Steve Morgan's own goal with old pal Sir Norman Bettison
It's impossible to view pictures of Steve Morgan cosying up to probably the most hated cop in his home city as anything other than a massive own goal for the Wolves chairman writes Martin Swain.
It's a free country, of course; Morgan can like who he likes and mix with whomever he chooses. But he might as well have broken bread with Abu Hamza or shared a cuppa with Stuart Hall as be seen enjoying the company of Sir Norman Bettison at Bradford on Saturday.
Bettison is the former Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police.
Wolves boss Steve Morgan and the Hillsborough cop
Weve backed Wolves since 1889, but E&S will always be independent
The pair are, apparently, old friends. We may feel that as much as the bulk of Merseyside would grab pitchforks and drag Sir Norman to a public flogging if they had their way, Morgan has stood by a man he clearly sees in a different light.
But Morgan and Bettison have to get real with the politics of their respective positions and here the Wolves owner has shown an alarming lack of judgement.
Not only did the former police chief's role after Hillsborough offend most painfully the victims' families and the Liverpool football audience, it was an affront to the wider football family.
Perhaps Sir Norman might have shown better judgement than to publicly embarrass his old friend in such a pointed football setting.
But certainly Morgan has committed a blunder in playing his part in such a public meeting. His reputation on Merseyside, where even now he is regarded as the fan who could and should have bought Liverpool before he came to Wolves, will be severely damaged by such exposure of a private friendship.
They are still not happy with Graeme Souness, a legendary player who won countless honours with the club, for taking Rupert Murdoch's money as a columnist for The Sun after that newspaper bought hook, line and sinker the police line peddled in Hillsborough's aftermath that it was all the fans' fault.
But it shakes Morgan's standing at Wolves too because it brings into question a judgement Molineux fans were just beginning to trust again after the shambolic events of the last two years.
Of course, it should be pointed out that Bettison has, in the eyes of the law and his profession, never actually been indicted for anything over his involvement not just in the policing of the fateful, terrible day itself – he was actually off duty – but the subsequent inquiry.
Hillsborough has come to represent so much more to Liverpool, Morgan's home city, than an awful day of sadness.
For Wolves fans to see their chairman so openly showing his friendship to such a controversial figure will enhance the view that Morgan's judgements can be impaired.
The past few months have seen Wolves make progress from their own upheavals of the last couple of years in which the chairman was so heavily implicated.
Now that progress has been jeopardised once more.
