Graham Kelly: Muir provided an example for football to follow

We said our final goodbyes to Chris Muir on Thursday. A former director of Manchester City, he would have been amused that his funeral service was held on All Fools Day.

Muir, a proud Scot from Leith who oversaw youth development at Maine Road and latterly at Blackpool and represented the Manchester County FA on the Football Association council since 1998, took a long and difficult leave himself, for he had known for many months that he was dying of cancer, facing his end on this earth with an immense courage that puts most of us to shame. He and his lovely wife, Val, resolved that the service would be an occasion not for tears and dolefulness, but one of real thanksgiving for a life well and truly fulfilled.

Muir performed so many kind deeds for friends in business, politics and football that the church in Lytham was packed by people who had no desperate need to attend, but who wanted to join together in celebration of the life of a man who had crammed so much into his 74 short years.

He was first drawn to English football by the two great Stanleys, Matthews and Mortensen, while on National Service in the RAF near Blackpool in 1948, and it was fitting that the Oystons invited him back into their family at Bloomfield Road in the latter years of his life.

Muir did not pull any punches in his FA work - maybe that's why his county made him serve the longest apprenticeship in history, 25 years, before they despatched him to higher office in London - but he was a valuable confidant by virtue of his long experience of the game at all levels. When the cortege was late in arriving at the church a rumour rapidly spread that he had spotted an old FA nemesis on the way in and had changed his mind about coming.

David Davies, the FA's executive director, who had known Muir since their early days as newcomers to Manchester in the 1960s, delivered the eulogy. When the Bishop, as he used to be less than reverently known to his former BBC colleagues, was seen to be clutching five pages of foolscap, there was a suggestion that it might be necessary to phone ahead to the crematorium.

There was no reason for concern. In Mr Davies' current line of business, helping to run the FA, keeping the head coach in situ, etc etc, there is usually precious little opportunity for demonstrating a sense of humour to the outside world. But you sure as hell do need one.

Muir's own last wishes and some of Manchester City's endearing eccentricities gave Davies scope on this special occasion to pay a lovely, amusing and encompassing tribute to a formidable football man, one that could have been delivered by very few people.

No doubt much of the content - indeed a significant portion of Muir's life - must have been influenced by the controversial former City chairman Peter Swales. He was a loyal lieutenant of Swales, but I suspect he was completely oblivious to the flattery "PJS" sometimes used, for he was no yes-man.

Certainly, Swales expected him to do some politicking on his behalf but, for the organiser who had the predominantly Tory City board out canvassing for the SDP, that should have been no sweat.

Swales carried much weight on the FA international committee and had been violently opposed to the appointment of Terry Venables as the England coach in 1994, over concerns about his business problems. As far as some were concerned, Venables remained under a cloud throughout his tenure, and although efforts were made to persuade him to stay after Euro 96, he resigned, feeling insufficiently supported and, as with Bobby Robson six years earlier, the FA lost its man needlessly.

This time around, with Sven Goran Eriksson, the FA has concluded that it cannot afford not to stand by its man and has really gone to grotesque lengths to preserve the continuity it was previously less committed to.

Swales, bizarrely, expressed pleasure at the fact England had not won the World Cup in 1990, because he said that would have meant Robson would have been retained. This was during the early days of Graham Taylor's reign. He was a big fan of Taylor.

Taylor, engaged as a pundit by Radio Five Live in Gothenburg last week, was asked at the end of the programme about Eriksson's dalliance with Chelsea. "You cannot talk about morality and football in the same sentence, sadly, today," he replied.

The critics were merciless with Taylor, as we know. But they never accused him of being economical with the truth.

His assertion is all the more accurate with the sad passing of Chris Muir, a true gentleman.

grahamkelly@btinternet.com