Rule by the heart, not the head

Maybe it was because Aston Villa had other things on its mind last week - like relegation for themselves and League Cup glory for their hated neighbours - but one of their favourites lost his way, and his job, last Wednesday and it didn't merit a line in the Birmingham Post.

Rimmer (Spink); Swain, Evans, McNaught, Williams; Morley, Mortimer, Bremner, Cowans; Shaw, Withe.

May 26th, 1982, the Aston Villa team that beat Bayern Munich - Breitner, Hoeness, Rummenigge - 1-0 in the European Cup final in Rotterdam. The previous year Villa had won the old first division, four points clear of Ipswich Town. Manchester United finished eighth.

How times change. Allan Evans, formidable, permed, Scottish centre half of that great Villa team, must have thought so on Wednesday night as he drove away from Cappielow Park, Greenock, British football's latest sacked manager. Morton no more.

Evans (44), had been told the news in the morning by Kroll Buchler Phillips, which in a different era might have represented a decent Morton forward line, but which, in these economically depressed days in Scotland's lower divisions, is another set of administrators running a football club. A sign of the times.

Morton, for those out there who don't follow their progress, are five points adrift at the bottom of the first division in Scotland - and therein lies a tale - and on Saturday drew 1-1 at home to the side directly above them, Alloa.

Cappielow Park, Morton's home for most of its 126-year history, is most often described as sitting in between a disused railway line and a redundant Clydeside shipyard. It doesn't reek of success, though Morton have won the Scottish Cup. In 1922.

Even Evans was shocked by the state of the place when he arrived last July. He had played at Cappielow as a teenager for Dunfermline in the late seventies and on reacquaintance with the ground thought it: "Worse than I remembered."

Given the circumstances on the pitch therefore, allied to a desperate financial plight which supporters blamed on the previous chairman, the question has to be asked of a man who, not only won the European Cup less than twenty years ago, but who has been in steady coaching work since as Brian Little's assistant at Darlington, Leicester City, Villa and West Bromwich Albion: Why?

The answer as usual is ambition. It cannot have been money. What Evans longed for was to be the number one.

Assistant managers get little of the credit but plenty of the blame and it is an entirely understandable desire to want to prove oneself. It could be called The Brian Kidd Syndrome.

For Evans, who seems like a decent, intelligent man, the desire within was so strong he overlooked the obvious abysmal nature of Morton and convinced himself he could be the man to resurrect the club.

The SPL was the target, he said, not this season, "but next". He could have done with an honest friend when he was saying this.

And therein lay the temptation tale. Evans turned down two job offers from third division clubs in England because the length of time it takes to turn one around and the near impossibility of getting them into the Premiership.

Morton, however, needed only to be better than several other similar clubs in the Scottish first division. Then bingo, promotion, the SPL. And a big tick on the Allan Evans cv. Then he could start looking south again.

But Evans became bogged down in the day-to-day details of running the club, literally so when he had to wash the kit. But his heart was in the right place. Others clearly saw that.

"I am the type who trusts people until I find my trust has been misplaced," he said in October. By which time his trust had been misplaced.

Last Wednesday, in the wake of a Scottish Cup exit to Peterhead, it all unravelled very quickly. One of the administrators was good enough to admit that Evans did not have a contract and had been working without pay for several months. Evans seemed shocked, even though he must have known this via his bank balance.

"I have lost money through trying to help Morton," he said. "I've been naive and a bit of a fool. But I did everything with the best interests of the club in mind.

"I paid personal money from my own pocket to help players get to training. I will never see that back. This was my first job as a manager and I have learned the hard way."

He's back in England now. Hurt. A Morton footnote. At least he will never be that at the Villa.