AS the Calcutta Cup contest draws near, and Scotland and England prepare for the latest episode of rugby's oldest international fixture, what do Sir Moir Lockhead, Mark Dodson, Stewart Regan and Neil Doncaster have in common?
The men are, respectively, chairman and chief executive of the Scottish Rugby Union; chief executive of the Scottish Football Association and chief executive of the Scottish Premier League. And all are English.
Does it matter that the quartet were born in the country which, even in this politically correct age, is still regarded in a sporting context as the Auld Enemy? Or is the issue of nationality now simply irrelevant, even in the one arena where it shouldn't be: international sport?
All the appointments were made within the last 30 months – Doncaster was first, followed by Regan in 2010 and, last year, Lockhead and Dodson. Until they arrived, the top administrative jobs had been the preserve of Scots since the formation of the football and rugby union governing bodies in 1873.
It actually happened in reverse first – Adam Crozier, who was born on Bute, was chief executive of the Football Association from 2000-02. During his short spell he was responsible for appointing England's first foreign manager, Sven-Goran Eriksson, but neither the Scot nor the Swede was regarded as a great success at FA headquarters.
Nevertheless, it's a big step from Crozier's one-off appointment to the SRU, the SFA and the SPL all being headed up by Englishmen. Yet, in going down this route, rugby and football are only catching up with other sports – 10 years ago the country was awash with non-Scots holding the top administrative and coaching posts.
Some, like Anne Marie Harrison, the fiesty Australian chief executive of the Scottish Institute of Sport, have left; others, including the New Zealand pair of Hamish Grey (chief executive of the Scottish Golf Union) and Jon Doig (chief executive at Commonwealth Games Scotland) remain in post. Nigel Holl, another Englishman, has moved from his Institute of Sport job to become chief executive of Scottish Athletics via a stint at England Netball.
As Alistair Gray, the (Scottish) chairman of the Institute when Holl and Harrison were there, points out, the transition of nearly every sport from amateurism to professionalism has created a market for a new breed of administrator. Just as the nationality of players and coaches is not the straightforward issue it once was, nor, increasingly, does it seem to matter where the men and women who run the sports come from either. They hop from country to country, and from sport to sport.
Still, is there no rivalry that is sacrosanct? Would, for example, the New Zealand Rugby Union appoint an Australian chairman and chief executive? Or the Dutch Football Association (KNVB) permit itself to be headed up by a German? Or Cricket Australia head-hunt an English chief executive?
But then again, would these organisations need to? Each one is perceived as being successful. It's different in Scotland, where the SRU and the SFA have approval ratings which make even the Scottish Conservative Party appear electable.
Both governing bodies were among the earliest sports bodies in the world, and for most of the last century were ruled with an iron rod by their secretaries. These men were sticklers for procedure and not noted for far-sightedness; under their jurisdictions the SRU and the SFA became hidebound by tradition and adopted an almost pathological resistance to change.
Bolstering up these increasingly out-of-date regimes were the endless committees, most of them stuffed with parochial dullards pursuing narrow, self-interested agendas. All Scots it has to be said . . .
It could be argued that the English train gang have timed their runs into Scotland perfectly. There has not been the public disquiet that would have accompanied their appointments at one time, while both the SRU and the SFA have been modernised to such an extent that they are easier to manage and in a position to project themselves more positively.
The SRU's Dodson, who formerly worked for a media company, has inherited his improved position; Regan, whose previous post was at Yorkshire County Cricket Club, had the experience and expertise to ensure that almost all the key reforms recommended by Henry McLeish were implemented inside his first year.
That alone suggests that Regan is the right man for the job, although inevitably it has taken him longer to understand the nuances of Scotland's institutions and culture than it would a person born here.
At the SRU, the president, Ian McLauchlan, could hardly be more Scottish. As well as being the son of an Ayrshire miner who believed in socialism and home rule, McLauchlan is also a former Calcutta Cup-winning captain.
Despite all this, he has no qualms about the appointments of Lockhead and Dodson, both of which were made on his watch.
"They were chosen because they're the best available, he explains. "They are the ones who will take the union forward and nowadays you have to look outwith the boundaries of Scotland and get the best.
"The chairman has lived here for a long time and feels more Scottish than anything. He ran the biggest land transport company in the world [First Group] and is a wonderful catch for us. When we interviewed for chief executive, we picked who we thought was the best candidate."
Presumably the SFA felt the same way when they underwent the process to replace Gordon Smith, but their president, Campbell Ogilvie, declined to comment. As a former secretary and chief executive himself, with Rangers and Hearts, it would have been illuminating to hear his take on why it was necessary to recruit from outwith the country, and also on the recent trend to appoint Englishmen at the SFA, SPL and SRU.
The only logical interpretation, coming on top of the surge of Australasian appointments in other sports, is that there is a dearth of talented chief executives in Scotland. And that, surely, is something that needs to be addressed.
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