Jaws not ready to sink his teeth yet

Chief football writer

Friday 2 November 2012

Joe Jordan has never shirked a challenge in his life, but avoiding a loaded question is another matter entirely.

'It's a job that each individual looks at,' says Joe Jordan who revealed that Harry Redknapp was approached about the Hampden role but said 'it wasn't for him . . . he could get lynched!' Picture: Getty Images

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Michael Grant

When one of the iconic Scotland strikers returned to home turf yesterday, it was only natural to ask whether he might be interested in managing his country. Jordan is an out of work Tartan Army favourite and Craig Levein's position as the national manager remains tenuous, to say the least, so it was legitimate to wonder whether "Jaws" might fancy getting his teeth into it.

But he wasn't having it. Politely, but emphatically, he declined to get involved. Jordan was Levein's manager at Hearts for a spell in the early 1990s but his reluctance was clearly based more on his adherence to a general code that you don't tout yourself for a position which is still occupied by someone else. "We shouldn't be talking about his job," he said. "It's something he's got to get on with. I think if that question was down the line then you could ask me. But I wouldn't be associated with it just now, even hypothetically. For as long as he's manager, we should get behind him."Without even the slightest self-promotion, though, Jordan's name has featured on bookmakers' lists as one of the contenders if Levein is dismissed any time soon. Showing common courtesy did not prevent him acknowledging the attraction of the job in general.Jordan, arms aloft in a Scotland shirt, remains one of our great football images of the 1970s and '80s. He scored 11 times in 52 appearances for his country, making him a firm favourite on the Hampden terraces as well as those of Leeds United, Manchester United and AC Milan, the clubs which saw the best of him as a forward of formidable strength, aggression and ability, especially in the air.Jordan also managed Bristol City and Stoke but for most of the last 15 years he has been more familiar as an assistant for Northern Ireland, Portsmouth and Tottenham Hotspur. When Harry Redknapp was dismissed by Spurs in June, Jordan, his assistant, also found himself out of work. There have been some media duties since then and he has regularly attended games, but the 60-year-old is eager to return to a full-time job.Inevitably the Scotland position – were it to become available – has considerable appeal to a man of his age and background. "I think you've got to look at it carefully because the responsibility is immense. But it is a job that each individual looks at. Harry Redknapp was asked about it and he said it wasn't for him. He said he could get lynched, the first Englishman to be lynched! Of course it's a great honour to be associated with the job, but it's a big job, a tough job. "All managers that represent and manage their country will come under the cosh. It is something you take on board when you get the job. We have not had a good start in this World Cup campaign and we cannot disguise that. There is somebody in the job. Craig is in the middle of a campaign and trying to turn things around. It is tough for everybody to take. Brazil is the one World Cup that Scotland wanted to qualify for. But everyone in the group would have to slip up big time [to improve Scotland's chances now]."Jordan scored in three consecutive World Cups – in 1974, '78 and '82 – and the finals still mean so much to him that every four years he goes on holiday to attend them with his wife. As a player, his goals used to help take his country along to them too, with Scotland qualifying so regularly that the World Cup finals were a four-year punctuation mark in national life.The 1974 finals were the first Scotland qualified for since 1958, 16 years earlier. There will be at least an 18-year gap between being at France '98 and Euro 2016, the next tournament Scotland can reach. "We've been through it before, when I was growing up. Many great Scottish players of that era never made it to a World Cup."I don't think we ever took it for granted in my time. But we reached one World Cup after another and, while it didn't become easier, there was more of a belief that we could do it. Experience was passed on from West Germany in 1974, to Argentina in 1978, to Spain in 1982. Players were overlapping, those who were coming into the squad and those who had played in a previous World Cup. The young boys learned from the experienced ones and passed it on."Now we have a situation where that continuity has been cut. That's why it's so important lads like Darren Fletcher at Manchester United and the Celtic lads who are in the squad right now to take their Champions League experience into the Scotland games and utilise that. They have a standing in the game."So has Jordan. He hasn't worked in Scotland since a brief spell as Lou Macari's assistant at Celtic in 1994. Since then, for Redknapp and others, he has emerged as a No.2 whose coaching, personality and experience have been widely admired.For Scots of a certain age, though, Jordan always will be synonymous with what he did on a pitch rather than at the side of it. He was in Glasgow to present a pair of Pele Sports boots to the Raith Rovers striker Brian Graham, who has scored 22 goals in his last 23 appearances. Graham was thrilled to meet Jordan, but he revealed that the event meant just as much to his father. "Dad said to me 'you're going to meet Joe Jordan? Now that's a real centre-forward!'"

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Jaws not ready to sink his teeth yet

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