Raith Rovers had an opportunity on Saturday to win back a little bit of goodwill out of the David Goodwillie scandal.
It wouldn’t have been pleasant but manager John McGlynn and preferably also a senior board member should have spoken either before or after this match.
That would have been the least everyone deserved, the Raith supporters, football in general and, of course, the woman who was raped by Goodwillie and another man, someone who many seem to have forgotten about.
But nothing. Not even a badly written press release.
Those of us covering the match at the weekend – and the football came a distant second - were told, by a fan who does work on Raith TV, that nobody from the club would be speaking.
We were later asked to leave, as if the media were the bad guys, and watch out for that line to be peddled soon enough.
It’s understood the decision to have nobody speak came from the top. Shame on them and how stupid of them because this story isn’t going to go away. McGlynn will have to talk at some stage, or maybe that will be it for the rest of this season at least.
It was a bad decision in a week of bad decisions.
It is time we heard from those at the club. An emailed press release is not enough.
All their silence achieved was to make matters worse. Apart from anything else, fronting up was the right thing to do.
What McGlynn and a director should have done was to stand in front of a microphone, offer their sincere apologies, firstly to the victim, and after that it’s a pretty long list of those who have been hurt.
Football is brilliant, but too many live in a bubble or on social media, which is a cesspit.
Apparently, according to those of muddled thinking, this has been blown out of all proportion and to back this up they point out Goodwillie played for Clyde for years and nothing was said.
Actually, plenty was written when he signed so that argument doesn’t stand up.
Nobody resigned then and one of Scotland’s best-known writers of all time didn’t take a stand against the signing, which is
not unimportant.
Then there are those who criticise Nicola Sturgeon for ‘jumping on the bandwagon’ when that is hardly the issue.
There is only one female who anyone ought to be thinking about right now. She’s called Denise Clair. A brave woman.
Everything wouldn’t have been all right again had someone at Raith manned up on Saturday evening, but that once proud club would have taken a step towards rehabilitation by speaking about what they did wrong; something Goodwillie has never done.
Is it any wonder so many people view football, and those of us in love with the game, as misogynistic dinosaurs more worried about goals than morality?
Anyway, a match also took place in Kirkcaldy which provided some decent stuff at times but no goals.
It was a horrible day on an artificial surface which rarely helps produce a decent game.
Hamilton were the better side and, had Raith’s veteran goalkeeper Jamie MacDonald not had a fine day – he made at least four good saves – the visitors would have left with all three points.
Accies won’t get to a Premiership play-off place this season, no matter what the players say. They haven’t scored enough goals, Saturday being a prime example, but they play some nice stuff at times and are solid enough at the back.
Accies defender Daniel O’Reilly said: “We had enough chances to win the game and we were the better team.
“There are enough games left to do something. We want to take it game by game. You never know what will happen if we can string together a couple of wins.”
