Tribute: A Lisbon goal was all that was missing for the prolific Joe McBride

Sports columnist

Friday 13 July 2012

Nature made Joe McBride a centre-forward.

Joe McBride -- who scored 86 goals in 94 games for his childhood heroes -- hits a volley for Celtic against Dundee in August 1965. Picture: Herald & Times

The coaching and the exhortations of a famous manager were secondary. He was blessed with square shoulders and a squat, powerful trunk, which even on the most cursory examination suggested he was specially made for that frenzied area, the six-yard box. A young bullock, full of running and graced with finesse. That is what comes to mind. Indeed, he seemed to have been formed from the same DNA of a famous predecessor, Jimmy McGrory. I never saw McGrory play, but when I met him as Celtic's manager, in his habitually avuncular manner, pipe in mouth and never other than courteous, you could nevertheless sense why this burly figure was one of the great predators of his age. There are things you can't disguise.

Thereafter, I could see McGrory in virtually all of McBride's achievements. It was as if there existed an apostolic succession, easily validated by the statistics. While McGrory scored in virtually every game he played, McBride's tally of 57 goals in 54 league games was as if he had touched the hem of the master. Indeed, in 1975 McGrory was unrestrained in his admiration of the player when he declared McBride was the best Celtic centre-forward he had seen play. I wish I could claim I saw and recognised his talents before everybody else, because I was there at Celtic Park watching my team, Shettleston Juniors, in 1956 play an important Junior Cup tie, except that his name on the Town's team sheet made little impact on me as the misery of defeat clouded my impression of that event. Immediately after that game he was approached by Malky MacDonald, the former Celtic player and then manager of Kilmarnock, to offer him terms. It is here we can illustrate the dilemma of young players who only ever want to sign for one club. For even though he was born within the shadow of Ibrox and would often watch Rangers as a boy, he only ever wanted to end up at Parkhead. But he did say before heading for Rugby Park: "I signed because I thought I might miss the boat as a senior."I watched him at Fir Park when he came back from disappointment in English football and a spell with Partick Thistle. He was simply Motherwell's kind of player. His movement in dovetailing with others and that fleetness of foot around the box would suggest an exemplary team player, but it could not disguise the fact that he possessed the selfishness of all the great strikers in using those wiles to create space from which he could score and score and score. I witnessed some of the goals there as a young reporter and I confess that while I saw goals scored by him from all kinds of positions and strengths, little did I realise that two goals in particular, among the 69 in his first two seasons, would seal his fate.They came in the Scottish Cup semi-final with Celtic in 1965 in their 2-2 draw. McBride was really the only threat to Celtic that day and, although they were beaten in the replay and Jock Stein went on to win his first trophy, for McBride it was mission accomplished, because he had got under the skin of the Celtic manager. Shortly after that McBride asked for a transfer. Knowing what I do know about the power of the Celtic manager, all he needed to have done was raise his eyebrow and McBride would have known he was a wanted man. His arrival at Celtic Park came at a time when Stein had not made up his mind about Jimmy Johnstone's future. But with a prolific penalty-box striker now in their midst, his wingers were to become the catalysts for much of the success following. McBride reacted to a rejuvenated Johnstone and the pace of Bobby Lennox on the other side like he had been granted a visa by defenders to get into their box to score at will. When so many rain in, 86 goals in 94 appearances, in major competitions, from head and foot, it is difficult to remember all of them. But one in which Celtic, twice behind at Dunfermline went on to win 5-4 with an equaliser by McBride that tore the net away, is fondly remembered among the legions. The journeyman had become an aristocrat, requiring the accolade to end all accolades, of scoring a goal in Lisbon in 1967. His chronic knee condition put paid to that. All I saw of him that day was the back of his head as he sat with the other reserves in front of our commentary position. Beside him was John Hughes, who has never reconciled himself to the reason he was not selected. McBride, on the other hand, smothered any frustration over the cruel trick nature played on him, sufficiently satisfied overall to have realised his childhood dream to wear the hoops. That he would leave Celtic Park in 1968 and move to Hibernian to become their record European scorer and make people think Stein had erred in such a transaction, endeared him to those who, knowing of his love of Parkhead, saw in him that other side, a thoroughbred professional proving that chasing and controlling a ball were even more important than which jersey you wore.That is why Joe McBride seemed so much at home in his later years, at Celtic Park, touring the supporters' boxes, a smile emerging from his florid, cheery countenance, to accompany vivid, witty tales. To our immense satisfaction he relived the past as well as he played it.

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Tribute: A Lisbon goal was all that was missing for the prolific Joe McBride

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