The 100 Greatest Scottish Sporting Icons day five: Numbers 55-44

Taking in minor competitions and international appearances, his Scottish record goal haul saw him score more than 550 in total, 410 of them in the mainstream competitions, at a strike rate of pretty much a goal per game throughout a 15-year career.

A disproportionately high percentage of them were scored with a head that could hit the ball as hard as some could shoot, propelled as it was by a bull neck, which he was prepared to put into ridiculously dangerous places.

Little wonder, then, that Scott Sinclair made headlines when he managed to match the hero of the 1920s and 30s for half a dozen games or so when he joined Celtic this season, but no-one will ever again sustain such potency at a decent standard of football.

That Celtic won relatively few trophies in the course of his career – three league titles and five Scottish Cups – prompts comparison with Paul McStay, the midfielder who was revered by their supporters during a similar period when success was hard to come by in the 1980s and 90s, accruing a matching three title wins, four Scottish Cups and a League Cup in his 15 years.

In both cases the feeling is that it would have been much worse had it not been for their loyalty, but for McStay there was rather more recognition from the national selectors, winning 76 caps and going to two World Cups, compared with McGrory’s near inexplicable cap haul of just seven, along with six appearances for the Scottish League XI, during which he, of course, struck at virtually a goal-a-game with six for each.

Kevin Ferrie’s reflections

Any notion that even the best in Scotland have not always been “selling clubs” is negated by the treatment of McGrory who was paid less than his team-mates for the rest of his career after turning down a move to Arsenal, such was directorial irritation at missing out on the transfer fee.

That can also be seen in the context of the outrageously disproportionate fines handed out to the club’s Lisbon Lions as the then board sought to proclaim its self-righteousness in the wake of the notorious “battle of Montevideo” (see adjacent article on Tommy Gemmell).

Since that European Cup win is what sets Celtic apart from the vast majority of other clubs, it is interesting to wonder whether that wrong was ever properly righted, particularly in the knowledge that at least one of those Lisbon Lions is still working, well into his seventies, while players who could not reach the knockout stages of the Champions League are being paid hundreds of thousands of pounds per season by the club.

If not, this golden jubilee season might be a good time for the current board to prove themselves worthier of their positions than some of their predecessors.

54

Tommy Gemmell

Signed on provisional forms on the same day as the player who would be voted Celtic’s greatest ever player by the man who still holds the British goal-scoring record and immediately precedes him on this list, but nothing Jinky Johnstone did for the club was more important than Gemmell’s blistering strike in Lisbon which was as valuable in terms of the club’s history as all of Jimmy McGrory’s goals put together.

As well as scoring the equaliser in the 1967 European Cup final that is generally considered to have made victory inevitable against an Inter Milan side that they were over-running, Gemmell was also the first British player to score in two European Cup finals, putting Celtic into the lead in the 1970 final that they would ultimately lose in extra time to Feyenoord.

A mischievous character, it would also be fair to say that he had something of a short fuse. During the decisive Intercontinental Cup meeting with Argentina’s Racing Club – the match played on supposedly neutral territory in Uruguay which became known as “the battle of Montevideo” – during a stoppage in play, he blatantly kicked an opponent in the, eh, crown jewels, explaining afterwards that the individual in question had spat in the faces of Celtic players.

The incident went unnoticed by the officials, but there was no chance of him getting away with it when, having been tripped by Helmut Haller during a World Cup qualifier two years later, he turned, chased the West German forward and kicked him up the backside.

Kevin Ferrie’s reflections

With Jock Stein having been in the official SFA party, Gemmell reckoned the Haller incident was the beginning of the end of his relationship with his manager whose patience he had repeatedly tested.

Two more years would elapse before he left, however, and, when he did, following spells with Nottingham Forest and Miami Toros he returned to become one of the few Lisbon Lions to become a revered figure at another club, since Gemmell was the Dundee captain when the club won its last major trophy, the 1973 League Cup, beating Celtic in the final.

53

Catriona Matthew

After winning the British Amateur in 1993 and her third Scottish title in 1994, Matthew decided, at the age of 25, to attempt to earn a card on the LPGA Tour and subsequently tied for fifth at the qualifying school.

In the ensuing 23 years, the mother of two has mixed her schedule between the LPGA Tour and the Ladies European Tour, growing in stature throughout.

Having played in the 1998 Solheim Cup team, she was left out in 2000 and, controversially in 2002 by fellow Scot Dale Reid – who was Europe’s captain for those matches – but made her point in the best way possible by holing the winning putt when Europe won the trophy in 2003.

Matthew has now played in seven Solheim Cups in total, has been on winning teams on the last two occasions – home and away – and boasts a personal winning record in her matches.

She finished tied second at the ANA Inspiration in 2007, but achieved her career highlight two years later by becoming the only Scottish woman to win a major at the British Open at Lytham. She also finished runner-up at the Women’s PGA in 2013.

Kevin Ferrie’s reflections

Part of something of an explosion of European women’s golf that was spearheaded by Annika Sorenstam, for whom Matthew will be a vice-captain at this year’s Solheim Cup, the Scot has enjoyed the greatest success among a group of fine home-grown players to have tested themselves on the LPGA Tour which includes fellow Solheim Cup players Kathryn Marshall, Mhairi McKay and Janice Moodie.

Deep into her forties, Matthew remains sufficiently competitive – as demonstrated last season at the British Women’s Open – that Sorenstam has told Matthew she would like to see her earn a place on the Solheim Cup team as a player.

52

Davie Cooper

Not many Scots players of the past 40 years would be so universally celebrated and revered as Davie Cooper.

That he never plied his trade anywhere else other than Scotland was, in part, down to him playing at the club he always loved for much of his career and a sense of contentment that he was happy with his lot.

Signed by then Rangers boss Jock Wallace for £100,000, Cooper’s immense talent often carried an aging and ailing Gers side. It’s also fair to say at times his attitude was lacking.

He didn’t get the “Moody Blue” nickname for nowt. But, when he decided to play, few could live with him.

Having been part of Wallace’s Treble winning teams in the 1970s, it was not until the arrival of Graeme Souness that Cooper would celebrate another championship and, arguably, some of his best performances.

When Cooper left Rangers for the modest sum of £50,000 in 1989 and headed for Motherwell, many were excused for thinking that his career would go into decline. Far from it.

Under former team-mate Tommy McLean, and with a point to prove, Cooper thrived, playing his way back into the Scotland team, before in 1991 helping the Steelmen to the Scottish Cup, the win over Dundee United in the final giving the Hamilton man as much of a thrill as anything he achieved in Govan, if not more because, until then, Cooper had never paraded a trophy on an open-topped bus.

For someone who had spent much of his career thinking there were two types of player – “those that can play, and those that cannae” – late in
his career Cooper turned coach, imparting his knowledge to others. When his death came at the tragically young at the age of 39, it was while training kids and making a coaching film.

Stewart Weir’s reflections

Davie Cooper’s career is like one big highlights package. From his ball-juggling goal against Celtic in the Drybrough Cup, to the many free-kicks he converted, arguably the best in the League Cup final, past Aberdeen’s Jim Leighton.

There were the runs, the dribbles (one night against Tampere at Ibrox sticks out, as does his tormenting of Walter Kidd at Tynecastle), and the goals he scored for Scotland, including that crucial penalty against Wales in Cardiff (remember Roy Aitken retrieving the ball so Coop could take it?), and another strike against the Socceroos at Hampden helping us to Mexico.

And then there was his cameo at Motherwell when he played himself back into the Scotland set-up. So many memories. And we haven’t even mentioned the best of his one-liners, mostly funny: “Do you think Barcelona will be intimidated by Fir Park,” Coop joked during the ‘Well’s Final celebrations – but occasionally barbed. “Throw him a baw,”
was his response to Graeme Souness demanding Davie kept pace with Gary Stevens, out in front, during a pre-season run.

For me, nothing quite beats Davie’s one-man, six-goal destruction of St John’s in the semi-final of the Shinwell Cup – that put him up there with Law, Best and Charlton in my eyes –  eventually captaining Udston to a final victory at Douglas Park. After a career of trophies, medals and accolades, Cooper still reminisced: “It was never going to get any better. It was like running out at the Maracana . . .”

51

Tommy Armour

Became the only Scotsman ever to complete a full set of major championship victories when he returned to his homeland to win the Open Championship at Carnoustie in 1931 having emigrated to the USA 11 years earlier where he turned professional and won both the US Open in 1927 and the US PGA in 1930.

The US Masters had not yet been inaugurated, but he came close to completing golf’s Grand Slam when he finished eighth at Augusta in 1937.

The only other native European golfers to have won three different major championships are his English contemporary Jim Barnes, who also completed his haul in Scotland, at Prestwick in 1925 and Rory McIlroy.

Armour’s achievements are all the more remarkable because he only ever regained sight in his right eye after being invalided out of the Great War having had metal plates inserted in his head and arm, as well as being blinded after being blown up in a mustard gas explosion.

Kevin Ferrie’s reflections

Known universally as “The Silver Scot” he was one of the first sportsmen to identify the commercial potential of his image to the extent that close to half a century after his death the “Tommy Armour Silver Scot” brand lives on.

50

Rose Reilly

We had a bit of fun at the start of this process by listing actress Dee Hepburn, but Reilly has been described as the real life “Gregory’s Girl”.

On day one of this list of icons we were also very careful to describe rugby league’s Dave Valentine as the only Scotsman to have captained a team to a World Cup win in a mainstream team sport, but the Kilmarnock-born woman can claim to have achieved the same feat when she captained her adopted country, Italy, to victory in front of 90,000 spectators, albeit in an unofficial, invitational tournament in the 1980s before the official women’s version of the World Cup was instituted in 1991.

A winner of the Serie A golden boot in both 1978 and 1981, she was part of Italian – eight times – French and, before heading to the continent, Scottish title-winning teams having played for Glasgow club Westhorn United when they won a treble in the first season in which a Scottish women’s league was contested in 1972/73.

She also won 10 caps for Scotland before – after being banned by the Scottish Women’s FA after daring to offer criticism – subsequently gaining selection for Italy.

Kevin Ferrie’s reflections

Modern professional footballers who complain about their schedules might want to look away now because Reilly’s French title win with Reims was achieved in a season in which she also won one of those Italian titles with Lecce, taking advantage of the fact that matches in Italy were played on Saturdays and those in France on Sundays.

The nature of her career meant little was seen of her by her compatriots in the course of her career, but the increased profile of the women’s game means that the profile of the woman who has followed in her footsteps and beyond, Kim Little, is considerably higher.

Still just 26 years old, no Scottish footballer has ever left a larger global footprint in terms of direct impact on the sport in different continents, let alone countries. Originally from Aberdeenshire, she began her senior career as a 16-year-old with Hibs Ladies and has since gone on to play in England for Arsenal Ladies, in the USA for Seattle and in Australia for Seattle Reign.

She has been on teams that have won their league titles in all of them, albeit in the American play-off system, the losing team in championship finals in both seasons there. Like some of Scotland’s best male players, she has not had the opportunities to demonstrate on the biggest stages what her peers around the world consider to be a world-class talent, but Scotland’s qualification for this year’s European Championship can go a long way towards rectifying that.

Prior to that, Little was criticised in some quarters for failing to sing the English and British national anthem ahead of Britain’s first match at the Rio Olympics but, regardless of the whys and wherefores of that, she was taking her only opportunity to play in an Olympics as things stand.

That others have sought to politicise a pragmatic decision is to their shame since a player described as “the most talented player I have played with”, by Hope Solo, a World Cup winner and two time Olympic gold medallist with the USA and by Laura Harvey, her coach at both Arsenal and Seattle as “the best player in the world right now,” deserves to be given every opportunity to showcase her talents in the international arena.

49

Billy Bremner

For those of a certain age, the names of members of the great Leeds United teams of the sixties and seventies remain highly familiar. Working from the back, without looking them up, there is instant recall of Gary Sprake, David Harvey, Paul Reaney, Paul Madeley, Jackie Charlton, Norman Hunter, Gordon McQueen, Terry Cooper, Terry Yorath,
Johnny Giles, Bobby Collins, Peter Lorimer, Mick Jones, Alan “Sniffer” Clarke, Joe Jordan, Eddie Gray and Peter Lorimer.

Their surprise title-winning team of the nineties also included another couple of top- class Scots in Gary McAllister and Gordon Strachan, not to mention a chap by the name of Cantona.

That is the context in which the selection of a feisty wee fellow from Stirling’s school of hard-knocks, the Raploch , as the club’s greatest ever player needs to be understood.

Billy Bremner was the driving force behind a team that could be brutal in its ruthless pursuit of a level of success previously and hitherto unknown in Yorkshire.

The club has won three English titles, two Europeans trophies, an FA Cup and a League Cup, all bar that 1991/92 success under Bremner’s tenure as club captain. He also captained Scotland during much of a career in which he won 53 caps, including to and through their first ever World Cup finals in West Germany in 1974.

Kevin Ferrie’s reflections

A statue at Elland Road commemorates a man who stood 5ft 5in tall but was a giant of a competitor. Surrounded by quality players in both the Leeds and Scotland teams he played for, he operated in an era when teams had to earn the right to play their football and few set about that task with greater relish.

With both club and country, there were many more near-misses than successes in the pursuit of glory, but every inch of Bremner was a winner.

48

Yvonne Murray

Part of a trio of fine athletes, with Liz McColgan and Tom McKean, who contributed greatly to the last golden era of British track-running
in the eighties and early nineties, Murray’s bronze in the 3000 metres at Seoul was the last Olympic track and field medal earned by a Scot until Eilidh Doyle’s relay success last year.

It was a performance that also meant Doyle had matched Murray’s record haul of 11 medals at major Games. Having been part of the Scotland team that went to the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane in 1982, finishing 10th in the 3000 metres on her 18th birthday, she claimed her first major medal much closer to her Musselburgh home in 1986 and earned another bronze at that year’s European Championships.

The highlights of a career marked by sustained excellence were her gold medals over 3000 metres at the European Championships in 1990 and the World Indoor Championships in 1993 and over 10,000 metres at the 1994 Commonwealth Games.

Kevin Ferrie’s reflections

A record of having reached a final at a major championship in each of 14 successive years is a tribute to both Murray’s competitiveness and to the training methods of Tommy Boyle, the coach she shared with McKean.

47

Walter Smith

Graeme Souness did many things as Rangers manager, but inviting Walter Smith to become his assistant at Ibrox in 1986 was probably the most astute piece of business he delivered for the club.

Smith had progressed from player, to coach, to assistant manager under Jim McLean at Dundee United, helping them to become Scottish champions in 1983, and reach the European Cup semi-final the following year.

Having accepted Souness’s invitation, Smith would then accept another offer – this time to be Ibrox manager – when Souness left for Liverpool in 1991.

So began a managerial career with Rangers which, in two spells, would see Smith accumulate no fewer than 21 trophies, including matching Celtic’s record of nine-in-a-row when taking the 1996/97 title, clinched ironically at Tannadice.

Smith also steered Rangers to their first European final in 36 years, the UEFA Cup final of 2008, only to lose to Zenit St Petersburg.

The former electrician also sparked life back into the Scotland national team when, after being Sir Alex Ferguson’s No.2
at Manchester United (a position he’d also occupied under Fergie at
the 1986 World Cup), he replaced Berti Vogts, lifting the beleaguered Scots 70 places in the UEFA rankings before he again answered the call of Rangers to replace Paul Le Guen in 2007.

Stewart Weir’s reflections

I often wonder if Walter Smith gets the credit he deserves for everything he achieved at Rangers. It is almost as if, because Smith and Rangers were expected to win, it somehow lessened their actual achievements.

I was there when Smith was appointed Gers boss in 1991, and there when it was announced that he would leave in May 1998. In between times, I got to see first hand how demanding it was being the Rangers manager – and how it was an even bigger test of Smith’s ability and acumen second time around.

It is easy to focus on the trophies. I remember his time at Ibrox for other things; like the occasions I woke him up when I needed a comment for the first edition of the Evening Times; or when Gazza answered Smith’s home phone on Christmas Day because Walter didn’t want him to be left on his own; or his eulogy at the funeral of his friend and my former colleague Alan Davidson; or his many tales about Jim McLean.

But, for me, I still laugh at one moment of quick thinking, when then Celtic assistant manager Joe Jordan called the toss of a coin correctly to see if a League Cup semi-final would be played at Celtic Park or Ibrox.

“Okay, you get to call first,” said Smith, convincing Jordan, league officials and assembled media that Joe had only won the right to have first shout. Second time around, Jordan called wrongly. Rangers hosted the Old Firm semi-final, won it, and then beat Hibs in the final . . .

46

Old Tom Morris /Young Tom Morris

He didn’t quite invent this Royal & Ancient game, but Old Tom will
forever be cherished as golf’s founding father; a competitor of great longevity, a custodian of the links in his role as greenkeeper at St Andrews and Prestwick, a course designer of prolific abundance and a patriarchal figure that embodied all that was great about this grand old pursuit.

His son, Young Tom, was the superstar of the day, a golfing prodigy of bountiful attributes and accomplishments who became a legend in his own time.

Between them, they won eight of the first 12 Open Championships. Theirs was a tale of triumph and tragedy. Young Tommy would be dead by the age of 24.

Nick Rodger’s reflections

For many, the picture of the bunneted, bearded Old Tom remains golf’s ultimate iconic image. Four times he won the Open, with the last of these triumphs coming in 1867 as a 46-year-old.

He was still playing in golf’s oldest championship as he edged towards his 75th birthday. Young Tom’s record of four Open wins in a row, the first at the age of just 17, remains an achievement unrivalled to this day.

His natural flair and vigour, which he would use to his advantage, captured the imagination of an intrigued and increasingly captivated public and, in many senses, he helped transform golf into a popular spectator sport. The Morris family name is rightly revered throughout the golfing world.

45

Willie Carson

It is often said that you could have been extremely good at what you did in your chosen field, but you only achieve real fame when folk recognise you as “that bloke from the telly”. That applied to Willie Carson.

He may have won 17 Classic races, and was Champion Jockey five times.
But for a great many, the diminutive Scot will, first and foremost, be remembered as one of the former captains on BBC’s A Question of Sport.

Growing up in Stirling, horses played no part in the life of the Carson family. However, Willie’s size took him in that direction and, by the age of 16, he was an apprentice based in Yorkshire for four years starting in 1958.

That was also when Billy became Willie. After eight years as a retained jockey with Lord Derby, Carson’s career began to fly once he moved to Major Dick Hearn’s West Ilsley stables, where the Queen’s horses were trained.

In her Silver Jubilee year, 1977, Carson rode the filly Dunfermline to win the Oaks and St Leger. Two years later, Carson won the Derby on Troy, the first of four wins in that race, with Henbit (1980), Nashwan (1989) and Erhaab (1994) to follow.

In total, Carson won 3,828 flat races from 1959 until 1996. For others, however, he will always be part of a double act with former England Grand Slam winning skipper Bill Beaumont on A Question of Sport, the face of BBC’s racing coverage, the one-time chairman of Swindon Town, and a contestant on I’m A Celebrity. . . Get Me out of Here!.

Stewart Weir’s reflections

If it was his height – or lack of it – and the fact he could ride at 7st 10lb that led Willie Carson into the world of professional racing, no-one could ever question the size of his heart.

During his career, Carson broke 36 bones and survived two life-threatening falls; the first at York in 1983, the second, which ultimately forced his retirement, when in 1996 he was grounded by his mount, Meshhed, in the parade ring at Newbury, suffering a kick that, from one report, saw “his liver reduced to a jigsaw”.

I, for one, always liked Willie Carson – based entirely on my winnings from Troy and Henbit.

44

Dick McTaggart

Other Scots have excelled in hand-to-hand combat at major Games, perhaps most notably judoka Graeme Randall who won a Commonwealth Games gold medal in Manchester in 2002 when he was risking paralysis by fighting when he knew he had a broken bone in his neck.

However, McTaggart stands alone among our amateur pugilists, not only because he claimed Scotland’s only Olympic boxing gold medal but, in winning the Val Barker Trophy on being voted the most stylish boxer at the Melbourne Games in 1956 for his performances in the lightweight division, he is still the only British boxer to have claimed that prize.

He picked up a bronze medal when he attempted to defend his title in Rome and, after moving up to light-welterweight for the Tokyo Games in 1964, was beaten in the third round, but did not retire until he had won a fifth British ABA title in that division the following year.

Kevin Ferrie’s reflections

Dickie McTaggart and I have a shared sporting claim to fame. We both played in goal for St Mary’s Forebank Primary.

However, our sporting careers diverged at precisely that point since it seems reasonable to presume that only one of us burst into tears during his debut.

It was bitterly cold, shorts were a bad idea and those orange, pimpled Mitre balls were evil, but it’s fair to say that previous generations of students at that fabled place of learning were also made of much tougher stuff and my old man, who was two years ahead of McTaggart at the Forey, will be mortified on reading this.

Strangely, given that background, he initially boxed for England rather than Scotland, having caught the eye of their selectors while in the RAF after being overlooked at home, but he put the record straight by winning the Scottish title in 1958, going on to win a gold medal for Scotland at that year’s Commonwealth Games in Cardiff.

For many years there was some discomfort around Dundee that McTaggart, one of five boxing brothers among a family of 18 children brought up in a tough environment during and after the Second World War, had not been sufficiently rewarded by his own community, but a form of tribute was paid in the eighties when a sports centre was named in his honour.