Having met the man in person I would not have thought it remotely possible that there were two Turnbull Huttons, but apparently there are.
In 2004 a Sunday Mail hack thought he was onto a story about match fixing involving Raith Rovers so he phoned Turnbull Hutton.
However THAT Turnbull Hutton is a retired joiner in his nineties happily living in Burntisland.
That gentleman has never been inside a football ground and probably will never see the need to.
The hack asked him about match fixing and Mr Hutton said he wasn’t interested, which he certainly wasn’t.
The Sunday Mail ran with the story that THE Turnbull Hutton had been approached about a match fixing scam, but had declined the offer to make some readies.
Actually they had spoken to the uncle of the Raith Rovers’ chairman.
The man from Stark’s Park took the Sunday Mail to the Press Complaints Commission and won.
The home crowd in Kirkcaldy chanted “there’s only two Turnbull Huttons”.
Actually Scottish football could do with a busload of Turnbull Huttons heading for Hampden to sort the place out.
Everyone on planet fitba knows that the preferred option of the people who run the national game was for Sevco NewCo to be put into the SPL as if nothing had happened.
The “No To NewCo” campaign viralled across social media and the SPL chairmen, one by one, buckled.
The guys on the 6th floor at Hampden needed a Plan “B”.
When a cynical deal was choreographed in the summer to parachute in a NewCo Rangers into SFL1 someone had to step forward.
On the steps of the national stadium the man from Fife spoke for the ordinary Scottish football fan.
His point of view was that what was being proposed simply wasn’t fair. If Sevco NewCo went into the SFL1 it would rewarding more than a decade of cheating and saying the game in Scotland was essentially bent.
Or as Turnbull himself said “corrupt”!
The footie fourth estate simply couldn’t handle his straight talking honesty.
He told me today that his gardener is a staunch Rangers man.
During the summer he had said to Turnbull that he didn’t understand all this administrations stuff.
Turnbull decided to educate him.
The gardener was owed £180 for his horticultural services.
The Vice chairman of Raith Rovers wrote him a cheque for £10.80.
“There you are that’s six pence in the pound. That’s administration!”
The gardener wilted slightly.
Hutton tore up the cheque and then he paid him in full from an offshore Hedge Fund.
Turnbull doesn’t owe his gardener a penny, but the whole of Scottish football owes this man a huge debt of gratitude.
He is currently the reluctant Vice Chairman of his beloved Rovers. He has already suffered a stroke and he isn’t getting any younger and with no Chairman in place a lot falls on his shoulders. Attending those meetings and handling that pressure during the summer would not have been easy.
The Celtic family have an opportunity to say a genuine tangible thank you to Turnbull on the 25th of this month.
I smiled when I saw the ticket pricing.
£12 for a season ticket holder and £5 for a concession.
Non season ticket holders get in for £15.
This is a midweek game after the first Champions league match.
The Parkhead PA won’t be blasting out Handel’s Zadok the priest as the teams come out to contest the Scottish Communities League cup tie, but this is important business.
I hope there is a healthy crowd in Celtic Park on the 25th.
Scottish football, we were told, would suffer “Armageddon” and a “slow lingering death” if the game wasn’t bent out of shape to accommodate Sevco.
I hope the men from Fife go back over the Forth with a healthy cheque.
A large home crowd would send a strong message about the solidarity that exists within Scottish football.
Only one club cheated Scottish football and created the organisational carnage that we witnessed during the summer and it wasn’t the Rovers.
It could be a decent game as their lads will certainly have a go and you never know in the cup.
Lenny might well rest a few big players after the Benfica match, especially as Celtic have a tough match against Motherwell and an away trip to Moscow looming.
This just might be an opportunity to see some of the emerging talent in the hoops.
I always want Celtic to win every game, but if they’re dancing in the streets of Raith on the 25th then I’ll still have a spring in my step.
