Flawed Genius: Scottish Football's Self-Destructive Mavericks by Stephen McGowan (Birlinn Ltd 2009)

'Big Jock couldn't believe it. "Do you really want to go to that elephant's graveyard?" he asked me.

'But Haldane Y Stewart could sell sand to the Arabs and he'd convinced me I was the best player since Pele.'

Stewart may not actually have believed that much. Within two seasons, however, there were plenty around Greenock who did. Initially, the reception and first impressions were underwhelming. A leaking gas fire created the impression of a gas chamber in the old Cappielow main stand when the new signing arrived on the morning of his debut against a Clydebank side featuring the late Davie Cooper. An air of decay hung over Cappielow and circulated the corridors.

'I remember meeting my great boyhood hero, the former Motherwell striker John Goldthorpe, as I walked in.

' "Andy, what you doing down here?" he asked me.

' "I'm playing against Clydebank tonight, John," I replied.

' "You're whit?" he asked me. "What? Are you down on loan?"

' "Naw," I said, "I signed for Morton this afternoon."

' "What the f*** did you sign down here for?" he asked me. That wasn't the best of starts.

'But the real culture shock arrived on the Saturday, when we went to Love Street to play St Mirren, our greatest rivals. We lost 5-1 to a team managed by a certain Alex Ferguson. That Saturday night, I drove home saying to myself, You'd better get your finger out; you don't want to be hanging about here too blinkin' long.'

Yet when the goals started flowing with a double against Montrose the following Wednesday, including a trademark free-kick, Ritchie settled. So well, indeed, that within weeks Celtic - unbeknown to the great man himself - tried to take him back for £170,000.

'Had I known at the time, I would have created merry hell to secure my return to full-time football. It was only many years after I had finished as a football player that I even learned of the bid from Sean Fallon, Jock's old assistant.

'As part of the deal, Morton would be duty bound to clarify that I had only ever been on loan. It's difficult to explain in words how I felt about it years later. I just wish to Christ I had known at the time.

'I quickly realised at Morton that I had never really wanted to leave Celtic. But Brings had gone so far, relations had soured so badly, that I had to. I was putting pressure on myself to succeed and I had to get away, to reinvent myself.'

To a large extent, he succeeded brilliantly. After scoring the goals which took Morton to the Premier League in a season-and-a-half, Ritchie became that rarest of entities: a Player of the Year plying his trade outwith the Old Firm.

When he earned his accolade from the Scottish Football Writers' Association in the Albany Hotel, Glasgow on an April night in 1979, he was just 22. The pride he took from having his father and grandfather in the grand room that evening was palpable. By his own admission, however, the award prompted a downward spiral rather than an unstoppable ascent.

In the days before footballers enjoyed rock star status, the celebrity that followed was difficult for a young working-class man with an attitude and a healthy slice of self-conceit to absorb.

'Things began to change after that,' he recalls. 'I parked my car outside a primary school in Greenock one day and young boys were playing football in the playground. One of the lads scored a screamer past the obligatory fat kid in goals. And as I turned the lock in my car door, I heard the shout, "And Ritchie scores!" I thought he was taking the piss. He wasn't, the kid hadn't even seen me. But at that time my reputation was growing all over the place. I was being recognised everywhere I went, from Laurencekirk to Lochee.'

What had also changed was Ritchie's attitude. The good habits bred at Celtic had flown out of the window to be replaced by heavy drinking, major gambling and a 40-a-day nicotine addiction. By his own admission, he played many of his best - and worst - games nursing a hangover. Friday night sessions in the Windmill Tavern in Lanarkshire would be followed on Saturday morning by a panicked search for the family car, a missing wallet and a phone call to an obliging teammate to get him to Greenock for the prematch meal, where manager Benny Rooney would be pacing around a hotel foyer checking his watch.

'I always remember Johnny Goldthorpe driving me to training at Morton one evening in our promotion season in 1978.

'Johnny was 32, had been a good pro and knew a thing or two. I had always looked up to him until the day he turned to me in the car and said, "You'll not last until you're 27 in this game."

'I was angry, furious in fact. I wasn't having that, not even from Johnny Goldthorpe. I was only in my early twenties at that time and I was flying. I was scoring goals, winning rave write-ups and was the best player in the country. What did this old fella know? Well, one thing he did know was the smell of drink - and I was in that car passenger seat steaming drunk. I'd been drinking all afternoon, and some of the morning as well. And that wasn't especially unusual for me. I'd still be stinking of drink when I played games. And somehow I was still scoring goals.

' "I'll do whatever the f*** I want," summed up my attitude best.

'Big Jock Stein had told me towards the end of my time at Parkhead - because I had begun to develop an opinion - that the best thing I could do was take the cotton wool out of my ears and shove it in my f****** mouth.

'Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed every minute of all that. I didn't do it to blot out any pain or any crap like that. But I saw no need to change. I had been boozing, gambling and doing whatever and we had still gone to the top of the league.'

Morton finished seventh in the Premier League that season, after leading before Christmas. Part-time football remained a constant despite promises from the chairman, Hal Stewart, to go full-time. To the more ambitious members of the playing staff, it was a betrayal.

Desperate to play for Scotland and increase basic earnings of £50 a week bolstered by a new contract and an afternoon job as a Morton Lottery Ticket salesman, however, Ritchie wanted out. With his gambling now out of control, he needed out.

A Game of Two Halves: The Autobiography by Archie Macpherson (Black & White Publishing 2009)

Argentina, 1978, was wounding and stimulating at the same time. To watch a cheerful, personable, approachable guy undergoing an ordeal of which only a Torquemada would have approved was deeply unsettling. I had felt a personal stirring of unease, many months before, when I assisted him in a brewery-sponsored tour of the country to cities and towns, as he bathed in the glow of admiration which came from his ecstatic nation. I felt that if it didn't come off for him, the fall from grace would finish him. Failure, set against optimistic hysteria, could only mean a death warrant. When I watched him cuddle a dog on a hillside in Alta Gracia, the town we were all based in, after the defeat in the first game by Peru, 3-1, and heard him tell us that the animal was probably the only friend he had left in South America, you  could tell he was slipping into self-perpetuating misery. After the game against Iran, who we assumed were the Glenbuck Cherrypickers of the tournament  but which ended in a 1-1 draw, my colleagues in BBC television in London deliberately and maliciously edited pieces together with close-ups of Ally's contorted, tortured face on the bench which were the closest television has ever got to portraying Edvard Munch's The Scream, in a sporting setting, there really was no way back.

The win against the ultimate finalists, Holland, in Mendoza, 3-2, but which meant nothing in terms of qualification, was summed up beautifully from underneath a wide-brimmed hat in an airport lounge by a pissed-off looking Alan Sharp, the Scottish novelist, who had interrupted his screenwriting business in Hollywood to travel to the game, when he pronounced, 'We didn't win, we just discovered a new way of losing.'

In Search of Alan Gilzean - The Lost Legacy of a Dundee and Spurs Legend by James Morgan (BackPage Press 2011)

“What happened to you as a footballer?” he asks.

A few training sessions with Bangor and Crusaders. A scout from Reading watched me four or five times.“I was too interested in having a drink and women, but I wasn’t good enough, if I’m honest. My brother was much more dedicated.”

“There was a kid at Spurs, Paul Shoemark. He was an England youth internationalist. Big, big things were expected of him, but he couldn’t make the step up. You get that with some players,” he says to me.

Paul Shoemark made one reserve team appearance for Tottenham. It was significantly closer than I ever got to making it as a footballer.

The talk turns to newspapers. “I haven’t spoken to the press for years,” he says. “A journalist wrote an article one time in which he quoted me as saying that Tottenham were right to get rid of George Graham because he had done nothing at Spurs. The journalist never even spoke to me. So, now, when journalists look for me I tell them I’m not interested. I didn’t really speak to the press as a player. I tell Ian just to say I’m not interested. What did he say to you?”

He’s looking at me directly, now. He doesn’t look much older than he did when he was at Spurs. An advantage, I suppose, of looking older when you’re younger.

“He said that to me, but I think I might have had a bit of leeway because he knew my brother.”

“Possibly.”

I show Gillie an excerpt from a play about Jock Stein and Bill Shankly which had aired on Radio Scotland a few weeks previously. He is genuinely surprised when I tell him he was mentioned favourably in it. “Was ah?” he asks, his voice once again rising in that peculiarly east coast of Scotland manner.

Stein: Bob’s a good man.
Shankly: He is, yes.
Stein: That team he put together at Dundee, beautiful stuff, the way to play.
Shankly: Gifted players ...
Stein: Great wing-men
Shankly: Playing for the jersey
Stein: And Gilzean ...
Shankly: Aye, what a player ...

I show Gillie print-outs from the SFA Hall of Fame. He expresses surprise that Gordon Smith, his team-mate at Dundee, is not there. I risk a question not related to the nuts and bolts of the book. Ian Ure told me to ask Gillie who his favourite player was. Ian felt sure Gillie would say Dave Mackay.

“Naw, it was Jimmy Greaves. He was a class player. There’s a picture of us playing England and Ian Ure and Jimmy are running for the ball. Every muscle is standing out on Ian’s neck and Jimmy is just starting to move away from him. He was like lightning. He had this lovely style of pushing the ball away from him, just a yard. You know the way Messi just keeps it ahead of him but no-one can get near him? He was the best player I ever played with. Some of the goals he scored were unbelievable. It was a sad day for everyone at Spurs when Jimmy Greaves left.”

We talk for almost two hours, the conversation bouncing about. I ask him about Bill Nicholson and he tells me that he was “just a great man” and that there were three other managers who had impressed him most.

“The first was Tommy Walker, the Hearts manager. He spoke to me once before a game at Dens, before I had broken into the first team. I was gathering up balls during the warm-up and as I came off the pitch he started asking me how I was.

“The second was a Celtic manager, Jimmy McGrory. I remember him standing on the sideline and puffing on this great, big pipe. He was holding court with everyone around him in this real Irish brogue. I’ll always remember what he said: ‘It’s great to see all these people here. We’re really looking forward to the game, I think both teams are going to put on a real show of good football for them.’ And then, as I walked past, he said, ‘Hello there,’ as if I was an old friend. I wasn’t even in the first team at this stage. He didn’t need to do that, but it was a measure of the man.

“And the last manager was Matt Busby. I’d just signed for Spurs and I was walking towards the entrance of White Hart Lane, when all of a sudden, he appeared beside me with his arm outstretched and said, ‘I just wanted to congratulate you on your move and to wish you all the best.’ Those three, as well as Bill Nicholson, will always stand out in my mind because each of them took the time to speak to me at a time when I wasn’t as well known as they were. I didn’t want to go into management. I saw what it did to Bill Nicholson and thought, ‘It’s not for me’. I tried it at Stevenage when I came back from South Africa but I didn’t enjoy it.”

White Lies

Just caught the news that ex-Hibbee Garry O'Connor has been found guilty of possessing cocaine. And, but the small matter of being a numpty, he nearly  got away with it.

However, he fled police after giving them a false name, only to be caught a few hundred metres away.
. . . The city's sheriff court was told that the 29-year-old former Birmingham City player tried to con officers on the night of his arrest by telling them his name was Johnstone.But the Scottish international spelled the name "J-O-S". He then pushed police constable PC Katherine Eager aside and ran away.

The message is clear. Don't do drugs, kids. It fucks up your spelling.

The Hope That Kills Us edited by Adrian Searle (Polygon 2003)

I mind seein him playin for the Huns in a European match on Sky wan night. Some bunch ae German basturts that were far tae guid for the Huns, eh. 4-3 doon on aggregate, and Tam gets the ba aff their star midfielder like sweeties aff a bairn and gans doon the inside right channel. And I'm stannin in this pub in Ferrytoon, and I'm shoutin at Laudrup, 'Make the run! Make the fuckin run!' Cause I can see where Tam wants tae play it, I can see it openin up.

So Laudrup makes the run, but the sweeper's right oan tae him, ken, Laudrup's left it tae late. So the ba goes out and the camera pans ontae Tam's pus, and he's got this expression, like, Ah cannae dae anythin wi this cunt. Ah wis pishin masel laughin in this pub. Me and Brian Laudrup! Neither of us guid enough for Tam!

[From Andrew C Ferguson's 'Nae Cunt Said Anythin']

Anon FC

Who? Where? Why?

Who's going to go tell the Spartans?

Hi Hi versus Hail Hail in 2011/12?

Daring to dream or are they just plain delusional?

The football romantic in me is taken by the idea of Third Lanark back in Scottish Football (perhaps playing Bradford Park Avenue in some future Champions League final), but looking at their stadium it looks like a bigger long shot than Austria doing the business in the current Euro Championship.

A quick glance at their wiki page reveals that they actually won the Scottish League in 1904. I never knew that. Maybe it's a sign? And - cue gratuitous dig at the Scottish Patient - they won the Scottish Cup in more recent memory (1905)* than his beloved Hibs (1902).

On reflection, it is nice to see a nonsense Scottish football story in the close season press that doesn't involve Strachan pretending that he is going to buy the latest whizz kid from Euro'08, but I'll continue to hold for Spartans FC replacing Gretna FC in the Scottish League. It's about time that Edinburgh had a decent football team. It's been over thirty years since Ferranti Thistle carried the torch.

Why I (nearly) resigned from the Celtic Supporters Club

I'm sorely tempted. If there was only a retro version along the lines of Toffs.

What was the name of that This Mortal Coil album?

Christ, I hope the Samaritans in Scotland are fully staffed tomorrow night. There's such an air of expectation over tomorrow's game that I fear for Alex Salmond's McLeish's feel good factor if what started out as mission improbable turns into mission cordoba.

The blog's getting so many hits at the moment from people hunting high and low for the 'We Have A Dream' mp3 that I don't know what's going to burst first: my bandwidth or Stuart Cosgrove's final brain cell.

Stu. Have a sit down . . . get Tam Clown Cowan to make you a cup of hot sweet tea . . . and get an engineer in to dislodge that Braveheart DVD that appears to be playing on permanent loop on your plasma tv screen.

Hibs Stars in the Eyes

Before I forget, what it is about the recent celebrity endorsement of the silky football at Easter Road these days?

First, the manics James Dean Bradfield is spotted at the Hibs/Bolton pre-season friendly (scroll right - the bloke in the shades, carrying his situationist texts in a green carrier bag), and now, from last night's game at Tynecastle, Hunter S. Thompson and Zoe Ball are spotted asking River City's Tam Dean Burn if he has a copy of issue 10 of The Leninist from his CPGB-PCC days.

Ken Stott and Ronnie Corbett were unavailable for comment.

"A satin sash and velvet elevation"

Don't be fooled by the green and white scarves and the happy smiling faces. It's not a picture of exultant Celtic fans after winning a corner against the Killies on Saturday, but the Scottish Patient and his fellow sufferers rightly celebrating the turning over of the Jambos at Tynecastle last night.

I'm developing a real soft spot for Hibs at the moment for some reason. Any club that loses year on year players of the calibre of Brown, Murray, Killen, Riordan, Whittaker, O'Connor, Thomson, Sproule and Caldwell, and yet still come out the following season with a team playing some of the best football in the league deserves a break and a half.

In the case of Riordan, I can't express enough how pissed off I will be if he has another season at Celtic kicking his heels on the bench whilst running his hands through that ridiculous haircut of his. The bloke is a class act on the pitch, and the latest noises from the Daily Record rumour mill that he will be shipping out to Sheffield Wednesday in the near future has me pissed off in a way that Maloney, Petrov and Beattie heading to the Midlands never did. And Strachan and his fans wonders why he's never been fully embraced by the fans?

You're Killen Me

It's going to be a long season.

Follow Follow . . . us into Scottish League Division 3*

Archive still of Hong Kong Souey from his playing days at Ayresome Park, where he demonstrates his sliding tackle technique to an out of shot Bobby Murdoch.

The Scottish Patient has a hunch about the Huns, and the current ongoing corruption investigation involving themselves, Newcastle Utd (poor old Fat Sam; wherever he parks his arse, you know that the headlines are not just for the back pages) and 'Play Pay Up' Pompey.

I'm not going to do the old 'no smoke without fire' routine. I'm simply going to sit back and revel in any potential disruption it may cause a currently resurgent R*ngers team for the coming season.

The Hib'ster's Case For A Prosecution?

Back in 2004, R*ngers sign Jean-Alain Boumsong on a free transfer from Auxerre and, little more than six months later, sell him to a Souness managed Newcastle Utd for eight million pounds.

Granted, splashing out eight million squid on a player who then proceeds to have the worst run of footballing form this side of San Marino reserves does, at first glance, look a bit iffy, but I think Kev's looking at it from the wrong angle.

If slapping a black and white jersey on Boumsong, planking him in the penalty box at St James Park, and then whispering the simple instructions in his ear: "If the ball comes within five yards of you, run away . . ." was what it took to make Titus Bramble look half-competent in the centre of the Newcastle Utd defence by comparison and by default, then I'm sure we can all concur that it was money well spent. It just meant that Will Rubbish and his bretheren had to fork out for a few more XXXL 'Toon replica kits that season to make up for the shortfall in NUFC finances.

Not even Kev throwing in the little matter of the Barry Ferguson questionable transfer to a Souness managed Blackburn Rovers in 2003 for seven and half million pounds, only for him to be sold back to R*ngers eighteen months later for a set of tracksuits and a job-lot of fire-damaged zippo lighters can help revive the case for the prosecution.

Souness the Manager's talent for spotting a decent player was always in inverse proportion to Souness the Midfield General's talent for spotting an opponent's shinguard-less ankle with the studs of his boots.

Remember this was the bloke who, when he was manager of Benfica, didn't think Deco was worth a place in his side, but with a straight face signed Steve Harkness and Brian Deane.

Shame, that in all probability, there isn't any substance to the specualtion, 'cos I was looking forward to spending the next 97 minutes - 90 minutes + 7 minutes of injury time in homage to Souness - racking my brains, trying to think up an apt title for the post that somehow played on Souness's nickname with a seventies cartoon character.

Maybe next time.

*Wishful thinking for one of Kevin's commenters that Rangers finally achieve an apt comparison with Juventus.

" . . . . the best fans in Europe"

It's been a protracted business, but R*ngers have finally got their man.

However, on spotting the cheeky juxtaposition of quotes on the online BBC Sports page, I can't help but wonder if the website tech geek at the Beeb is a Celtic fan with a sense of humour?

Btw, R*ngers are going to win the SPL title next year. Wish I was joking, but my sense of humour doesn't extend that far.