Amid the hoopla and hysteria sparked by the World Cup and Wimbledon, the news that Aberdeen Grammar FP Club is being sold to a care home company for £2.25million probably attracted scant attention.
Yet, anyone who cares about sport in the north-east should be concerned by this development, not least because it highlights a growing malaise throughout the city.
The fact is that participation numbers among adults in several different pursuits – including rugby and cricket – have fallen sharply in recent times. The sale of the premises at 86 Queens Road illustrates the problems of keeping people coming through the door when the quality of the product has slumped.
It’s only a decade since Damian Reidy parted company with Aberdeen Grammar and yet the feisty Australian achieved fantastic results for the Rubislaw club, particularly compared to how Grammar are faring these days.
When he was sacked in 2007, Reidy had propelled the Granite City rugby team to four top-four finishes in the Premiership in the space of five years. Ever since these heady days, Grammar have struggled and they now find themselves languishing in the second tier with precious few signs of a revival in the pipeline.
I recall visiting the FP club in 2010 and the decline had already started. You can’t run a successful centre on the basis it will be packed for a couple of hours once every fortnight but that was what was happening. As Alan Campbell, the chairman of the FPs club said last week: “We’ve been living beyond our means.”
The attempt to create a new partnership between Aberdeen Grammar and Aberdeenshire RFC fell horribly flat. And the fashion in which there has been a conveyor belt of coaches in charge has only exacerbated the problem.
The situation isn’t much better in cricket, with Aberdeenshire CC consigned to the prospect of another mid-table finish – at best – after a series of recent defeats in the Eastern Premier Division.
However, at least they have launched a fightback off the pitch. Mannofield is buzzing these days and, assisted by the tireless efforts of cricket missionary Bob Buchan, hundreds of youngsters have turned up at Friday night sessions this summer.
Shire’s officials seem to accept the need to establish stronger links with their local community and convert the sceptics to the virtues of the summer game. It’s a bit like climbing Everest with a piano tied to your back but as Buchan told me earlier this season: “If you give youngsters the chance to play, some of them will end up loving what they’re doing.”
That would probably be true of rugby as well but it’s a more difficult activity to organise for children. As things stand, everything in Scotland is geared towards the central belt, with the SRU investing all its funds in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
The governing body’s plans for club franchises are an irrelevance to anyone in Aberdeen. Yet, if ever there was the need for a third professional team, and one based in Aberdeen, this is it. What about the new Kingsford stadium as its home?
Sadly, though, the lack of vision among some north-east organisations has led to the current state of affairs. Flogging the FPs club to developers might raise quick cash but it will do nothing to address the slide in players and spectators.