Ailing Clyde need to round up a few more Herds

Published on Friday 6 March 2009 21:42

THE news that the satellite broadcaster, Setanta, is to attempt to "re-negotiate" (a euphemism for cutting expenditure) existing contracts with a number of sports bodies, including the SPL, will have sent a chill down the spines of club directors throughout the country.

While the Old Firm complain of the relative uselessness of a mere 2 million a year from television, a reduction of the SPL's revenue could impact on the amount of the annuity they are required to pay the Scottish Football League as part of the settlement agreement implemented on their defection in 1998.

An indication of the financial level at which clubs in the lower divisions operate these days may be gleaned from a piece in the programme for Clyde's recent home match against Queen of the South, an event that coincided with the 15th anniversary of their move to Broadwood, having spent eight years as wandering tenants after their eviction from Shawfield.

David Dalziel, a Clyde director, recalls (with no little bitterness) the day in 1961 when Sunderland paid 43,000 for the highly-gifted Clyde winger, George Herd. Then a fully committed 11-year-old fan, Dalziel was so upset by the loss of his hero that he wrote to Sunderland, begging them to send Herd back. Instead, he stayed to become a Wearside legend, so warmly remembered that supporters at the modern Stadium of Light are able to take refreshments in the George Herd Bar.

"I wish somebody would give us 43,000 now for a player," Dalziel laments. And he doesn't mean the present-day equivalent of what was a very substantial fee 48 years ago. He means literally 43,000, a depressing reminder of the economic constraints of life in the lower echelons of Scottish professional football.