Hearts' Walker merits Hall of Fame spot

AT THE recent launch of the Scottish Football Hall of Fame induction process for 2010, Craig Brown only just stopped short of nominating the Hampden catering staff for inclusion.

The Motherwell manager's positive disposition towards those he has encountered in his long and distinguished career saw him make credible cases for former players such a Paul McStay along with more left-field suggestions in support of veteran SFA medic Dr Stewart Hillis.

As always, the identity of those who are admitted to Scottish football's pantheon at a gala dinner in November will be a source of healthy debate. There remains one absentee from the Hall of Fame, however, whose induction is long overdue and should brook no argument.

Bobby Walker was Scottish football's first superstar, a forward whose reputation stretched far beyond the confines of Gorgie where he served Hearts so brilliantly from 1896 to 1913, and often cited as the best player in Europe at the time. He earned 29 caps for Scotland, 11 of them against England, at a time when there were far fewer international fixtures played. If cap tallies are measured by the ratio of games possible to play during a career, only Kenny Dalglish and Jim Leighton are ahead of Walker on the all-time list.

Four years after Walker's untimely death at the age of 51 in 1930, the respected English football writer Frank Johnston described him as "the greatest natural footballer who ever played". While contemporary accounts of players from the pre-television era provide limited evidence, a powerful case can be made for Walker as Scotland's finest player of all time.

If Craig Brown finds McStay's omission "astonishing", we can hardly begin to imagine what those who witnessed Walker's career would make of a Scottish football Hall of Fame which excludes him. Gentlemen of the Hall of Fame jury, over to you.