LITMIR.BIZ

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to the law of the streets.

      My week would come alive on a Saturday. I’d catch a red bus from Glasgow to Duntocher. The standard of football at Duntocher was very high, the games ultra competitive. I loved every minute playing for that club and stayed for two years. A lot of people who lived in Duntocher were Catholics who had come from Donegal. All the top scouts were constantly coming to watch us. When Duntocher Hibs became defunct Drumchapel moved into their ground and they have stayed there to this day. The Drum are still one of the top amateur teams in Scotland and many big names in professional football have started out there, including Sir Alex Ferguson, David Moyes, Andy Gray, Archie Gemmill, Asa Hartford, and John Robertson.

      I got to know a lovely man called Jimmy Smith at Duntocher. He had been a great player for Rangers before the war and was acting as a scout for them after it. He frequently said to me, ‘I’d love to sign you for Rangers, Paddy.’ But he couldn’t because I was a Catholic. Again, I considered that ridiculous. Jock Stein, when he became Celtic’s first Protestant manager, was asked in his first press conference: ‘If there was a Catholic and Protestant of equal ability, which one would you sign first?’ Jock replied straightaway: ‘The Protestant. Because it would stop Rangers getting him. And then I’d get the Catholic anyway.’

      My football was going well and the papers began to talk of senior clubs being interested in me. In fact, I think the Manchester City scout was the most persistent but Jimmy McLean, who ran Duntocher, never allowed any of them to speak to me because he knew that one team dominated my thinking.

      It was a bright summer’s day in August 1957 when I found out that Celtic were keen on me. Jim, a Rangers supporter, met me coming off the pitch at Ashfield away one day. He kept laughing and saying, ‘You’re going to enjoy this.’ We went through the dressing room, then into a side room where he introduced me to a complete stranger.

      He was Teddy Smith, Celtic’s chief scout, but I didn’t know that until he asked, ‘How would you like to sign for Celtic?’ I remember those were his exact words. A pretty ordinary sentence, but to me they were the greatest words in the world. I was stunned and just said, ‘Yeah.’ He told me to go to Celtic Park the following Monday evening. I went home straightaway, my head buzzing and full of thoughts. I ran into our house and told my mum. She put her arms around me and hugged me tight. I felt like the proudest man alive. As I pulled away, I saw that mum was crying. It was the best present I could have given her.

TWO

       A Grand Old Team to Play For?

      Had anyone asked me on the tram car from Gorbals Cross where I was going, I could have answered, ‘To sign for Celtic.’ Nobody did, but that didn’t diminish the excitement I felt. The occasion was a game between the first team and the reserves, and while I wasn’t playing, I was there to sign a youth contract.

      I wasn’t alone. Billy McNeill and a lad named Andy Murphy also turned up to sign. Billy had already met the reserve team manager, Jock Stein, because Jock had been to his house. Jock told Billy’s parents that he wanted their son to sign for Celtic and when they agreed he said, ‘If he’s cheeky, can I skelp him one?’

      I met Jock for the first time after the game. He was a former miner and someone I warmed to, just as I had done as a player. I’d watched Jock play as a no-nonsense centre-half many times as a fan. He used to knee the ball a lot when others kicked or headed it instead. He could knee the ball as far as some players could kick it. In 1953, Jock captained Celtic to Coronation Cup success, Celtic surprising many by beating Manchester United, Arsenal, and Hibernian to become unofficial champions of Britain. He was still captain a year later when Celtic won their first league championship since 1938 and their first League and Scottish Cup double since 1914. I had travelled to Easter Road to see Celtic win the league against Hibernian and I’d watched them beat Aberdeen in the cup final.

      An ankle injury, which left him with a limp, forced Jock to retire from football in 1956, aged 34. He was then given the job of coaching the reserve and youth players at Celtic. But he was far more than a reserve team coach. He persuaded the Celtic board to purchase the Barrowfield training ground, because he realized the importance of preparation.

      Jock came out with many sayings over the years which became famous, among them: ‘Football is nothing without fans,’ and ‘Celtic jerseys are not for second best, they don’t shrink to fit inferior players.’ There were no grand speeches for me that day. He shook my hand firmly, wished me luck and said he hoped that I had a career as a professional footballer.

      I was given a provisional contract until the end of the 1957/58 season, so I still played some games for Duntocher and some for Celtic’s reserve teams, while all the time working at the shipyard.

      I soon realized that Jock was far superior to any of the other coaches I’d worked with. This was no surprise because I hadn’t played at a professional level, but I’d still say that he was well ahead of his time. He’d used his experiences in football well – always watching and learning. During Scotland’s performances in the 1954 World Cup Finals, he’d witnessed the shambolic preparations and, like Roy Keane in Saipan in 2002, he didn’t like what he saw.

      Jock also studied foreign tactics, particularly the Hungarians who were revolutionizing the game. As a man he was sometimes as complex as the tactics he talked about, capable of sympathy and understanding, yet also very hard when he needed to be. He was one of the few people at Celtic with a car and he used to regale us with football stories as he gave us a lift home. My only regret was that I lived so close to the training ground because I wanted to stay in his company for longer.

      As a manager he started implementing his ideas. In training, he would place chairs at different positions around the pitch. To make your passing more accurate, you had to hit the chairs from distance. It doesn’t sound revolutionary now, but training at Celtic before then had amounted to long runs and practice matches. Jock would work on set plays and encourage me to hit free-kicks towards Billy McNeill’s head. We’d repeat this in the games with success. Jock employed formations that no team in Scotland had used. But he would also issue simple advice, like telling you to keep your head up all the time. He was a visionary who would use players in different positions so that you could appreciate what it was like to play from the perspective of others. The players adored him and the excellent team spirit he generated lifted a talented group of young players, many of whom were local lads, so that they were good enough to go on to become European Champions with Celtic in 1967.

      Crowds of up to 10,000 would watch Celtic reserves when the first team were away and in 1958, we won the second XI Cup with an 8–2 aggregate triumph over Rangers. That was Jock’s first success as a manager. I was fortunate in that my arrival at Parkhead coincided with Jock’s managerial career taking off. There was a feeling that he was special because when we played the first team in practice matches we would often beat them because of Jock’s organization and tactics.

      Other people at the club began to notice me and were pleased with my progress. Celtic offered me a professional contract worth £9 a week at the end of the 1957/58 season. It was far more than I had been earning at Fairfield’s Shipyards, but the money didn’t matter, I just wanted to leave that place as much as I wanted to play football full-time.

      I started the next season still in the reserves but I was soon called up to train with the first team. The difference was that the reserve players could be identified by the red marks on their necks caused by the rubbing of their rough old jerseys, whereas the first team’s kit was newer. We used to run through the streets around Parkhead during training sessions most days and nobody paid us much attention. Back then if folk wanted to see a star they went to the cinema. Footballers were not stars, but seen as part of the community. If you became big-headed you would get slaughtered.

      I made my debut against Queen of the South on 4 October 1958. We won 3–1 and I did all right. The first team manager Jimmy McGrory told me that I was in the first team on the Friday morning before the game. I was very excited and quickly told my mum, who rang all the family

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