LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

fans booed us off the pitch after that game and had a go at Kelly and the other directors. Legend has it that one fan, upon hearing ‘Off to Tipperary in the Morning’, over the public address system, shouted: ‘If they give me the fare I’ll not wait until the morning. I’ll be off on the Irish boat tonight.’

      Supporters realized that Kelly ran the club from top to bottom, that McGrory was merely his puppet and they rightly criticized the chairman. Kelly’s response to his critics was to tell them to stay away and come back in two years when we’d have a good team. Yet such was the belief, a few good results and we’d get 50,000 back at Parkhead.

      Even though I was playing more and more for the first team, I was dismayed when Jock Stein was allowed to leave the club to manage Dunfermline in 1960. I think he felt that as a non-Catholic, he would be overlooked as a future manager of the club. It was one of the few times he was wrong. Jock wanted me to go with him but I didn’t want to leave. I hoped that he would do well at Dunfermline before returning to Celtic to become first team manager. Jock’s first game at Dunfermline was against Celtic. They scored after 15 seconds and his good start proved to be no fluke as he helped them avoid relegation and created a side that were difficult to beat. Almost every week we had had the bittersweet feeling of reading how well Jock was doing.

      I was a Celtic first-teamer, but my life didn’t change much away from football. I used to hang around with the same mates outside one of the pubs. The pubs shut at 9.30 pm and the saying was that you took the pavements indoors at that time because nothing was safe when people spilled out of the pubs.

      Players couldn’t be seen in a pub. I was never a beer drinker, but thanks to the Gorbals’ grapevine if I’d have had one pint it would have been reported as ten by the time I got to training the following morning. There were no nightclubs at that time, although there was the Locarno dance hall where me and my pal Eddie Duffy sometimes went on a Saturday night until it finished at 11 pm. There was no booze in the place and you would get searched for alcohol before going in. The music was great – Sinatra and Dean Martin and big dance bands.

      There were about twelve or thirteen of us who used to hang around on the street corner and they were all mad Celtic fans. The next day’s Daily Record – or ‘Daily Ranger’ as we called it because we thought it was biased towards Rangers – would come in about 11 pm and we would discuss the stories. Even though I played for Celtic, one lad used to take the mickey out of me for my ability. He kept saying that I couldn’t run and claimed that he was a faster runner than me. I used to laugh it off, but one night I said, ‘F**k it, do you fancy a race then?’ He said yes. I absolutely destroyed him and was back with my mates before he had got halfway. He couldn’t believe how quick I was. What did he expect? I was a professional footballer, as fit as anything. He never did mention my pace again. I was criticized for my lack of speed but I could run 100 yards in 11 seconds. You don’t have to run that far in a game – runs of two or three yards are common – and I was a tackler and a passer, not a winger. And anyway, my brain worked quicker than other players.

      I felt confident and despite the team not doing particularly well, the fans took to me. If things were going badly I would still want the ball and fans appreciated that. They saw that if your midfield players have control of the game then you will win. It’s a team game, but the midfield players are so important. It’s easy to destroy, far harder to create.

      Financially, I was earning enough money to rent a house in a more middle-class area of Glasgow, but I never thought of leaving the Gorbals because I would have hated people to think that I had changed.

      As I became better known I started to receive letters from fans. One guy sent me a series of diagrams showing me how to take successful penalty kicks. Another sent me a genuine mourning card – made out to me and edged in black. I guessed that must have been from a Rangers fan. A Glasgow girl called Moira Gallagher, who was originally from Gweedore, used to post me a good-luck greetings card before every single game. She was a bus conductress and was so dedicated to Celtic that she applied for a permanent night shift so that she never missed a match. I saw a newspaper article that showed she had a shrine dedicated to me in her house which consisted of press cuttings pasted on the walls. The journalist asked her if she had a boyfriend and she replied, ‘The men in my life are the 11 boys in green and white. What better could I find?’

      We had a tight relationship with supporters and they often kept us amused. At Broomfield, the home of Airdrieonians, my team-mate Bobby Carroll, who wasn’t the thinnest of players, went to take a corner from the right. Suddenly there was a movement in the crowd – and a giant black pudding came sailing through the air and landed at his feet. At the same time, a voice cried out: ‘There you are. That makes two of you.’ Every player was convulsed with laughter and play was held up for about a minute.

      My first Old Firm match was on 9 May 1960 in a Glasgow Merchants’ Charity Cup semi-final at Ibrox. It was actually a low key affair as only 14,500 turned up, but I was still delighted to score in a 1–1 draw. I was less happy that Rangers went through to the final on the toss of a coin.

      Now I was a first team regular, there was a growing expectation that I would soon receive a full international call up. But my relationship with the Scottish selectors was always fraught. Sectarian bigotry and, later, the bias against selecting ‘Anglos’ (Scottish players at English clubs) ensured that I made only 19 appearances for Scotland.

      I played one game at Under-23 level at Ayresome Park, Middlesbrough, in 1960 when we beat an England side containing Bobby Moore. My full debut came in May 1961 in a World Cup qualifier against the Republic of Ireland at Hampden, a game which we won 4–1. It was one of the proudest moments in my career, but coming from an Irish family it felt strange to play against Ireland. I was pleased that my performances for Celtic had been recognized, but when the band played ‘God Save the Queen’ I didn’t sing. Had the band played ‘Scotland the Brave’ or ‘Flowers of Scotland’ I would have joined in, but I couldn’t sing ‘God Save the Queen’ when I loathed what the British royal family stood for. When the Irish national anthem started I sang along. I confused Billy McNeill and probably a few of the other players standing alongside me.

      Four days later Scotland played the Republic at Dalymount Park in Dublin in another World Cup game and again we won comprehensively, 3–0. I always gave my best when I played for Scotland and I was proud to be acknowledged as one of the better players in those games against Ireland, but Irish fans booed me off the pitch after I kicked one of their players. I felt as Irish as them, but they didn’t see it the same way.

      If I was playing today, I would choose to play for the Republic of Ireland, but you weren’t allowed to decide your allegiance in those days. When I used to watch Scotland at Hampden Park as a kid, I’d support Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland against Scotland.

      A week after the game in Dublin we had another important World Cup qualifier against Czechoslovakia in Bratislava. I usually played in the same half-back line as my Celtic teammate Billy McNeill and Jim Baxter of Rangers. Many Scots thought that we were so good that we would not only qualify for the 1962 World Cup Finals in Chile, but that we would win the competition. Buoyed by the two convincing wins against the Republic of Ireland, we went to Bratislava in good spirits. Our hosts made us feel welcome and the day before that game we visited a chocolate factory. We came out and gave the chocolate away to kids. The police stopped us and that annoyed me. They were my chocolates and I should have been able to give them to who I wanted. Had I argued with them, they would have probably arrested me.

      The game was a nightmare, as the Czechs beat us 4–0 and I was sent off along with their inside-forward, Kvasnak. I found out later that it was his job to deliberately needle me. He was about 6ft 3in and he kicked me, so I chinned him. As I walked off the pitch, I could see that the crowd were going potty and I was thinking, ‘I’ve got a big problem here because he’ll kill me off the field.’ I was preparing myself for a fight, but as I neared the tunnel I saw him do a runner, leaving me to stroll gently back to the dressing room. I knew I’d let myself down badly, but I was surprised to get a fine of £200, nearly ten times my weekly wage. No doubt some of the Scottish selectors enjoyed seeing me get that. And if that sounds embittered it’s because I was.

      We

Скачать книгу