Memories of Glavin from North of the border

Glavin, 48, has given up his prestigious position with Wakefield and Emly to take over a troubled club, hamstrung by administration and prohibited from purchasing players. He and co-manager Gudjon Thordarson were given their thankless task after the long-awaited takeover by a consortium that included Davie Moyes’ brother, Kenny.

Barnsley fans, who also bestowed legendary status on another illustrious Scotsman, John Hendrie, have come to rely on Ronnie. After all, he was the curly-haired bundle of dynamism whose ballistic missile of a shot twice helped the club to promotion 20-odd years ago. He was their player of the year in 1980 and ’83, and even had a song devoted to him on the terraces:

"People say that football’s borin’,

"Ronnie Glavin’s always scorin’,

"Can you hear the Ponty roarin’,

"Ronnie is our king."

All of which reverential treatment is rather amusing to those from north of the Border whose memories of him are altogether more embarrassing. Sure, he won the League Cup with Partick Thistle in 1971, before joining Celtic for £80,000 in 1975 and becoming their top scorer when they won the title in 1977.

He even played for Scotland in a 3-1 defeat of Sweden at Hampden in 1977.

But Glavin is perhaps better remembered as the character who, in 1979, the year that he fled to Barnsley in a £40,000 transfer, was up in court, accused of setting fire to his sports shop in East Kilbride.

Ronnie, who guided Wakefield and Emly through an FA Cup third-round tie against West Ham United, combined duties there with a job at Nike, another sports firm that went swoosh. Of course, this unseemly show of pyrotechnics led to all manner of merciless digs from Scottish fans. Among the better offerings was that which accused Celtic of abandoning a bid for Austrian playmaker Marcus Schoppes on the basis that their midfield line-up would have read:

Glavin, Burns ...

One can but hope that no jiggery-pokery is going on at the picture desk of the Daily Record.