled with this nonsense about board members feeling threatened, reeks of paranoia … and here’s the thing, I think Keevins is too thick to have been attempting subtlety; he genuinely has no idea what a “between the lines” reading of his article appears to suggest.
To his fellow paranoiacs at Ibrox it will read as a nod and a wink a confirmation that dark deeds are afoot.
That man shouldn’t be near a typewriter.
Nobody who calls for calm can be taken seriously when they promote hysteria and push conspiracy theories. All that article did was give the soup a good stir, by suggesting that a future decision to end the season is one nobody wants to make.
Yet the article itself makes it clear that the executive is prepared to take the decision and wants the authority to do so but the clubs want to reserve that power for themselves.
He never manages to explain how a responsibility nobody wants is also one that everyone wants.
This is the kind of “standards” The Record is going for.
The piece was a disgrace, but we’ve come to expect exactly this from all involved.
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