They may be blissfully unaware that the managers or coaches shunting them into first-team games to help shore up the rickety financial nature of Scottish football might well have been influenced one way or the other by that so-called Mafia. Largs, admittedly, is perhaps better known for its bracing air, its neat prom, its ice-cream parlours and the pebbled beach from which the late Jimmy Johnstone embarked on a sailing adventure of survival long before The Life of Pi was heard of. But up on the windy plateau above the town, the coaching environment of the Inverclyde National Sporting Centre, established in the late fifties, created, not just countless numbers of coaches through the years, but also drew savage criticism from the tabloids who gleefully portrayed the tracksuits surrounding the traffic cones on the field there as a coven of witches brewing up a potion that would turn flesh and blood into choruses of performing marionettes.