Scotland's future is a bright one with past master Smith in place

Gordon Smith's unusual route to becoming boss of the Scottish FA could prove invaluable.

Stephen Hawking argues that time travel cannot be possible. If it were, or should I say if it ever will be or ever was, then where are all the time travellers? Where are the hordes of future folk nipping back to now and then for a glimpse of our collective lunacy?

Fast forward to this time next week. It's the first official day for the new chief executive of the Scottish Football Association and the most remarkable case of poacher turned gamekeeper (or is it goalkeeper?) since, well, since the former editor of the News of the World became David Cameron's chief spin doctor. Not long then - but it is an astonishing turn of events.

Gordon Smith, the former striker, coach, assistant manager, TV pundit and, latterly, football agent (cue Victorian melodrama music), will be donning the ceremonial blue blazer worn previously by some of the most spectacularly mediocre figures in Scottish football's long and colourful history. "Ladies and gentlemen, if you care to look out of your windows you will see that we have arrived in the 21st century."

I rang Gordon to congratulate him and, given that he's got a fuller plate than a Floridian at a buffet, I wanted to get a sense of how he was going to tackle the big issues facing the game. The national team? Grass-roots participation? And, yes, sectarianism? I didn't, though. But he was the one who brought up metaphysics, I promise. He said it with a chuckle: "If they ever invent a time machine, count me in."

Back to May 1983, then. "Smith must score," declaimed the great Peter Jones in his radio commentary. I asked Gordon about his notorious last-minute miss for Brighton in the FA Cup final against Manchester United because I've always wondered if Chris Waddle, Stuart Pearce and others, despite the inner steel that got them to the top in the first place, ever stop hurting deep inside.

I've spoken to Waddle about his penalty miss and he is a fantastically phlegmatic character who went on to have an outstanding season with Marseille in 1991. He once said: "There were two ways to react: basically you can do a Lord Lucan and disappear or stick your chest out and prove to everybody you're a good footballer. That's the one I opted for. I certainly don't dwell on the memory." There is a hint, though, in the last bit. I wonder if, in the darkest night, the memory still comes knocking.

Smith is candid. "There were difficult times in the early days when it had a real effect on me." Not long after the Cup final he found himself in a woebegone reserve match and some nonentity started taunting him. Smith calmly looked in the guy's eyes and said: "What does the Cup final look like on TV, because it's great to play in." After he retired he got a job in financial services in London and recalls the boss's phone calls. "We've got an ex-footballer, Gordon Smith, working for us now." And then the sotto voce: "Yes, that's the one."

Smith's memory of the final is priceless, by turns the stuff of boyhood dreams and adult nightmares. He had put Brighton 1-0 up, remember. Imagine coming off that pristine green carpet at half-time and seeing your name on the scoreboard. "I thought, 'I'll be remembered for this game.'" How right he was. So what happened?

"It had got to extra-time and we were in the last minute. I thought low and hard would take him by surprise but he blocked it and smothered the rebound. What would I do differently? Definitely wait and see if he committed himself." "He" of course is Gary Bailey, a man still miffed that Jones didn't say: "What a save by Bailey!"

"I turned away and thought, shit, I could have scored there," remembers Smith. "It would have been the winning goal in the Cup final. It would have won the Cup for Brighton. I should have done better." Brighton lost the replay 4-0 but the next season Smith was Manchester City's top scorer in their promotion drive. As Waddle said, it's all down to how you respond. Smith pointed something else out as I listened earnestly. "The next season I signed a record-breaking 10-grand deal with Adidas."

"Did you?"

"Yeah. To wear Nike."

Now he is running the SFA and it is great news for the Scottish game. He is an impressive man and I'd hazard that's in no small part thanks to a blond-haired South African goalkeeper. Gordon, give that Tardis a wide berth.

Murray hurries to scotch an English misconception

Judging by the river of hostile texts and emails I see about Andy Murray, there is a reservoir of bad feeling towards the young Scot and all ostensibly because of comments he made about not supporting England in the World Cup. Of course anti-Scottish bigotry is very much the in-thing, trumped up by sophisticated opinion formers such as Kelvin MacKenzie - "I have nothing in common with the Scots" (the Sun, June 14) - right down to gobby low-rent rabble-rousers - "The English love history, architecture, mountains and views. A real Scotsman likes money" (Simon Jenkins, the Guardian, June 1).

Some choose to suck poison from constitutional and fiscal anomalies and effectively spit it in the face of everyone from David Niven to David Tennant. Murray, a conspicuous proxy for white-van vitriol, gets it in the pimply neck for allegedly supporting anyone but England. I asked him not long ago to park the myth once and for all and he did.

"It is rubbish. I have tried to explain and every reply I give never makes the newspaper. I was doing an interview and an English journalist said, 'Will you be supporting Scotland in the World Cup, ha ha,' and I said, 'No, I'll be supporting anyone who England plays against, ha ha,' and instead of it coming across as a joke it comes as not supporting England even though that was absolutely not the case. It's tough to explain but you can't believe everything you read in the press." Shame when the facts get in the way of a juicy prejudice.

Bears are in the woods, but you try finding them

You might remember a few years back Panorama exposed what it called the corruption of racing. More recently Panorama has looked at corruption in football and very soon the programme will, I understand, be running a shocking exposé on the Pope in which it is alleged by a former Vatican insider that the elderly German is still, after all this time, a member of the branch of the church that remained under Roman influence after the Reformation.

Horse racing is an interesting one. A friend in the business swears the sport is cleaner than it has been for years. I can believe it but you can say the same thing of the Thames. Fancy a drink? Forensic actuaries and other odd sorts you would dread sitting next to at dinner might be able to unravel an impenetrably tangled web of financial jiggery-pokery but when it comes to definitively proving a jockey was trying not to win you are also in a no-win situation. All bets are off. One former rider told me: "You just have to say your animal didn't feel well. I was easy on him, he was making a choking sound so I didn't push him out." Regrettably, the only inquiry that would have any real clout or effect would be the one led by Lord Doolittle.

Button knows Hamilton has prizes sewn up

Perception is all. Gary Neville sees a handsome moustache atop a finely sculpted Shakespearian beard; others see wisps of bum-fluff. You saw the crescent; I saw the whole of the moon. My wife walked into the living room, looked at Lewis Hamilton and said, "Is that him? Oh my God, he's gorgeous!" Even I can see that but as she drooled at the screen I knew just how poor, beleaguered Jenson Button must feel.

It will take some feat to pip Hamilton to Sports Personality of the Year. A Murray slam title or a Luke Donald major would be woefully insufficient. The only thing that might do it would be a Colin Montgomerie win - in the Tour de France. Ricky Hatton, Joe Calzaghe and Phil "The Power" Taylor can forget it.

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