THE passing of time has done little to soothe Pat Nevin as he casts his mind back to a day of sorrow in the history of Scottish football.

It came 15 years ago this week as he hunkered down on the steps of Fir Park’s main stand. A dishevelled looking figure, Nevin sat with his head in his hands, a chamber of a broken dreams strewn through the corridors held in the stadium behind him.

Fifteen years ago this week Scottish football changed forever, the false hopes and dreams of a national game brought crashing down to reality by the demise of Motherwell Football Club, once a symbol of its ambition. Following the takeover of the club by multi-millionaire supporter John Boyle, North Lanarkshire would soon become the home for names such as John Spencer, Andy Goram, Roberto Martinez and Ged Brannan, just a few paid handsomely to try and raise Motherwell out of mediocrity in the Scottish Premier League and up into the upper echelons to mix it with the big boys.

It was an experiment that ultimately failed disastrously in April 2002 as Boyle, left with a gaping hole in the budget sheet thought to be around £2million due to a collapsed TV deal, felt compelled to put Motherwell up for sale and call in administrators.

Nineteen players lost their jobs 15 years ago today as a result, while manager Eric Black voluntarily exited. Nevin, the club’s chief executive at the time, did likewise.

“As upsetting as it was for a lot of people, I couldn’t stand by,” Nevin told Sport Times of his decision to walk away from the club. “I certainly didn’t want to stay on when other people were being laid off. Morally that’s not on. I wouldn’t take wages when players who had contracts weren’t getting theirs. That was as much of the reason I decided not to stay than anything else.

“The losses that were incurred at the time, I don’t agree with the numbers. I was the chief exec so I knew what they were. I had a buyer and I said ‘keep the club running and there’s no need to go into administration’ and the buyer was fine with that.

“That was all set up and he went to meet John. After that they found out what they cost was, and then the buyer said he’d changed the rules. At that point I thought ‘I’m not getting involved in this’ because I don’t want the club going into administration but everything I do to stop it was being pushed aside.

“John wanted me to stay. We didn’t have a big fall out at the time. I absolutely disagreed with the method and that’s why I went. I would hold to this day and always do that I’m very happy with how I ran that club. I was very happy with the costings, very happy with how everything was done and very strongly belief it shouldn’t have gone into administration.”

Even all this time on, Nevin strongly defends his stance that plunging Motherwell into administration was the wrong thing to do. In the years that immediately followed, the Fir Park club went on to sell the likes of James McFadden and Stephen Pearson for a large profit. He feels this vindicates his position as he casts his mind back to the early days.

When asked for how long he feared the club was heading for dangerous waters, Nevin said: “Three years I’d say? For three years I thought I don’t like this model so I then put in a different model where you put better funds, time and information into youth development. For God sake, Keith Lasley is still playing there!

“What was Scotland’s best result in the past 20 years of any game? Scotland v France in Paris. How many of my youth team played?

“I didn’t develop any of those players but it was very important all those guys who were talented, ie their coaches, developers and scouts, were backed. That was a big thing at the time.

“To say when did I think there could have been administration, I couldn’t have told you right after I went in but very soon after I started that job I thought ‘Right, back up plan’.

“My back-up plan was put in early and I was disappointed it didn’t pay off. When you talk about administration I was telling the entire board ‘Wait a minute, I’ve got this boy McFadden here. We can pay this off. We have Pearson. I can pay this off. Don’t worry, calm down, relax’.

“On the other hand I understand the thinking of John and his people. I think we’ve spoken once since, but there’s been no falling out. We just disagreed.”

Back to the present day, Motherwell now operate under a fan ownership model, run by the Well Society. It’s a bright new dawn which sees the Lanarkshire outfit work within a smaller budget but also within their means.

“We were fortunate,” reflected Nevin. “Scottish football had more money. On top of it all there was more TV money coming in, John Boyle was putting some money in as a backup. The problem is fan ownership doesn’t have a backup, so if you get relegated you’ve got a problem.

“It’s sometimes a toss of a coin, two or three bad injuries. The classic example is Paul Hartley who was manager of the month two months ago and now Dundee might get relegated. That’s how it can be.

“You need a model that can cope with that and rebound from that. If the current fan ownership model has that then fine, don’t worry about it. I applaud them if that’s the model.”