Contents
Title Page
1. Why Me?
2. A Star in the Making?
3. Hello Jim! Goodbye Rangers!
4. Champions!
5. Marching on in Europe
6. The End of the Beginning
7. What the Doctor Ordered
8. Back in the Game
9. Off to Clyde
10. Fergie’s Fury and then to Mexico
11. Reflections on Clyde
12. In the Scotland Camp
13. Assistant Manager
14. Europe and Beyond
15. So There I Was …
16. The Job’s Mine
17. The Euro Challenge
18. The Road to France
19. The Draw
20. Squad Selection
21. The Ultimate – The World Cup ’98
22. Another Qualifying Campaign
23. CBE – Can’t Beat England
24. Changes on and off the Field
25. Korea/Japan?!
26. People, Places and Postmortems
Postscript
Copyright
ONE HOT NIGHT in Rome I faced the crushing responsibility of life as manager of Scotland and I began to wonder, Why me? What on earth was I doing there at all? I was not the only one asking that question. The regulars in the press box had already posed the same query.
Nevertheless, there I was, head in hands as Italy threatened to take apart the Scotland team that I was leading – a Scotland team that was playing for pride. Much has happened since that warm night in Rome in October 1993 but much had happened before it too.
I was born just as the Second World War was getting into its stride. At the time, my father was in the RAF and I saw very little of him. My earliest recollection of the place I called home was of a house in Corkerhill, Glasgow – a railway village where nearly all the men, my mother’s father included, worked in the manufacture and maintenance of railway locomotives and rolling stock. My grandfather was an engine-driver, a job which, to me, was something very special indeed. He was one of my very first heroes, and I could think of nothing finer than becoming an engine-driver myself. Yes, I was one of those typical wee boys whose dreams never went far beyond becoming a train-driver – or perhaps a footballer!
My grandfather’s home was supplied by the railway and it was small, but cosy. A staircase ran up the outside of the building and provided us children with a play area – which frequently caused my mother’s heart to leap into her mouth. Corkerhill, in those days, was a happy village full of hard-working men. Full employment, of course, meant that nobody starved but while there were no paupers, there were no stray princes either. There was an air of equality and a common cause.
As I said, my father, Hugh, was in the RAF, having volunteered to engage the Luftwaffe in battle. However, just before the war, he had bought a house in Larbert, where Stenhousemuir play. My parents had lived there for a time before he went off to war. My formative years, however, were spent in Corkerhill, and I have vivid memories of the air-raids. As a railway repair area, we were among the Luftwaffe’s prime targets. Hitler thought that it would be a good idea to paralyse the transport system of Great Britain, and his idea caused me to have many a sleepless night. I remember well the wailing siren which demanded an instant response to its warning of an impending raid. Nobody ever hesitated for a moment – adults running everywhere, it seemed, and children being hoisted up with their legs dangling and hurriedly carried to a safer place.
I, of course, was one of those children usually carried along by my mother, Margaret. My grandmother had died before the war and I had an Aunt Jess – my mother’s elder sister – who seemed to fulfil the role of the family’s female guide. My mother was one of eight children and, with my father away, my grandfather had been left with quite a large brood to care for. My Aunt Jess became his chief assistant.
As the raids got under way, we would be transported to the air-raid shelter – a damp, dingy place, brightened only by the flickering candles we took along and a singsong. I’m told that, as a two-year-old, I could sing ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ perfectly because I had heard the adults singing it so often in the air-raid shelter. Our faith in God was naturally encouraged, and I believe that it has stayed with me to this day. I’m not, perhaps, as devout as I should be, but I was certainly brought up with a strong Christian belief, and it should come as no surprise to know that I have a brother in the ministry.
On some occasions there just wasn’t enough time to get to the shelter and, when that happened, my mother used to push me under the living-room table and then lie on top of me until the sound of the bombers had gone away and the ‘all-clear’ sounded. We would listen to the thuds and explosions as the German bombs rained down. When I think about it, my mother must have been very frightened, and yet she always seemed to remain so calm and therefore always gave me a great feeling of confidence.
Another feature of life in Corkerhill was the baths. No, I’m not talking about swimming baths, but a series of large individual baths. I was often taken across to the baths by my mother – to where the hot water gushed and bubbled from a pipe and all the people had the chance to clean off the grime from much of their bodies with the strong smelling carbolic soap. The private bits were taken care of at home in a tin bath on the living-room floor! Going to the baths in Corkerhill became quite an outing for me.
You can imagine from what I’ve said that life in Corkerhill was not exactly living in the lap of luxury – and yet this is not any sort of hard-luck story. There were many in those days who were a lot worse off than we were. We had a roof over our heads and shoes on our feet – there were many, many more people in Britain who were not so well taken care of. I must say that I do like to remember how things were then, because it means that I never lose my appreciation for what has been achieved over the last fifty years and, more to the point, how things are for me today.
We were a very close family in those days, as I believe most families were at that time. All the privations brought on by the war drew people so much closer together. Family life in Scotland has always been an important thing – it is still important today, but in those turbulent years of the war it seemed to be even more so.
Whenever my father came home on leave during the 1940s, I was always overjoyed to see him – even though there were always those awkward moments when he had to take in how much I was growing and I had to learn just a little more about him. Prior to going into the RAF, he had played football professionally for King’s Park – now known as Stirling Albion. He was a hard, tough-tackling midfielder or full-back who never shirked it when the going got rough and would fight to get a result for the full ninety minutes. He also played for Hamilton Academicals and even guested for Wolves when he was stationed nearby during the war. He became very friendly with a famous Wolverhampton Wanderers manager, Ted Vizard, and I well remember him visiting our home in later years when he came to Scotland in search of players. He stayed at our home and it was a great honour for us to have the manager of the great Wolves team under our roof.
Needless to say, my first encounter with the game of football was through my father. He always spared a few treasured