The Media Love Affair
Why is Walter Smith so beloved by the media hacks? 

6 March 2002

WALTER Smith, that Mullah of Mediocrity, has achieved at least two miracles at Goodison Park in his unhappy tenure.  One: he has succeeded in making Mike Walker and Gordon Lee looked like Marcello Lippi and Vicente del Bosque...

The other may not be so obvious.

Somehow, Walter Smith got the media to fall head over heels in love with him.  No matter how turgid the performance, no matter how adverse the result, no matter how hopeless the approach, no matter how hostile the fans, according to the media, nothing is Walter Smith's responsibility.

Hours after the signing of David Ginola, Sporting Life went so far as to compare Smith to Jesus Christ, saying he had "turned water into wine" during his reign.  If that is true, I hope I don't sound ungrateful when I say that it has to be a 1997 sparkling Bosnian Riesling and it tastes a lot like yak pee.  And if Jesus Christ is managing Everton, I think he would do better than 17th and falling...

Len Capeling, who writes like Walter Smith's personal PR, consistently blames the Everton Board and years of past mismanagement even for team selection, illnesses, injuries, suspensions and poor signings.  Walter Smith is almost always portrayed in his columns as a prescient and long suffering Subaltern on the Somme, warning of disasters to come if the troops aren't reinforced.  Cast an eye over this recent pronunciamento:

"The clock started ticking for Everton last summer.  But no-one heard it except Walter Smith.  He knew that Everton needed radical rebuilding if they were to avoid another season in the slide area.  He warned that the Blues had the smallest squad in his time at the club and pointed up the dangers that injuries would bring.  No-one listened."

Hello?  Didn't we sign players in every department last close season?  Only Walter knew we needed more players?  You would think, then, that he would supplement this unhappy band with a few additions from the Reserves.  But Chadwick, McLeod, Hibbert, Cadamarteri, (when he was here) Moore, Tal and other theoretical members of the 1st team squad rarely make it even to the bench.

This is like the captain of the Titanic warning the passengers of icebergs, then pointing the ship at that big white thing on the horizon, Full Steam Ahead.

Still not convinced?  Try reading Ken Rogers waxing lyrical on Smith some time.  What you and I might see as crass complacency, Ken Rogers assures us is "quiet dignity."  In a piece calling Smith "a quiet hero" just a few weeks ago, Ken tells us that, while Phil Thompson may have won Manager of the Month, "Walter Smith deserves his own manager accolade for his efforts."

In the Independent and the Express, Smith has been portrayed as a Leonardo deprived of paint; a Bernini with his hands cuffed behind his back.  Robert Philip, attributing miracles again, even claimed Smith had "fashioned internationals out of David Weir and Gary Naysmith" and called him "The Brian Epstein of football."

For the record, Davie Weir was an international with Falkirk and Gary Naysmith was in the senior Scottish side when he was still with Hearts.  And, if Walter Smith were Brian Epstein, the Fab Four would still be in Hamburg waiting for their big break...

The adulation isn't confined to the professional scribes.  Tommy Smith once rounded on disgruntled Everton fans, calling us "idiots who expect overnight success."  And John Aldrich, Phil Thompson, Mark Lawrenson and others have all given Walter Smith their unconditional uncritical support.

Alan Hansen in the Express has been busy comparing Smith to Jesus too: "Smith has worked miracles at Goodison Park just to keep the club's head above water in the Premiership over the last four years," he wrote recently. "I believe they still have enough quality, backed by Smith's shrewd management, to get out of trouble."

Notice how Smith had nothing to do with getting us into the crisis.  No.  But his "shrewd management" will get us out of it.

Contrast the media reaction to Roy Evans.  Liverpool were 5th when he was fired — hounded out of the job by what amounted to a media campaign orchestrated by former Reds.  These red pundits tell us Walter Smith is the greatest Everton manager in history.  The problem is he's the greatest Everton manager in Liverpool's history.  Do you think they would want him at Anfield for more than a nanosecond?

And I still would like to meet the reporter who first concocted the story that Walter was in line for Alex Ferguson's job.  Does anyone really believe that one?

This is not to say the media loves Everton: quite the opposite.  The words "woeful" "turgid" and "inadequate" are regularly used in the same sentence in every newspaper in the land and it pains me to say that it is usually justified.  Yet Smith is invariably exonerated somewhere along the way, or simply left out of the equation.

The Observer published a story to the effect that Ginola is too sophisticated for Everton and too skillful for the others to keep up with.  The same piece said that Gascoigne is too slow for the Premiership and we should all presumably start checking routes to places like Barnsley, Gillingham and Reading next season.  It was a humiliating story for any Evertonian to read.  Incredibly, it contained not one solitary syllable of criticism of Walter Smith.

Why this love affair with The Mullah of Mediocrity?  Why don't they report, for example, that Gerard Houllier and other managers have privately expressed amazement that he is still in his job?  Why have more questions not been asked about the fallings out with players like Don Hutchison, Stephen Hughes, Richard Dunne, Michael Ball, and now Mad Dog Gravesen?  How come nobody followed up the reports that Dacourt and Nyarko claimed no direction was given to players — even at half time?

One reason is that the media on Merseyside is dominated by kopites and nationally is dominated by Manchester United fans.  There is a deep-rooted hatred of Everton that runs like a bright red thread throughout the media and it is reflected by the undiluted joy in Everton's demise.  Why would they want to see anyone other than a Walter Smith at the helm and possibly spoil a good thing?  Don't you think former Liverpool players like Tommy Smith would rather see Walter Smith at Goodison than, say, Arsène Wenger?

The media loves Scots for some vague reason.  They lend themselves to ludicrous metaphor.  Alex Ferguson is "hewn out of Scotland's socialist coal."  Archie Knox's stare is "as bleak as a winter on Clyde's abandoned docks" and other such nonsense.  Scots managers invariably have some legend attached to them.  Smith's legend is that he presided over Rangers greatest days, an unbroken run of magnificent championships over a decade.  Let's ignore the fact they Rangers were in slow but steady entropic decline almost from the moment Souness left and Smith was ultimately kicked upstairs for failing so badly in Europe.  When the truth conflicts with the legend, print the legend!

Another reason the media supports Smith must be that beat reporters who rely on official sources for their stories can't afford to rock the boat too much.  Like a pack of cowardly wolves, journalists tend to prey on the weak.  And they have never perceived that Smith's political position at Goodison is weak.

Far better to attribute missed goals, unfit strikers, defenders played out of position and other woes on years of boardroom mismanagement.  Is there really a cause and effect there?

This is also a thin blue line true of former Blues, like Kevin Ratcliffe and Howard Kendall, who have no inclination to criticize the manager and possibly risk the wrath of the club.  Not one word of actual criticism has escaped Howard Kendall's keyboard, although when you read between the lines you've got to believe he is as bemused as many of us.  Graeme Sharp has actually parlayed his vocal support of Smith into a full time job.

The media is supposed to be the public's eyes and ears.  But in a place like Merseyside, where football means so much, we are ill-served by a media that carries only the official line.  The official line right now is that Walter Smith is a managerial master beleaguered by circumstance.

If only that were true.

For circumstances change. Smith's incompetence does not.

Peter Fearon

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