The Best of times, it was the worst of times, with little change since

On Soccer: An "Obit file" for one sportsman once floated around the sports department in here for months as various staff members debated whether the person in question had sufficiently recovered from whatever ailed him so as the various clippings could safely be sent back to the in-house library. Eventually, it was and happily, almost a decade later, it hasn't had to be dug out again.

Similarly, the hope is that over the coming weeks George Best will recover sufficiently for the small mountain of material compiled on his life and career late last week to be discarded or mislaid.

Still, the review of the archives relating to his life, and particularly to his brief time with Cork Celtic here in Ireland, provide a bemusing, though somewhat depressing, reminder of just how little has changed in a game where almost three decades of hard knocks appears to have taught the country's football administrators almost nothing.

Best, of course, was just one of many former stars imported by clubs here at the time in the hope of generating a cup run and boosting takings at the gate. "Cup signings" they were known as at the time. On the day he played his third and final game for Celtic, Bobby Charlton made his debut for Waterford United and a couple of weeks after that Rodney Marsh played the first of a handful of appearances for Cork Hibernians.

Youth development wasn't very high on anybody's agenda at the time and the then Irish Times soccer correspondent Peter Byrne repeatedly found himself bemoaning the short-termism of so many of the various league clubs' undertakings.

In January of 1976 a particularly stark example of the prevalent thinking is to be found in his reports on the situation at Sligo Rovers, where the decision by Stewart Robertson and Paul Magee to take jobs outside of football had just reduced the club's full-time playing staff to six.

This mightn't have been viewed as such a bad thing for, even then, the weekly bill was £350 while fortnightly takings at the turnstiles at a time when the team was struggling averaged just £400.

"It is incredible the way our supporters have stuck with us," admitted club secretary Michael O'Boyle before demonstrating just the sort of thinking that has got so many other clubs into trouble since, that "it makes you think of the crowds we could command if we had a successful team . . . certainly we could pull in gates of £1,300 if we could get things moving before the FAI Cup." The club was, of course, in the market for a few Englishmen.

Other yarns with a hint of familiarity about them were the ones concerning a debate amongst clubs over changing the structure of the league. A presentation by Louis Kilcoyne regarding the possibility of switching the season to the summer and the pursuit by Ireland manager Johnny Giles of Burnley's goalkeeper, who appeared to have spurned a call-up from the Republic when he indicated that he would hold out for his day in the sun with England.

On the international stage too, Irish officials were making their mark with demonstrations of tremendous foresight at Uefa conferences.

At one in Marbella - it must have tortured the hard-working delegates to be inside while the winter sun shone brightly down on the hotel pool - a debate took place on the issue of freedom of contract. Interestingly, there was apparently a good deal of support for the idea of allowing players to move on unhindered at the end of their contract, a right they were not to be granted until the Bosman case more than 20 years later. However, clearly sensing which way the wind was blowing, an unnamed Irish delegate was reported as telling the conference that "we cannot allow players to leave so easily the countries that created them".

At the same conference, meanwhile, Uefa - mindful of the disastrous consequences widespread exposure of football to television audiences could have on the future development of the game - voted to strictly limit the number of matches made available for broadcast.

Back in Ireland, it wasn't, needless to say, just our league that had been doing its best to stand still while the rest of the world got on with things over the last three decades for there was news too of our friends in the North from January 7th, 1976.

The Northern Irish Professional Footballers' Association had just submitted a 35-page document containing 54 recommendations for rejuvenation of the "ailing" Irish League.

Among the most contentious was a suggestion that games be played . . . wait for it . . . on a Sunday. Regular readers might recall that precisely the same rather eccentric suggestion is likely to be the subject of legal action in the northern courts in the very near future.

Anyway, the NIPFA observed that "whether we like it or not", such a move might yield benefits after a poll it carried out found 40 per cent of supporters and other would-be match goers in favour and just two per cent were against with the rest having no opinion either way.

Well, you've guessed the IFA politely declined to make the change. They never were, you understand, the sort to trample over the rights of a minority.