Breaking the Gordon Smith story.

A month ago I was informed by an excellent source that:

“Alistair McCoist may not be the manager of Rangers by Christmas. This will be irrespective of on-field events.”

Obviously I wanted this bold statement backed up.

Given the position of the source I knew he was in a position to know and I wasn’t dismissing it as hot air.

My source knows, likes and considers Alistair McCoist a friend and the emotional content of his voice signalled deep unease at what he was telling me.

I pressed him for some details. He told me the situation was fluid.

Yesterday my source spoke to me around 10.00hrs Irish time and said to be near my laptop later in the day.

The phone rang around 15.15hrs and the story came through.

“Remember what I told you a couple of weeks ago about Alistair? What I am about to tell you will not help the situation, in fact it could speed up my prediction.”

He then proceeded to tell me about plans to appoint Gordon Smith in a senior position, possibly as a director.

I quickly wrote up some copy. The piece was uploaded around 15.30.

Then the intrepid investigative journalists from the BBC were onto it.

They had an excellent source, this website.

Well actually I got someone to phone them and tell them about it.

I like to help.

The chaps at the Beeb called Rangers FC press department and asked them if the story was true.

Now why didn’t I think of that?

Rangers denied the story.

A BBC source was emailing me as late as 19.59 saying that “both RFC and Whyte’s PR people are denying the story.”

Finally, despite the denials, the BBC had the story on their website by 20.25.

Just after 22.00hrs it was on the club’s official website.

I think it is fair to say the timing of this statement about the appointment of Gordon Smith as Director of Football was not of Rangers’ choosing.

Once more, just like the Dallas story, there is no acknowledgment by the old media in Scotland of the journalist who broke the story.

http://sport.caledonianmercury.com/2010/12/06/opinion-dallasgate-and-the-man-with-no-name/00728

Don’t mention the Irishman.