And nobody should be under the illusion that the late Dundee United chairman's contribution to the Tannadice club was anything other than an act of beneficence. People like Thompson – and this applies to others in Scotland – do not "invest" in institutions such as United with the hope of even recovering their own money, far less turning a profit.

Among the numerous bounties Thompson has left behind – including family, friends and fans who clearly loved him to bits – is a manager, Craig Levein, who consistently proves himself to be a credit to his most fervent supporter.

In common with many whose short fuse often leads to an inflamed sense of injustice – his skirmishes with officialdom could be turned into a series – Levein is also intelligent, thoughtful, caring and, as he demonstrated again this week, fiercely protective of his colleagues in what is too frequently an unreasonably hazardous and punishing profession.

In the course of criticising the SFA chief executive, Gordon Smith, for putting unnecessary pressure on George Burley, by saying in advance that Scotland's match against Norway last Saturday was a "must win", Levein also, more importantly, reached the very core of a more widespread difficulty for managers.

"There is no doubt," he wrote in his weekly newspaper column, "that the tolerance levels from both the media and supporters have been substantially lowered in recent years. Managers can become the victims of astonishing criticism and personal ridicule and there is now a general acceptance that it's okay. It's not okay and it never should be.

"Hard as some may find it to believe, managers are human beings and are working for their livelihoods. I would bet that 99.9 per cent of those who are having a go at George (Burley] don't even know him. They wouldn't know if he was a decent guy or not – he has been dehumanised just because he's the Scotland manager."

It is this perception of football managers, and others who work under the gaze of the public eye, as some kind of different species, that produces outrageous personal attacks. There is a general failure, or refusal, to recognise managers as fellow workers, with all the problems that entails.

There is also the popular assumption that they are all earning obscene annual sums and should, therefore, be prepared to accept without protest the most malevolent slurs on their character. For the vast majority outside the biggest clubs, of course, that kind of income is a myth.

Levein's defence of his co-workers was reminiscent of a conversation some years ago with Alex Totten, a master of the virtually impossible art of bringing success to small, unfashionable, weakly-supported and relatively impoverished clubs. At the time, he was with St Johnstone, one of the many stops he made in a distinguished career.

"Do you know what really gets me, my pet hate in this business?" said Totten, a naturally placid, decent and easily-liked man. "It's that supporters don't really see our work. They don't see the hours we put in, training daily and at nights, leaving our families to go out in the most miserable winter weather to watch some amateur match because somebody has told you there's a youngster playing who might have 'something'.

"All the fans see is what happens on the park on a Saturday afternoon. You can be putting in a 90-hour week, travelling all distances in all conditions, and then you're judged on what happens in 90 minutes on a Saturday. There are so many times when it just seems so unfair."


Scotland boo-boys almost forced Johnstone to quit
THE disapproval of Kris Boyd's defection from international football expressed by a substantial number of ageing former Scotland players would have surprised no-one, coming as it did from gladiators at the height of their powers in an earlier, seemingly less complicated age. All, however, appeared to have forgotten the infamous episode concerning Celtic's George Connelly, whose run for freedom from Glasgow Airport more than 30 years ago was only discovered when the national squad completed the f
Connelly, a prodigious talent, was a singular case, however, whose troubled spirit derived from disillusionment with the professional game in general and led to his premature retirement from all football at the age of 27. What is less known nowadays is how close his most celebrated club-mate, Jimmy Johnstone, came to quitting Scotland.

Jimmy's problem was not with any of the handful of managers under whom he won 23 caps, but, more bizarrely, with the Scotland supporters. Between 35 and 40 years ago, the majority of those who followed the national team were Rangers fans, and Johnstone was frequently a target for derision because of his perceived "rivalry" for the outside-right position with a true Ibrox hero, Willie Henderson.

"It doesn't help when you hear your name booed when the teams are announced," Jimmy once confided, "or when you get the treatment the first time you touch the ball. There are times when I just feel like chucking it." Jock Stein would be his adviser on those occasions, pointing out the wastefulness of such action.

The irony of the situation was that wee Willie himself, whose precocity saw him capped in 1962 at the age of 18, regarded the so-called rivalry between him and his close pal as absurd. "Don't compare me with Jimmy," said Willie. "I'm just an old-fashioned winger. Jimmy can play anywhere and do things the rest of us couldn't get near."