Never Stop: How Ange Postecoglou Brought the Fire Back to Celtic by Hamish Carton (Pitch Publishing 2023)

 

Unsurprisingly, the most infamous case of sheer Postecoglou ignorance was found on talkSPORT. The radio station specialises in bold ill-informed claims that tempt listeners into phoning up or sharing their clips on social media. In the days after Postecoglou’s name was first mentioned, a clip showed footballer turned broadcaster Alan Brazil mocking his credentials. At the time, there had been reports of the Aussie not having the required licence to manage in Europe.

Is this a wind-up? Breaking news from Scotland as Celtic have applied for an exemption with UEFA for Yokohama Marinos boss Postacoogloo [sic] to manage in Europe. He does not hold the required UEFA Pro Licence. Oh, this has got to be a wind-up. Dear oh dear. He’ll be a great manager. Where do they come up with these guys from?

(talkSPORT)

The former Scotland international had played against Postecoglou’s South Melbourne years earlier, not that he’d be likely to recall. As with virtually everyone in this chapter, he was found apologising at some stage over the following 12 months. A similar story of reprieve occurred with another former footballer who enjoyed his heyday in the 1980s – Charlie Nicholas:

There’s nothing wrong with having a plan B – but this is not plan B. This is desperation. I will give Postecoglou a chance because I’m a supporter but is the former Australia boss really the height of the club’s ambitions? It has nothing to do with his lack of knowledge of the Scottish game or me looking down on football in the southern hemisphere. It scares me just how unambitious the club has become, going from a position of strength to where they find themselves now. Luring Postecoglou from Yokohama F. Marinos is not quite the same as when Arsène Wenger left Japanese football to join Arsenal in 1996.

(Daily Express)

Nicholas was at it again in late September. Celtic had just been held to a 1-1 draw at home by Dundee United and had three league wins from seven matches. The knives were out for Postecoglou, with many reaching some wild conclusions:

Ange Postecoglou looks to me to be the new Ronny Deila. I am not sure Postecoglou has realised how big Celtic really are before he came in. I believe he has missed a pitch. I think Ange thought he would just come in here, and his playing style would get him over the line, no problem. But it is not about style. It is about winning.

(Daily Express)

Nicholas and Postecoglou would meet by chance in Glasgow months later. By that stage the Aussie had won the former Celtic striker over. Just as well:

We had a wee five-minute conversation where I thanked him for the job he is doing and what he is building at Celtic.

(Daily Express)

4,222 days and counting . . .

 . . . but fret no more.

I finally posted this 2011 read book on the blog. There are other 'books read' lying musty in the draft section of the blog but this was the oldest . . . by far. I had to get my arse in gear. It was about to claim ownership rights of the blog.

And, of course, I'll have to probably reread the bastard book now.

The Greatest Show on Earth: The Inside Story of the Legendary 1970 World Cup by Andrew Downie (Arena Sport 2021)

 

Gordon Banks (England): . . . The moment the ball left his head I heard Pelé shout ‘Golo!’

Carlos Alberto (Brazil): When Pelé prepared to jump and head the ball I think we all thought that it would be a goal.

Gordon Banks (England): Faced with a situation like that your mind becomes clear. All your experience and technique take over. One thing did flash through my mind: if I do make contact, I’ll not hold this. The ball hit the deck two yards in front of me. My immediate concern was how high it would bounce. It left the turf and headed towards my right-hand corner, but I managed to make contact with the finger of my gloved right hand. It was the first time I’d worn these particular gloves. I’d noticed that the Mexican and South American goalkeepers wore gloves that were larger than their British counterparts, with palms covered in dimpled rubber. I’d been so impressed with this innovation that I’d invested in two pairs. Those little rubber dimples did their stuff: the bouncing ball didn’t immediately glanceoff my hand and I was able to scoop it high into the air. But another thought flashed through my mind. In directing the ball upwards, I might only succeed in flicking it up into the roof of the net. So I rolled my right hand, slightly, using the third and fourth fingers as leverage. I landed crumpled against the inner side netting of the goal, and my first reaction was to look at Pelé. I hadn’t a clue where the ball was. He’d ground to a halt, head clasped between his hands, and I knew then all that I needed to know. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred Pelé’s shout of ‘Golo!’ would have been justified, but on that day I was equal to the task. It was really just about being in the right place at the right time – one of those rare occasions when years of hard work and practice combine in one perfect moment. As Pelé positioned himself for the resulting corner he turned to me and smiled. He told me he thought that he’d scored. So did I – and I told him as much. ‘Great save . . . mate,’ he said. At a critical stage of the game, it was 0–0, if the ball had gone in at that particular stage I think the heads would have gone down.

On Days Like These: My Life in Football by Martin O'Neill (Macmillan 2022)

 

Within a few days I’m in residence above McKay’s Café, in a room – essentially a converted attic – with Seamus and another ten guys, much older than us, who rise much earlier than we do and arrive back at their digs much later than we do. They spend the night chatting about their respective jobs and at the weekend, if they don’t go back home, spend the early hours of the morning detailing their conquests of some hours before. Nottingham, I’m told early on, is a city with five girls to every fellow, so the chances of them getting hitched with someone, at least for the evening, are, I surmise, reasonably decent. Even so, I’m not convinced that their bawdy stories – told to each other at four o’clock on a Sunday morning – ring completely true. Some of these men have, in all honesty, not been introduced to a bar of soap in a week. So if these stories have a semblance of truth then Seamus and I feel that we must have a chance ourselves of finding a girlfriend, because we have not only washed, but also have a little aftershave to hand.

I have been at the club less than twenty-four hours. Bill Anderson, as he tends to do when under some stress, reaches for his breast pocket and produces an outsize handkerchief to wipe some beads of sweat from his brow. If my affair at the Henry Road landlord’s house is causing him to perspire, heaven knows what Saturday at White Hart Lane might do to him.

Regardless, he brings me into the reserve team dressing room and introduces me to the players. Most of these lads are my age, perhaps a year or eighteen months older, one or two are a little younger. In fact, John Robertson, almost a complete year younger than me, came on as a substitute last Saturday against Liverpool and may well start the game this coming weekend against Tottenham Hotspur.

Robertson is an interesting character. A young Scotsman from the outskirts of Glasgow, he has been at the club since he was fifteen years old. He is a very talented centre midfield player, with two really good feet, and can spray passes all over the pitch. Robertson is extremely well thought of at the club and a player of much promise. He is also extremely popular in this dressing room, despite the fact that he seems to have plenty to say for himself. All this I glean from my first fifteen minutes in the changing room on 21 October 1971. The introductions finished, Bill departs and I put on my Nottingham Forest training gear, with the number 10 sewn into the shirt and tracksuit. This will be my training number for the next decade. I am acutely self-conscious of the large birthmark over my right shoulder, and keep my back to the wall when disrobing. But they will spot it eventually after training when we jump into the communal bath adjacent to the dressing room. I suppose I will have to endure the almost endless ribbing I received from the Distillery players, who seemed to find continuous mirth at my expense.

Fergie Rises: How Britain's Greatest Football Manager Was Made At Aberdeen by Michael Grant (Aurum Press 2014)

 

Aberdeen made it back to the League Cup final, which was brought forward to December. The feeling in Scottish football was that they had done the hard part simply by reaching Hampden. They had won all four cup ties against Rangers and Celtic with an aggregate score of 9–3. Indeed, the quarter-final against Celtic at Pittodrie saw a demonstration of virtuoso finishing by Steve Archibald and evidence of how unpredictable and pragmatic Ferguson could be when wayward characters were useful to him. Archibald scored a hat-trick and defied Ferguson’s instructions by taking the match ball home as a souvenir. He was a strong character and a law unto himself, but he rubbed along with Ferguson even though the potential for conflict was never far from the surface. When Ferguson found out about the ball he called Archibald into his office and ordered him to return it. The following day he was sitting in the coaches’ room with Pat Stanton and Teddy Scott, drinking tea and chatting, when the door burst open. Archibald shouted: ‘There’s your fucking ball’ and booted it hard into the small room. The three of them ducked and spilled tea over the floor as it ricocheted around. Others would have been crucified, but no action was taken against Archibald. ‘That was Steve,’ said Ferguson.

Intelligent, strong-willed, capricious, and ambitious: the blond, tousle-haired Archibald shared many of the manager’s own characteristics. He turned up to moan about one thing or another so often that Ferguson said there was ‘an Archibald chair’ in his office. ‘Stevie liked to have his say and Fergie liked that about him,’ said Stanton. ‘He’d probably have done it himself when he was a player because he was volatile too. He recognised something of himself in Stevie. He didn’t want his players to be wee choirboys. Even when he was angry with Stevie he appreciated where he was coming from. They had respect for each other.’ Archibald also happened to be a dashing, reliable goalscorer with great instincts and reactions. He gave Aberdeen real menace.

Hooked: Addiction and the Long Road to Recovery by Paul Merson with Rob Bagchi (Headline 2021)

 

'Still,’ I thought, ‘who goes to the World Cup from the league I’m in?’

I did. To go to the World Cup when you’re not playing in the Premier League is a massive achievement, I realise now, and I owe it all to Glenn. I remember Ray Parlour saying to me after he’d just won the Double at Arsenal in 1998 and wasn’t getting a look-in with England, that Arsène rang Glenn to ask why. They knew each other from their time at Monaco together and he told Glenn that Ray was playing superbly, made a vital contribution to winning the Double and that he did not understand why he wasn’t involved. He turned to Ray after he put the phone down and said, ‘You’ve just got to hope he gets the sack.’ When Kevin Keegan came in, Ray played for England but I never got a call-up. Ray was no better in 2000 than he was in 1998, I was better in 2000 than I was two years earlier. It’s all about the manager. If he likes you, you’ve got a chance. If not . . . you’re stuffed.

Ray having a laugh with the lads about what he claimed to have said when he went to see Glenn’s faith healer Eileen Drewery – ‘short back and sides, please, Eileen’ – didn’t help. I went to Eileen with an open mind and liked her. I was struggling so badly with the gambling relapse, bottling it up and keeping it secret out of shame, that I would try anything. It had sent me into a deep depression, but I didn’t know that’s what it was. I’d be so down that I couldn’t get out of bed and the paranoia, which had never really gone away, ramped up. It seemed that everybody was looking at me, judging me. I thought, ‘I need something to work here.’ And whatever help was offered, I would try it. Eileen gave me that calmness, settled my raging doubts and was a big part of me being in the right frame of mind to go out to La Manga with the squad of twenty-eight, which was to be cut to twenty-two after the warm-up games.

It was an odd week. Too many of us felt on trial and I was convinced I’d be one of the six who wouldn’t make it to the World Cup. I don’t know why Glenn did it that way, it was unsettling and there was an air of tension. I expect Glenn thought it would keep everyone on their toes, but most players were a bag of nerves. He wasn’t the best man-manager, at times he became impatient when a player couldn’t do what he wanted. Because he could still play, he often joined in and demonstrated something by doing it himself. After a while players get frustrated with that, a bit jealous. If he had been better at handling people and hadn’t said all that weird stuff about disabled people and karma, he would still be England manager now. No one could touch him as a tactician.

Fierce Genius: Cruyff’s Year at Feyenoord by Andy Bollen (Pitch Publishing 2021))

 

Cruyff was a product of his time. Sophisticated, controversial, stylish, opinionated, he embodied each decade, from flower power to revolution, to glam rock, to social unrest, to punk, to new wave, then even more social struggle and revolution. Here was someone who had not only played but starred, over three decades, at the highest level. He was like the Beatles and the Stones, the Sex Pistols and the Clash, the Human League and Joy Division and had transcended every aspect of culture in its broadest manifestation; art, film, theatre. From peace and love to post-industrial landscapes, glam rock to punk, to the 1980s of miners’ strikes and football hooliganism. But always there, always playing, always instigating, always smiling and always complaining, he remained one step ahead. By the time you’d thought it, he’d done it. Now, here he was, in front of me. In the flesh.

1982 Brazil: The Glorious Failure by Stuart Horsfield (Pitch Publishing 2020))

 

So, imagine you are looking down on a large patch of grass, roughly equivalent to the size of eight football pitches. Along the top of the square is a boundary made up of a variety of garden fences, of which number 158 sat approximately two-thirds along to the right. Top-right corner was the St George’s main building and a small, fenced-off playground. The bottom-left corner was occupied by Overdale County Primary School with three additional prefabricated classrooms. The playground sat in the centre of a two-storey U-shaped building and extended out from the school straight up towards the houses. The entire left-hand side of the square was a similar collection of back garden fences which belonged to Hawthorn Avenue (part of that epic sprint home). The rest was pure grass; an emerald canvas upon which I spent more time growing up than I ever did inside the four walls of number 158. To us it was just the back field.

I have two more final landmarks to note before we leave this overhead scene. There were three football pitches marked out on the remaining grass. Two of them were adjacent to each other and ran from top to bottom of the square. One belonged to St George’s and one belonged to Overdale. The final pitch was at the bottom of the square, running from left to right, into the bottom-right corner. The pitch that belonged to St George’s was about 20 yards from our back garden fence. If you stepped out of the back door, you put your foot on the drive. Turn left and walk straight into the back garden, past the shed, over the fence, which was the original wood and wire structure that was put up with the house. Climb over it and there you were in what seemed like acres of grass and between the white wooden goalposts.

The goalposts were essentially three long planks, nailed together and cemented into the ground. No nets, but those three white pieces of wood afforded me more joy, exhilaration, fun, memories and friendships than any other place on Earth. It is worth noting here that in my mind I would have put a football through those white sticks tens of thousands of times over the years, playing under the assumed identity of whichever player had crossed my conscous at the time. Kevin Keegan scored a few, Kenny Dalglish was prolific for a short period of time, as was Glenn Hoddle. I would even go so far as to say Paul Mariner got a couple. I can say for certain that Zico scored an awful lot of goals in the early-to-mid-1980s on the back field.

One Step Ahead by Duncan McKenzie (Souvenir Press 1978)

 

A Misspent Youth

Sonic players need coaxing along, some need a kick up the backside to get the best out of them. I needed both kinds of treatment in my callow days and I got what I needed. Born a Methodist, I graduated from schoolboy football playing for a team run by a Roman Catholic priest and another team which operated in a local Sunday pub league, and I don’t suppose you can have greater contrasts than that.

My Soccer travels have taken me a long way since the days when I was kicking a ball around for my junior-school team at Old Clee, Grimsby, but I like to think that f still get as much of a kick out of the game now as I did then, although my views have changed somewhat over the years, and especially in the past 18 months or so. Some people might say that I’ve grown up, at last; others would argue that I have found my right niche in the professional game since I joined Everton and came under the influence of manager Gordon Lee. Me? - I feel that I have learned as I have gone along, that everyone I have encountered in Soccer has taught me something, and that my own native intelligence has taken me to a point where I have matured.

In my early days in the professional game, I saw some youngsters who needed coaxing being given the kicking treatment - verbally, if not physically and the result was that they failed to respond. I’m still convinced that they probably had as much ability as myself, had they been handled in the right way, psychologically, but what happened was that they became afraid. They were afraid of doing things wrong.

Do That Again Son, and I'll Break Your Legs: Football's Hard Men by Phil Thompson (Virgin Books 1996)

 

Only once did I deliberately set out to try and hurt someone and that was years later in a charity game for a little amateur club in Belfast. The manager told me: ‘There’s a lad playing on the other side who says he’s going to kick you.'

I replied: ‘If he wants to kick me he will.'

It didn’t worry me. I’d spent my professional career playing against players like Smith, Harris, Reaney, and Dave Mackay of Spurs, who was unquestionably the hardest man I ever played against and certainly the bravest. This time it was just a cocky kid with ideas above his station. He was as good as his word, however. He followed me everywhere. He kicked me and he kicked me again. I told him: ‘This is ridiculous, this is an exhibition game. It should be fun.'

He kept on kicking and he started insulting me. All the usual stuff like, 'You’re past it, you’re a has-been, you won’t finish the game.’

I said, 'If you kick me again, you won't finish the game.’ He did. So about ten minutes later I deliberately knocked the ball a little too far forward, or so he would think, knowing he was going to come for it. And when he did I turned him and hit him above the knee. As they carried him off, he was crying like a kid. While he was lying on the ground the captain of our team went over to him and said, ‘Kittens don't fuck cats.’

I felt very upset about it afterwards. I went to see him after the game to apologise. His manager said, ‘Don’t worry, George, it’s taught him a lesson - don't fuck with a truck.’

George Best, taken from The Good, the Bad and the Bubbly

Who Are Ya?: 92 Football Clubs – and Why You Shouldn’t Support Them by Kevin Day (Bloomsbury Sport 2020)

 

Chelsea

A friend of mine once became convinced his dad was having an affair after many happy years of marriage. There was no logic to this. His dad just wasn’t the type, for a start, and he was never an energetic man, but there was no shaking my mate and he went full on, with private detectives, the lot. His dad wasn’t having an affair but did see a psychiatrist because of an increasing paranoia that he was being followed.

I now know how my mate felt, because I’m beginning to suspect that my dad may, for years, have been a secret Chelsea fan. As you’ll discover, I don’t support Palace because of him, he supports them because of me. Actually, when I was a very young kid he was never that interested in football, although he quite liked QPR (which is still a fairly accurate description of a lot of QPR fans now).

He definitely wants Palace to win. One of my greatest pleasures in life is phoning him from Selhurst to tell him we’ve just won; and if we haven’t won, he will sigh and say what he always says: ‘We just can’t score a bloody goal.’ He said that after I’d told him we’d just drawn 3-3 with Liverpool.

But there are just these little signs. If we’re playing Chelsea he will say ‘let’s hope it’s a draw’, but not in a way that suggests a draw would be a good result. If Palace are on telly he will look up from his Daily Mirror if he thinks something is happening, but when he watches Chelsea he kicks every ball.

I can’t get a private detective to follow him because he lives with me, but I need to do something to reassure myself he’s still a Palace fan. I don’t want to have to kick him out. A few days ago, I was in the kitchen cooking and listening to football on the radio, when he came positively galloping in from the front room to tell me Chelsea had scored. I said, ‘I know Dad, I heard it, I’m delighted for you.’ That led to two discussions: one about whether I was being sarcastic (yep) and then one about how come I heard it on the radio before he saw it on the telly and whether there was enough of a gap to put a bet on.

I genuinely worry about how enthusiastic he is for a team from an area that he has always dismissed as posh. And the area may be posh, Dad, but that is not a word you would ever have associated with the football club when I was growing up. Even now, awash with Russian billions though they are, there are still enough old-school ‘Chels’ fans to remind me of what a thoroughly well-planned exercise a trip to Stamford Bridge had to be back in the day.

Slim Jim Baxter: The Definitive Biography by Ken Gallacher (Virgin Books 2002)

 

The day following Jim Baxter's death a Scottish Cup semi-final took place at the new-look Hampden Park, now known more formally as the National Stadium, where Celtic were meeting Dundee United. At the Celtic end of the ground a banner had been draped from the stand by the Parkhead fans as they remembered, with respect, their old tormentor. It read 'Slim Jim. Simply The Best’ as the supporters even went out of their way to acknowledge the unofficial Ibrox anthem. It was a straightforward, sincere and moving message and one that Baxter — who, of course, had had little time for the sectarian divides in his adopted city of Glasgow — would have appreciated. The tribute at the semi-final, which Celtic won 3-1 on their way to a domestic 'treble', was a public recognition of his standing on that issue and an indication that his Old Firm rivals respected and honoured his views

It was also a genuine salute to one of the greatest footballers the country had produced. He was, after all, a man whose skills crossed all boundaries and whose talents were savoured by soccer connoisseurs around the world He may never have lost that distinctive singsong Fife accent even though he had been away from the coalfields which spawned him for more than forty years, but the language he spoke on the football field needed no translation.

His tragic death at the age of 61 came after years of illness and followed a shorter spell of less than three months' suffering after he had been warned by doctors that he had only a little time left to live. As a footballer his career had been one of near-constant controversy, and that was something that dogged him even when he had long stopped playing and had had an earlier brush with death seven years before.

Ten Men Won The League by Stephen Murray ( CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform 2014)

 

INTRODUCTION

This book details the events of one of the most incredible seasons in the history of Celtic Football Club, the 1978-79 Premier Division campaign. During the summer of 1978, Celtic appointed their fifth manager, Lisbon Lion captain, Billy McNeill. The winter of 1978-79 brought extreme arctic conditions, which prevented the team from playing a league game for ten long weeks. No one was to realise it at the time, but the enforced winter break would be a major factor in Celtic's quest to win the Scottish Premier Division title.

It was a season where the league title was decided in the final game, when Celtic faced their oldest and greatest rivals, Rangers. In a classic winner takes all scenario, the drama unfolded. A victory for either team would have given them the League Championship and these two great clubs have seldom met in such dramatic fashion.

On Monday 21st May 1979, the two teams met to decide the title. Against all the odds, with Celtic reduced to ten men, 0-1 down, and only twenty five minutes remaining, they stormed back to win 4-2. This victory gave Celtic the league title, in a game which will never be forgotten. Tales of that legendary game have been proudly passed from father to son, and it is reckoned by many to be the most incredible Old Firm game ever played.

One observer was moved to describe it as, ‘the closest I ever came to a religious experience’, but frustratingly, a strike by television cameramen ensured that no quality footage was recorded for posterity. All that remains is some grainy old black and white film, produced by the amateur volunteers of the Celtic Film Club, and Celtic fans remain ever grateful for their efforts.

In addition to that pivotal match, this book also covers the other dramatic events of the season.

The Accidental Footballer by Pat Nevin (Monoray 2021)

 

Another room was swiftly bypassed on the stairs with a flick of the wrist and a ‘You wouldn’t be interested in that one’ comment. Like hell I wouldn’t be interested, that was the one I wanted to see most, now that he had dismissed it with just a little too much disdain! I was already envisaging a picture of Dorian Gray, but with an ageing Morrissey in the frame. He changed his mind and then relented again after some gentle persuasion. He turned the key in the lock so sluggishly and opened the door to the room so slowly that it was even more obvious that he was embarrassed about its contents. I just wanted to push past him at this point, it was such a painstaking palaver.

The door finally opened to reveal the very last thing I expected to see: a fully kitted-out multigym with all the most modern equipment.

Paradise And Beyond: My Autobiography by Chris Sutton (Black and White Publishing 2011)

Vialli left me out of the FA Cup Final team to play Aston Villa at Wembley in the last competitive game of the season. I went to Ray Wilkins and he marked my card the night before the game that I wouldn’t be involved, not even on the bench. I hadn’t trained as well as I should have for a few weeks prior to that, wasn’t applying myself. This probably made Vialli’s mind up. I was looking forward to the season coming to an end and leaving the club, although nothing was certain at that stage. But I was always involved when I was fit. I really lost my cool at being left out for the final. I guess the previous nine months just came to a head and I exploded.

I spoke to Vialli after breakfast on the Saturday morning. We stood in a corridor. I told him he was a coward for not telling me to my face that I wouldn’t be involved in the final. Then I repeated that insult to him. He tried to explain to me why I was left out. I called him a coward for the third time and he wouldn’t accept it anymore. He told me if I said it one more time, he would knock me out. I didn’t say it for a fourth time. I shouldn’t have said that to him at all, as, over the piece, he was more than fair to me. I regret calling him a coward. It’s not something I’m proud of. I was totally unprofessional. I regret it and it was the last conversation we had. I acted like a spoilt brat. It was my fault. My strength of character let me down, nothing else. I paid the ultimate price that day for taking my foot off the pedal in training in the build-up to the final. It was the correct decision to leave me off the bench. To compound it, I behaved selfishly towards Vialli and he certainly didn’t deserve it on the day of such a big game. I’m still totally ashamed of my actions that day and Vialli deserved much better.

Saturday, 3pm: 50 Eternal Delights of Modern Football by Daniel Gray (Bloomsbury 2016)

 

When I was a teenager, I startled a geography teacher. This had nothing to do with arable farming, and everything to do with European cities. During a test, it turned out that I knew the capitals of Serbia and Albania, Finland and Croatia. This was something of a surprise for me too. Behind my back, the European Cup and editions of World Soccer had sewn this knowledge into my brain.

El Diego by Diego Armando Maradona (Yellow Jersey Press 2005)

Brazil have sold the world this idea that they’re the only ones capable of the jogo bonito, of playing beautifully ... bollocks! We can also do the jogo bonito, we just don’t know how to sell it. Brazilians always think everything is tudo hem, tudo legal and they’re all mellow, whereas for us when it’s not tudo bem it’s not cool and fuck the lot of them. We stop people short and knock them out one by one. That’s how we are and I don’t have a problem with that. Don’t get me wrong, I like the Brazilian way of life, I like them, but in football, I want to beat them to the death. They’re My Rivals, with capital letters.

A Tournament Frozen in Time: The Wonderful Randomness of the European Cup Winners Cup by Steven Scragg (Pitch Publishing 2019)

 

Dinamo Tbilisi will mean nothing to an entire generation of football watchers, yet to my generation they will elicit an enigmatic smile and maybe even a moistening of the eye. It might sound strange to the uninitiated, but you’d be amazed just how many British football supporters go misty-eyed with joy at the memory of seeing their team of choice being knocked out of European competition by what would colloquially be referred to as a ‘crack eastern European outfit’.

Of those great unknown sides to emerge from behind the Iron Curtain, Dinamo Tbilisi were one of the most clinical and unremitting. Fast and precise, they hit you on the break and they hit you hard. For those who saw them, they were unforgettable.

In the quarter-finals, at the beginning of March 1981, West Ham United were systematically dismantled by Dinamo Tbilisi at Upton Park.

Slicing straight through the West Ham midfield and defence time and time again, they enabled Aleksandre Chivadze, Vladimir Gutsaev and Ramaz Shengelia to score goals that were as beautiful as they were devastating. Ray Stewart, the West Ham right-back and penalty-taker extraordinaire was particularly tormented by the Dinamo Tbilisi offensive. He was caught in precarious possession of the ball for the second goal, when ludicrously left to man the West Ham defence all on his own.

What made the situation so ludicrous was that Stewart’s team-mates had piled forward, as if chasing a last-minute equaliser, when instead, the first leg of the game was only 31 minutes old. Everything was still to play for. 

West Ham had fallen a goal behind a mere seven minutes earlier and even by the standards of March 1981 this was an admirably gung-ho approach from John Lyall and his players.

One botched corner, a lofted Dinamo Tbilisi clearance, an ill-advised header from Stewart and a flash of the white-shirted Gutsaev later, and the ball was once again in the back of Phil Parkes’s net. It was as shocking as it was swift.

The Quiet Assassin: The Davie Hay Story by Davie Hay with Alex Gordon (Black and White Publishing 2009)

Then, inexplicably. Big Jock dropped Geordie for the final and put him on the substitutes' bench. He went with the two in midfield - Murdy and Bertie - that had worked so wonderfully well in Lisbon in 1967. This was a different game, though. Feyenoord were exceptionally strong across the middle of the park where their main man was Wim van Hanagem, who was dismissed by Jock as being a 'poor man's Jim Baxter'. It was unlike our boss to misread a situation, but on this occasion he got it wrong; very wrong. Our line-up played right into their hands. We had Jinky, Willie Wallace, John Hughes and Bobby Lennox as a four-man frontline, but with the Dutch's stranglehold in the middle of the park, they were starved of any reasonable service. Normally, I could get forward when Jinky was buzzing, but the wee man was being suffocated by their defence. They double-banked and even treble-banked on him. They tried to force him inside into an already cluttered midfield where they had players waiting to pick him off.

Feyenoord played a pressing game all over the park and we were struggling to get into any sort of rhythm. They worked our defence well and didn't give us a moment's respite. Ove Kind vail, their Swedish striker, was keeping Billy McNeill occupied while Jim Brogan had picked up an early foot injury that curtailed his movement a bit. Tommy Gemmell was getting forward, as usual, but our cavalier fullback also had his work cut out deep in his own territory.

Hunting Grounds: A Scottish Football Safari by Gary Sutherland (Birlinn Ltd 2012)

 

INTRODUCTION

42 grounds in the space of eight months. Dozens of pies and more pints than I probably needed. Countless trains and numerous buses. Many miles walked and one ditch fallen into. Howling wind, torrential rain, snow, sleet and that other phenomenon which I’ll call ‘sleesh’, which is a bit like sleet only wetter, though not quite rain, and unique to Scotland.

To be honest, I don’t know how I managed it. I had 15 grounds under my belt by the end of September and 33 before January was out. That’s ridiculous. I’m not sure I could repeat the feat and I suppose I don’t have to. But would I do it again? Don’t be daft. I had my Scottish football safari and lived to tell the tale.

It was a time of Jose Quitongo. A time when St Mirren played at Love Street and Gretna were busy living the dream. A time when the very notion of Rangers facing the threat of liquidation would’ve seemed preposterous.

I don’t remember there being so much doom and gloom around Scottish football back then in the 2006-07 season. I mean, it wasn't all magical. Some of it was dismal but it wasn't this grim.

Hey-ho.