As we speak, the SFA top brass continue to scribble up a laundry list of potential managers for the vacant Scotland job. By all accounts, they are prepared to embark on the kind of exhaustive, expansive search that would make the hunt for the Holy Grail look like a quick rummage behind the sideboard.
Closer to home, the name of Derek McInnes, who has made some sterling advances with Aberdeen, continues to crop up but his old mentor, Allan McGraw, would be more than happy for him to stay put and continue to make his mark.
McGraw, the cherished and celebrated Morton great who was inducted into the Scottish Football Hall of Fame at the weekend, was the manager of the Greenock club when McInnes began his footballing career. The bond between the pair and the mutual respect they have for one another is evident and McGraw, 78, insists that McInnes has much more to offer in the day-to-day cut-and-thrust of the club scene.
"He's done well at Aberdeen but I don't think the Scotland manager job is right for him,” said McGraw. “He's right for them because they need a good manager but I don't think he'd be tempted.
“I wouldn't like to see him going to it. He's a lot to offer to a club day-to-day. I think he has to be involved that way. I'd like to see it happening, not this time but in a few years’ time. He'd be ready for it as a manager, ready for any job. But he's too young for international management. How often would he see his players? And he's a player's man. Getting players for a week a month? I think he's too young for that. He's a worker and he likes working with players.”
That work ethic and willingness to learn was something McGraw saw very early in McInnes’ Morton career. “He always had the brains to do it (management),” added McGraw. “Sometimes when you're training players you don't know they're going to be managers but you know they'll stay in football. He was one from the first month I knew he'd be a coach or a manager. He went into it quicker than I thought he would. He was inquisitive, even at 16. He learned well and listened.”
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