LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

a one-off game, again against Czechoslovakia, to decide who qualified for the 1962 World Cup finals. The play-off was at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels. We had a lot of players out but we were leading 2–1 with just a few minutes to go when they equalized. After 90 minutes the score remained 2–2 and we gathered around before extra-time. The trainer passed me a sponge and Jim Baxter tried to grab it out of my hand. We finished up on the ground trying to punch each other. We were about to play the most important half hour in Scotland’s football history and yet we were fighting with each other over a sponge. We were both pals, but we were so angry because they had equalized so late on that we took it out on each other in the heat of the moment. We lost 4–2 in the end.

      I played in an unofficial Scotland game when an Italian league XI came to play the Scottish League XI in November 1961. Denis Law played for the Italian league as he was in Serie A with Torino. Almost 120,000 showed up at Hampden to see us gain a creditable 1–1 draw, before the Italians went to Old Trafford and beat the best of the English league four days later. I remember being in a hotel in Glasgow before the game and seeing Matt Busby for the first time. I admired him, but I didn’t have the courage to introduce myself to Matt.

      Playing alongside my friend Jim Baxter was one of the best things about my international career. Although he was one of the greatest footballers Scotland has ever produced, Jim was also a head banger. Nothing fazed him and he had such a carefree attitude. Coming from Fife, religious bigotry didn’t mean a thing to him either. Despite playing for Rangers, he’d join the Celtic players each afternoon in a restaurant called Ferrari’s at the top of Buchanan Street. It made the best minestrone soup I’ve ever had. He came because he was mates with me, Billy McNeill, Mick Jackson, and Jimmy Daly. The Rangers board were not happy and they warned him off coming a few times, but he didn’t change. And of course Bob Kelly loved the idea of Rangers’ best player eating with the Celtic lads every day.

      Even when I didn’t see Jim we still kept in frequent contact. My mother got a telephone in her house, which was unusual in the Gorbals, and once Jim got hold of the number he used to ring me all the time, at all hours. He did his National Service stint in the army at Stirling and used to ring me when he should have been on guard duty. The man in charge was a Celtic fan, but he loved Jimmy so much that he let him do what he wanted.

      When I got called up to do National Service I didn’t want to go. Somebody told me that a good way of getting out of it was to explain that you wet the bed. I said that I was a bed-wetter on my application form and then I had to go for questioning at an office in Buchanan Street, Glasgow. The official asked me how serious my bed-wetting problem was. I told him that it was driving my mother to despair. So I was deemed unfit for National Service.

      Jim once stayed up gambling all night before a Rangers v Celtic game and claimed that he had won £3,000. It didn’t affect him the next day as they beat us 3–0. When he signed for Raith Rovers, his first professional club, Jim struck a deal where he got a £250 signing on fee – plus a washing machine for his mum.

      There were rumours that my sister Bridie was dating Jim. Newspapers ran articles; one even suggested that they were secretly married. There was a silly story that Jim was going to change religion and play for Celtic. People started shouting ‘turncoat’ at him in the street.

      Jimmy was a big drinker and everyone loved him – even Celtic fans. Celtic and Rangers fans loved great footballers. Jim was one of the best natural footballers I have played with or against. When he got possession he hated to pass until he was satisfied that the man he was giving the ball to was in a position to use the opening to advantage. He didn’t just dominate matches, he took them over. Jim won ten winner’s medals in his five years at Rangers in the first half of the 1960s. I didn’t win one at Celtic. When he died in 2001, Celtic fans paid their respects, just as Rangers fans did when Bobby Murdoch died. Glaswegians love football – how else can you explain how 127,000 turned out for the 1960 European Cup Final between Real Madrid and Eintracht Frankfurt at Hampden?

      I used to watch Rangers play in European games when I was a Celtic player and they used to look after us. Rangers played Eintracht in the semi-final and I went with Billy McNeill and Jock Stein. Rangers were a tremendous team, but Eintracht won 6–1 in Germany and 6–3 at Ibrox. Rangers were a different class to us, Eintracht were in a different league to them. Then Real Madrid beat Eintracht in the best European Cup final ever. Loads of Rangers fans went to that game. Most supported Eintracht because Real Madrid was perceived to be a Catholic club, given that Spain is a Catholic country.

      Jim came from Fife but he was an idol in Glasgow, where Rangers fans worshipped the ground he walked on. Nicknamed ‘Slim Jim’ because of his tall, slight build, he was the best football-playing half-back to kick a ball. He did not have great defensive powers, but with the ball at his feet you could not hope to see a better player. He had a natural ability which made him the complete master of the ball and he possessed unlimited self-confidence. I remember before one game at Hampden there had been a great deal of talk about how we were going to mark the opposition, but as we ran down the tunnel I heard Jim’s voice at my side saying, ‘Ah’ll no be markin’ anybody. Let them mark me!’

      Which, of course, was a difficult thing to do. He could beat a man with ease, so the only way was to stop him getting the ball. Once it was at his feet the opposition were bang in trouble because he had a brilliant football brain and a delicate touch which allowed him to slip perfect passes exactly where he wanted to put them. Jim, at his best, could almost guarantee a Scottish victory when he was in a dark blue jersey and his best performance was in our victory over England at Hampden in 1962.

      That was a special game because of what had happened the previous year at Wembley when we suffered a humiliating 9–3 defeat. When England came to Hampden a year later there wasn’t a Scot in the ground who did not fear a repeat. There was tension in the days before the game, and on the eve of the match I was glad to get to bed and be alone with my thoughts.

      As usual when we played for Scotland, Jim and I were sharing a room. We were staying in a hotel in Kilmacolm, which Scottish teams used a lot in those days. The SFA chose it because it was usually quiet, but that night was different as two coach loads of England fans had booked in there. They were in no hurry to go to their beds.

      It was getting late when three of them stopped to have a loud conversation outside our bedroom door. Jim didn’t like the idea of English people disturbing the Scottish team, and he told me to go and give them a telling off. But I said I would just ignore them as I didn’t want to get up again.

      Jim waited a few minutes more, then jumped from his bed, threw open the door, and gave the English lady and her two friends a dressing down they wouldn’t forget in a hurry. If Jim’s words shocked them, then his appearance must have given them a bigger shock. Jim never wore pyjamas and didn’t have a stitch on.

      Jim had a brilliant game the following afternoon and we beat England 2–0, but I doubt whether the Scottish left-half made as big an impact on those three supporters in the game as he had done the night before. We did a lap of honour after the game as it was the first time Scotland had beaten England in eleven years, but I think it wouldn’t have been unfair if Jim had gone around the track on his own.

      I wasn’t to know that my eleven appearances for Scotland between 1961 and 1963 were to be followed by only five more. Nor that my love affair with Celtic was soon to hit the rocks.

THREE

       End of a Dream

      My personal life changed in 1961, when I started going out seriously with Noreen Ferry, my only girlfriend. I first saw her waiting outside St John’s church before the 12 o’clock mass one Sunday in 1956. That was always busy because it was where all the best looking girls went. She was fifteen and I was sixteen and I thought straightaway that I was going to marry her. I said to her, ‘I’m going to come back and get you when I’m a famous footballer.’ Daft isn’t it?

      I carried on going to church, though, and still do, although not as often as I should. I was always

Скачать книгу