IS THERE a chance the SFA might have benefited from the lessons of their history and, this time round, get it even approximately right in their direction of the national team?

The great camouflage forever to hand at HQ lies within their articles of association, a remit which determines their role to be the protection and the advancement of Scottish football in its entirety.

And so the employees focus on workaday roles. As one former worker, a very bright man, put it wryly: "Don't ask me about the issues. I'm in charge of pencils and paper clips."

Truly, not a lot has changed in practices over more than 30 years - other than an obvious decline in the presence and wherewithal of the men at the top, the office bearers and former secretaries. This position has been massaged and elevated to chief executive status.

If not a sense of real fear, the operations at Park Gardens, now at Hampden, have always struck a note of hurry and scurry without any product of substance emerging. At base camp they have seldom walked far less strolled. They rush through corridors hefting sheafs of files as though preparing ambassadors for a crisis debate at the UN. A sense of discomfort forced by urgency, real or imagined, is tangible.

So much to do, so little time to achieve is the subliminal message. Yet this apparent zeal has overseen a shocking decline in standards from grass roots level upwards and the senior national side's failure to qualify for the finals of a major competition since the World Cup in France in 1998.

It would be well off beam to determine the SFA alone are to blame for this spiral. The country's leading clubs have been guilty of a ridiculous fascination with half-baked foreigners rejected by major European leagues and, essentially, the members comprise the association. Consequently the development of native talent has been neglected.

Also, central government has only lately recognised the contribution the game can make to society in Scotland, preferring to pay a touch of financial lip service to probably the most important issue within the business.

However, even our rather curious representatives at Holyrood are entitled to wonder about conduct and practice at the SFA.

There's no question a succession of previous national managers have been left bemused.

They have been unable to comprehend a lack of cohesion and of personal conversations. The office bearers have been remote figures, at times failing even to speak to, far less congratulate, the head coaches after matches won.

Given the progress of the national team is a priority for Scotland supporters, the relationship between the chief executive/secretary and the head coach should be vital. But it has not been apparent or warm since Ernie Walker and the late Jock Stein collaborated in the late 1970s to mid-80s.

Andy Roxburgh and then Craig Brown worked alongside Jim Farry and opportunities were missed. Farry is a decent man, an outstanding legislator, but in his professional life he carried a mindset starched as seriously as a Victorian shirt. The static electricity was too much to bear for his gaffers, who sacked him.

Walker could and did influence the office bearers and committees and was a clever, manipulative go-between for Stein, but Farry could not hack this area of the job.

We now have David Taylor - the modernist who brought in Berti Vogts, which is quite a legacy. The two were close but, then again, you might suspect they had to be given their roles in an awful decline.

Taylor's dealings with Walter Smith seemed to be benign but the personality and stature Smith carries would not have allowed any interference on his patch. Maybe, though, he would have appreciated a few more off-the-record chats than appeared available in Taylor's busy schedule.

Alex McLeish... welcome to this parallel world. He will not be short on help from predecessors but the gist will be to the effect he is about to enter an operation the likes of which he never had to deal with at club level.

He is a bright and likeable man and has a fine sense of humour, qualities required for survival, personally and professionally.

Remember, do not slouch. Stride purposefully and if you can get your hands around a file - no matter its relevance - then so much the better.