10.37
Bredonborough.
Pouring rain. The gardener in me is a happy boy. I hope this is the right kind of water for the nation’s reservoirs.
14.17 T has set off for her gig at Henley, on an island in the river, currently subject to a downpour. I am tidying & settling the office pre-Spain & the GC Special Project.
14.25 What! The popular music educator, saviour of Scottish rugby & seeker of the truth, Bob Carruthers Esq., continues to attract attention…
Carruthers out of tune when it comes to words ’I think he says so many things that he forgets’ TOM ENGLISH ([email protected])
ON THE first day of December last year, Bob Carruthers set out a vision of the future at Murrayfield. It involved the concerts end of his operation. "The Who will be coming on May 26," he said. The Who played in Hull on May 26. "We have Aerosmith lined up as well," he enthused. We’re still waiting. "We’ll also look to twin the older acts with younger bands such as The Zutons, Snow Patrol and the Kaiser Chiefs." No Zutons, no Snow Patrol, no Kaiser Chiefs. "We are looking at an Edinburgh Rocks Day." A what?
The SRU are keen for people to focus on Carruthers’s failure to do what he said he’d do on the concerts front. Early days, naturally, but the landscape is not good. Bryan Adams plays Murrayfield next week, but no major acts have been confirmed going forward. The SRU say, privately of course, that revenue from gigs formed a key part of the Carruthers business strategy when taking over Edinburgh, something he denies. They also say that the fact that the money from concerts has come in a feeble trickle rather than an overwhelming flood is the root cause of the financial problems.
Frankly, when Carruthers and the SRU chip away at each other about money and contracts and byelaws, and regulations and players and concerts and all the rest of it in their tiresome row, I get a little shiver. Gordon McKie and Carruthers look at the same clause in the same contract, and see starkly different things. So let’s not talk about the money. It’s a minefield. Let’s talk about my mate, Bob, instead. I spent a lot of time on the phone with him last Saturday.
Fundamentally, he’s a likeable guy, a gregarious character. But if Bob told me today was Sunday, I’d check the calendar before believing him.
That’s not to say that he’s dishonest. I reckon that Bob has consistency issues. I think he says so many things that he forgets what he says, sometimes within hours. He is the kind of guy who is absolutely, completely and utterly convinced that a particular course of action is the right way to go, only to change his mind straight after. He’s a hard man to read, is Bob. If he was a book, you’d put him down pretty quick.
This is Bob: he calls McKie a "thoroughly decent man" in March, and then denounces him shortly after. "McKie is a mouthpiece and a master of spin," he said on July 5. Last Saturday I put it to him that by calling McKie "a liar", he was out of order. "I’ve never called him a liar," he responded. "Bob," I said, "you’ve done it often. You commented publicly two days ago that McKie is lying when he says the Heineken Cup and Magners League money is dished out as a flat fee rather than a proportion of the overall." Bob’s response: "Well, he’s lying when he says that." Ho-hum.
Here’s what Bob says...
Bob says that "McKie gives you stupid bullshit threats", and then issues stupid bullshit threats to his own squad. He reveals he himself has transferred the contracts of his 12 Edinburgh Test players to a sports management company in the Cayman Islands. "This is how we ring-fence Edinburgh," he said. "An existing company has taken over these contracts, yes." Then Bob tells us that he hasn’t transferred any contracts, but has merely offered the players the chance to have their contracts transferred.
Bob also says: "I will not discuss the commercial dispute that is going on", then holds two press conferences at the Caledonian Hotel, issues several statements, discusses the commercial dispute with any journalist who cares to ring him, continues to give them a peek at confidential documents in the commercial dispute (a long-running thing) and then tops it all off by criticising the SRU for not going public with their own version of events.
Bob asks: "Is anybody saying we can’t afford to run the team?" four days after offering: "Our biggest fight now is for survival ... We can’t all be Barcelona. If we’re Stirling Albion, then that’s great."
Bob drops a bombshell: "With great regret I have to say that redundancies are inevitable." Then he says, 24 hours later, there will be no redundancies. Bob blusters when asked to explain himself on that one. Redundancies on Saturday and no redundancies on Sunday. Quite a leap, even by his standards.
Bob says that he’s utterly fed up with the bullying tactics of the SRU, but tells his 12 Scottish international players to get a new club because he can’t afford to pay them any longer. He says if they don’t find other clubs, then they’ll have to go anyway. Still Bob says Stephen Larkham is coming to play for rugby’s equivalent of Stirling Albion.
Bob calls for mediation in the financial dispute, but then tells me that the SRU is "rotten to the core". He says that the SRU is full of "arseholes".
I ask Bob if he’s still prepared to go to court. Bob says yes. "The truth is always the best defence."…
Well. And Mr. Carruthers issuing stupid bullshit threats? Surely not.
19.57 Director Bill has just called from Ireland, where he is recording. As customarily, we have discussed mutual arising interests in the life of the working player. Now, to London to meet the Minx.
"There are no mistakes, save one: the failure to learn from a mistake."
