Ernie Walker

Ernie Walker, who has died aged 83 after a long illness, was the Scottish Football Association secretary who went to five consecutive World Cup finals as a senior official from 1977-1990, then a record for a non-host or previous winner of the tournament.

When the demotic title “Ayatollah” was bestowed on Ernie Walker as secretary of the SFA in the 1980s, he reacted with the calm of a man astute enough to realise that he need not shirk such an attribution. For although it was intended to contain an element of mockery, he took it as an acceptance of his achievement in moving from behind his desk, as an obscure bloodless apparatchik, to becoming a national figure who seemed to wield immense power, and did so with the cool elegance of someone who could portray authority simply by flicking his cigar ash nonchalantly into a tray, whilst sipping a good malt.

He transformed the style of office without diluting its effectiveness and although that laconic manner did not seem in tune with some of the thunderous denunciations which flowed from his pen, or privately from his mouth, that dual nature seemed to insulate him from the worst excesses of controversy.

In 1986 those of us in the press-room after the infamous Scotland-Uruguay game, in Mexico City in the World Cup finals, witnessed something of that self-confidence under fire, when a South American player had been sent off and many others in his colours risked intervention by the constabulary.

It was there, with a diffidence that seemed at first ineffective amidst the garrulous Latin emotions surrounding him, that he uttered words that came from the heart, struck a chord with a dismayed Scottish support and almost caused FIFA a corporate cardiac arrest.

“There was no game of football here today. We found ourselves on the field with cheats and cowards and we were associated with the scum of world football.”

None of his predecessors would have had the political initiative or the nerve to venture into that territory, out of which he calmly survived a severe reprimand from that authority. Neither would they have assembled the Scottish support at Hampden Park in 1978 to bid farewell to the national side on their way to Argentina.

In the aftermath, Mr Walker laid himself open to accusations that he had committed a folie de grandeur by organising it. In fact, he had succumbed to the populist, terracing tendency which did indeed inform much of his thinking, for beneath his apparent public aloofness, there beat a punter’s heart.

Jock Stein constantly gave witness to that. Even he perceived when he took over the national manager’s job in 1978 that there might be a war of attrition between the two. Mr Stein was amazed at how consensual their joint reign was. Those of us in the media expecting repercussions akin to the El Nino effect were, in fact, presented with as astonishing a bond as the Chuckle Brothers. They were not only both men’s men, but talked the language of the man in the street, well beyond the official constraint of their respective jobs. When Mr Stein died, Mr Walker never seemed the same and went on to have a testy, tempestuous relationship with temporary manager Alex Ferguson in the World Cup finals in Mexico in 1986.

It is that love of the game that saw him slump into abject despondency when trouble erupted in London in the game against England at Wembley in the late 1970s. Apart from the pitch invasion, Mr Walker fumed at how supporters conducted themselves in the city, besmirching the national reputation, and found himself going against his basic instinct to see England frequently defeated on their own patch, becoming an advocate of bringing the fixture to an end. He told me, “I never want to play England at Wembley again. It’s not worth it.”

When he took over as secretary from Willie Allan in 1977 he had been grounded in the background of the SFA. He was a member of the SFA selection committee in 1958 when Matt Busby was appointed Scotland manager.

In the early days as an assistant to Mr Allan he principally dealt with youth football and helped create the coaching culture out of which, for example, came Roy Small, Andy Roxburgh and Craig Brown. He was instrumental in establishing coaching courses at Inverclyde National Sports centre which, through the years, sustained criticisms from the older generation of managers in the game. Mr Walker found himself, even from early in office, defending the coaches from the ultimate obloquy, that they were the “Largs Mafia”. Now nobody can progress in the managerial business without the same qualification that the likes of Jose Mourhino enjoyed taking doon the watter.

This support of those he had nurtured led to another dramatic outburst, of global proportion, when he accused the Saudi Arabia Under 16 side of having cheated by putting in false passports and playing over-age players after they had beaten their Scottish equivalents under Craig Brown, 5-4 on penalties after a 2-2 draw in 1989. The evidence of many moustaches in that side lent credence to his accusations.

When he took ill in 1990 and was diagnosed with prostrate cancer he had previously succeeded in persuading the special triumvirate of which he was part to select the USA for the World Cup finals of 1994 as evidence of his burgeoning role with FIFA and his increasing influence in world football affairs. In 1995, in the process of recovering from the initial illness, he became a member of the ill-fated SFA think tank, along with the Dutch coach Rinus Michels, established to find solutions to gathering problems in the domestic game. He was personally embarrassed that these investigations came to nothing. He then took over an unstinting and tireless role in touring Europe for FIFA as the delegate who passed judgement on the stadia to be used for major tournaments and finals.

Despite increasing weakness and regular treatment for his condition, he continued to travel and work tirelessly for FIFA. Those who saw and spoke to him in the final years and months of his illness discerned no lessening of his dry wit and the appetite to offer his views on the game he administered with absolute power, but also loved with a passion.