Harry's game is more than up and under

THE craftsmanship of the Tottenham team of the early 1950s, Arthur Rowe's push-and-run side that won promotion and the championship in successive seasons, was encapsulated in the short, stocky form of Eddie Baily.

Baily, an inside-left and as Cockney as a jellied eel, took an artisan's pride in his skills and was a fierce defender of footballing standards. John Arlott described an incident during an international when a precise England passing movement was ended by Yugoslavia with what would now be called a professional foul.

"Baily dashed across the field in indignant outcry," Arlott wrote. "The offence was not committed against him personally but it was an offence against good football."

Later Baily played for Nottingham Forest and claimed that, in the restaurant car on the train back to London, waiters would be bemused by his staring at the ceiling throughout the journey. This, he told them, was what he had been doing all afternoon since the ball had spent most of its time in the air.

It was a good yarn even if the image Baily presented of Billy Walker's Forest team of the 1950s, the side that produced a classical exhibition of passing to defeat Luton Town in the 1959 FA Cup final, was a little hard to recognise. And it is only recalled now because not so long ago the idea of Dave Bassett managing Forest would have been only slightly less outlandish than the notion of Juventus buying Oxford United.

In fact, the neat football played by Oxford under Maurice Evans and various Smiths probably has more in common with Juve than the cold-steel approach of some of Bassett's teams. There is more to Bassett's concept of football than the long-ball game and so far his only serious setback as a manager has occurred at Watford, who were still wedded to direct tactics in the immediate aftermath of Graham Taylor's departure to Aston Villa.

Nevertheless, the mere presence of good old "Harry" Bassett, the man who brought the game Vinnie Jones, at the City Ground will, for some, be a puzzlement.

Alright, Bassett is going to be general manager at Forest and team selection and tactics will continue to be the responsibility of that sensitive exponent of the game's finer points, Stuart Pearce. Worried Forest fans may also be relieved to learn that the imaginative passing game developed at Crystal Palace under the coaching of Ray Lewington was unhindered by Bassett's presence. Yet hid move from Selhurst Park to the City Ground is a surprise and a paradox.

The most encouraging aspect of this week's takeover at Forest is the fact that two of the buyers, Irving Scholar, a former Tottenham chairman, and Phil Soar, who has written eruditely on the game for many years, are not only genuine football fans but care about the quality of the spectacle.

It is not easy, however, to envisage the Bassett-Pearce partnership restoring Forest to the levels of performance which, under Brian Clough and before the defeat by Tottenham in the 1991 Cup final, more than once saw them out-pass Terry Venables's team on a bumpy surface at White Hart Lane.

Then again that is not the prime object of the present exercise, which is to keep Forest in the Premiership. From this point of view, in the shorter term, the appointment of Bassett, who has a good record of reviving lame ducks without resorting to quack remedies, makes better sense.

The delay in settling the new ownership of Forest has meant that while £10 million may now be available to strengthen the side, there are less than three weeks in which to spend it before the transfer deadline. For now, Bassett's buying skills are more important to Forest than his views on how the game should be played.

Forest visit Tottenham today. Asked which of the present teams he would rather be playing for, Eddie Baily would probably roll his pupils heavenwards at the assumption that he would want to appear for either.

The Premiership, like the old First Division, will always be healthier for the presence of clubs like Forest and Spurs, who both have traditions of playing imaginative football which is pleasing to the eye. If Forest avoid relegation, and the new owners continue to provide cash for new players, it will be interesting to compare the fortunes at the City Ground and White Hart Lane a year from now. It is hard to see Scholar and Soar and company being content merely to balance the books.

As for the wooing of Oxford by Juventus, even the distant prospect of a club owned by Fiat playing at a new stadium near Cowley must already be prompting a turn or two in the grave of Lord Nuffield. Or as Baily might put it: "Gordon Benetton!"