THE truth can now be told:
Tony Blair's 10 years as Prime Minister was down not to the political gods but the footballing ones - the famous victory by Sir Alex Ferguson's Aberdeen in the 1983 European Cup Winners' Cup against Real Madrid.
The revelation comes in the book, The 10 Football Matches That Changed The World … And The One That Didn't, by Jim Murphy, the soccer-mad Labour MP for East Renfrewshire, which is published today.
On the evening of May 11 1983, a squeaky-clean 31-year-old lawyer turned up at the door of John Burton, secretary of the Labour Party's Trimdon Village branch of the newly created Sedgefield constituency near Durham. He and four other Sunderland fans were about to sit down to watch the match.
The young Blair was desperate. He had tried and failed 12 times to get a nomination for the June 1983 General Election. Time had all but run out; the Sedgefield candidate had to be nominated by May 23. This was his last chance.
"I met the critical people that night," the ex-PM explained. "I knocked on the door in Front Street South, which was the house that belonged to John Burton, who later became my election agent. And as he opened the door the Aberdeen match had literally just begun. I needed to see him but he basically said: 'Sit down and shut up.' Which I quickly realised was very important because if I'd blabbered away throughout the game, then it was obvious I wouldn't have been suitable."
To add to the Blair nerves, the match went into extra-time, but Aberdeen eventually won 2-1.
Mr Murphy wrote: "It seems clear what would have happened if that night he hadn't hit it off with Burton and the others over a drink discussing football … Without the support of his newly discovered footballing friends, he wouldn't have become an MP at all in the 1983 election."
But there was more.
The Shadow International Development Secretary asked Mr Blair what would have happened if he had not gone to Mr Burton's house on that night and won over the party grandees by talking football not politics.
"Well," Mr Blair told a shocked Mr Murphy, "I wouldn't have been Prime Minister … because I wouldn't have got into Parliament until the next election in 1987. I wouldn't have been at the right stage of development. In those days the political development process was a little longer."
He added: "To be absolutely blunt about it, Gordon [Brown] would have been, you know, so far ahead there wouldn't really have been any doubt about it. By the time John Smith died in 1994, I would only have been seven years in Parliament and at the time that just wasn't long enough."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article