Gordon Strachan lost Scotland job over Oriam politics and Carver right to call out pimped–up leisure centre – Keith Jackson

Gordon Strachan must have been smiling to himself when he heard John Carver describe Scotland’s Oriam training base as a health hazard.

Edinburgh’s multi-million pound white elephant might boast the grand title of Scotland’s national performance centre but in reality it’s little more than a pimped-up public leisure centre with a fancy name. A safety risk? It turned out to be the hill that Strachan died on as Scotland boss – knifed in the back by the SFA’s then chief executive Stewart Regan for stubbornly refusing to bow to the Yorkshireman’s demands to decant his team there to the other end of the M8.

That was why Strachan was kicked to the curb by Regan just days after missing out on a place in the World Cup play-offs by a single point back in October 2017. It was nothing to do with football and was carried out despite a surge in results that had seen Strachan’s side clock up a year without defeat before the draw in Slovenia that saw them fall at the final hurdle.

No, it was pure politics stretching all the way from Hampden to Holyrood, where a promise had been made by the SFA to help make Oriam look like it was £25million of tax payers’ money well spent. The rest of the £33m bill was put up by sportscotland, Edinburgh council and Heriot-Watt University.

Strachan was not prepared to play ball – and not only because his team would have had to play second fiddle to Scottish rugby, who are guaranteed preferential treatment whenever they are on site. No, this charade was never about providing our national team with the best of the best to assist with the aim of qualifying for a tournament while permanently beleaguered Regan adopted the foetal position on his comfy throne. Nor was it about boosting fine margins in elite