HAWICK has been rocked to the core this week over claims that the poison of match-fixing has seeped into the local football scene.

Splattered all over the front pages of local and national papers, news of the illegal betting probe which has centred on Royal Albert FC’s Scottish Cup tie against Huntly has not only cast the club in a dreadful light but also put Hawick’s sporting integrity on the line.

Also on the line is the very future of a once-proud club, a club that was once a force to be reckoned with, and a club that once attracted the cream of Hawick’s footballers.

It seems pride has gone out of the window, with the team no longer commanding any respect, and the town’s best players avoiding the club like the plague. It’s all gone wrong, but let’s be honest, it all went wrong years ago.

And this week's furore over an alleged betting scam is merely symptomatic of a wider malaise that has been allowed to fester at Albert Park for more than two decades.

What would the late Paddy Dunne have made of it all? What indeed.