The 100 Greatest Scottish Sporting Icons day eight: The countdown continues with numbers 22-17

Perhaps it was the hardships endured growing up that made the likes of Jock Stein, Sir Matt Busby and, in particular, Bill Shankly, strive for greatness. He saw it as doing his job and saw the players that served him as doing theirs, though his values – of everyone working for a common goal and looking after each other – could have been hewn from the coalface where he once made a living.

Shankly escaped the mines, poverty, rising unemployment and the Ayrshire village of Glenbuck – as did his four elder brothers – by becoming a professional footballer and, in the case of “Wullie”, as he was known to his family, that was with Carlisle United, before moving to Preston North End after just one season.

At Preston, Shankly helped the club to third in the league and the FA Cup in 1938 but, as a 26-year-old, he found his playing days were put on hold due to war service with the RAF. He did play wartime matches, including internationals – leading Scotland against England at Hampden in 1941 and scoring in a 5-4 win over the Auld Enemy as year later at Wembley.

Read more: The 100 Greatest Scottish Sporting Icons day seven: We reveal numbers 28-23

However, what should have been the best years of his career were lost to the war. The Scot began as a manager where he’d begun his playing career, at Carlisle, with stints at Grimsby, Workington and Huddersfield Town – where he gave a teenager by the name of Denis Law his debut – during his coaching apprenticeship which eventually saw him being approached by Liverpool, who had knocked him back in 1951.

What Liverpool would become owed everything to the canny Shankly, redeveloping the entire structure at Anfield, from the stadium, to the Melwood training facility, the backroom staff and the scouting system.

What Liverpool couldn’t produce through their youth set-up, they bought, wisely. He took Liverpool from Second Division obscurity to English champions in five years. More success followed, domestically and in Europe, but in 1974 Shankly, then 61, shocked the city when he quit following the club’s FA Cup win over Newcastle United. Shankly struggled without football and died in 1981.

A year later, his wife Nessie unveiled the Shankly Gates, while in 1997, a seven-foot tall bronze statue of him was erected outside the stadium – lest anyone forget this was the club Shankly built.

Stewart Weir’s reflections

Shankly was one of five brothers, once saying he and his four siblings would take on and beat any other five brothers in the world. One of those, Bob, managed the best Dundee team of all time, Scottish champions and European Cup semi-finalists.

To say Shankly was consumed by football would be an understatement; he lived it, breathed it. It’s probably why so much of what he said was an instant soundbite and is quoted even today. When he signed Ron Yeats, Shankly praised the Scot to the hilt. “Go on, walk round him,” Shankly implored the press. “He’s a colossus.”

He added that with Yeats in defence, “we could play Arthur Askey in goal.” According to Shankly, there were two teams in the city, Liverpool and Liverpool reserves and while he had a harmonious relationship with all at Everton, many of his jibes were directed at those across Stanley Park. “If Everton were playing at the bottom of the garden, I’d pull the curtains.”

Read more: The 100 Greatest Scottish Sporting Icons day seven: We reveal numbers 28-23

Shankly assembled a backroom team that would become a dynasty, arguably his best addition, Geoff Twentyman, a centre-back under him at Carlisle who would become Liverpool’s chief scout with an excellent track record of discovering talent, amongst them Kevin Keegan and useful when he jettisoned favourites such as Ian St John, Roger Hunt, Yeats and Tommy Lawrence only to draft in Steve Heighway, John Toshack, Larry Lloyd and Ray Clemence after losing an FA Cup quarter-final to Watford.

He may have looked like the grandfather you always wanted – and especially if you wanted tickets for the Kop – but Shankly was fiercely competitive, patriotic and, on occasions, ruthless when it came to putting Liverpool first.

21

David Sole and the 1990 Grand Slam team

The Ronnie Browne painting Underdog Rampant which commemorates the 1990 Grand Slam win shows a bandaged and toorie-topped Scotland captain running off the pitch amid rapturous scenes, but it was the way Sole led his team on to the pitch that day that had the hairs on the back of the neck standing on end and will live long in the memory as he strode purposefully out of the Murrayfield tunnel.

A brief hush as the Scotland support absorbed what was happening and then came the inevitable wave of sound that it had been calculated to produce. Sole replaced fellow loosehead prop Ian McLauchlan as Scotland’s most capped captain and, having also uniquely led the team to a World Cup semi-final, held that accolade until Greig Laidlaw went past his mark last year.

He was part of a Lions team which won a Test series, under Finlay Calder’s captaincy in Australia in 1989, but Calder was subsequently to describe himself as having been “a caretaker captain for David Sole.” In the context of the modern game, it is an astonishing statistic that not only did the same XV start all four of Scotland’s matches in that campaign, but they used just a solitary replacement, when Derek Turnbull came on for the injured Derek White during that febrile decider against an England team who behaved as if they thought they had to do no more than turn up to win.

Scotland’s starting team on that momentous day was: Gavin Hastings; Tony Stanger, Scott Hastings, Sean Lineen, Iwan Tukalo; Craig Chalmers, Gary Armstrong; David Sole, Kenny Milne, Paul Burnell, Chris Gray, Damian Cronin, John Jeffrey, Finlay Calder and Derek White.

Kevin Ferrie’s reflections

David Sole’s leadership was central to the greatest day in Scottish rugby history as the first ever Grand Slam decider between Scotland and England was won.

There has been talk that one of the Hastings brothers suggested they should run out in kilts and several thousand were on show. The memory remains vivid of Gordon “Broon frae Troon” Brown, who for some reason, while working in the media, didn’t have a seat so was on the steps behind me in the press box turned out in full Highland dress as he almost deliriously repeated over and over again in the closing moments that he had predicted a 13-7 win for Scotland on TV the previous evening.

However “the walk” set the tone on a day when the home team got everything right, as they had to. Fed by some members of an embarrassed England team, there have since been attempts to project on to the events of that day, a political narrative relating to the Thatcher government’s use of Scotland as an experimental ground for the poll tax.

Not least because of the political leanings of several members of the Scotland team and those of a significant percentage of their support which are at odds with the broader Scottish demographic, they can be dismissed as fanciful at best.

20

Andy Irvine

Many felt Jim Renwick offered at least as much in the way of creativity, others that Bruce Hay was a far more reliable last line of defence. But, arriving on the scene just as rugby was capturing the public imagination and in the glam rock days of the early-1970s, the long-haired full-back
fitted the bill perfectly in becoming Scottish rugby’s first superstar.

His credentials were initially established by his flamboyant play for Scotland and then in playing an important part on the 1974 British & Irish Lions tour of South Africa. He came into the side for the decisive third Test, scoring eight points in a 26-9 win, then added a further seven, including a vital try that helped secure the draw in the final Test. It meant Willie John McBride’s squad would always be remembered as “the Invincibles”.

It was the first and most successful of his three Lions tours, while his Scotland career took place in an era when a high class team, also involving fellow “Invincibles” Gordon Brown, Ian McLauchlan, Ian McGeechan and Billy Steele, was extremely hard to beat at Murrayfield but always vulnerable away. The aforementioned Renwick was playing in the 48th of his then record 52 internationals when he won one on another ground for the first time at Cardiff in 1982, more than a decade after his debut.

Kevin Ferrie’s reflections

When the BBC aired its Superstars programme in the 1970s, Irvine was the obvious choice to represent Scottish rugby. And, at a time when many of the best players in every sport were eagerly taking part, Irvine displayed a wide array of skills when finishing third in the British finals. This despite the fact that some of the others were preparing specifically for those contests while Irvine simply turned up and played.

It was not worth his while to take time off work to do so because he could not accept any prize money and retain his amateur status as a rugby player. He actually paid a huge price for his participation because it was when taking part in an 800 metre race on a tartan track that he suffered the Achilles tendon damage that shortened his career.

However, that was not the reason he turned down the glamour trip to the World Superstars final in the USA that he had earned with that podium finish in 1979. Instead, he stayed at home because his beloved Heriot’s FP had a vital league match and he would tell me years later that, among the many great days in his career, helping them become the first club to take the national title out of the Borders topped his list because it was achieved with his closest friends.

Self-deprecating, he also looked a bit uncomfortable when, as a group of us sat in a Pretoria bar during the 1995 World Cup, I teasingly asked if anyone else had ever scored a try for Scotland as Irvine try after Irvine try was replayed.

Read more: The 100 Greatest Scottish Sporting Icons day seven: We reveal numbers 28-23

“Just wait,” he replied. “I’ve seen this video before. The ones I gave away are just coming up.” They did, too, but his career was best encapsulated by the meeting with France in 1980 when the hero of the 1970s was having an off day, including missing a string of kicks at goal.

He even suffered the rare indignity for a Scot
of being booed at Murrayfield as, deep in the second half, his team found itself 14-4 behind to opponents that Scots were then used to beating
at home.

His response was to score two stunning tries, sandwiched by a touchline conversion and subsequently adding a further brace of penalties to seal a 22-14 win.

19

Colin McRae

Prior to Colin McRae coming along, it would have been easy to believe world rallying was the preserve of Scandinavians, with the odd German, Italian or Frenchman (or woman) tossed in. His own father, Jim, had toiled to establish himself in works teams, often playing second-fiddle to non-descript Finns and Swedes, before proving his speed and capacity to win on the stages.

While dad helped open a few doors along the way, he also knew the McRae name may act as a hindrance, given the level of expectation on his young shoulders. In 1988, after some giant killing performances in a Vauxhall Nova, winning his class in the British series and a Scottish championship claimed piloting various machinery, Colin landed a works drive in the UK with Ford in 1989.

It was a fraught year . . . an expensive one for the manufacturers, in terms of cars wrecked, and ultimately McRae, who lost his seat. The following year, mostly self-funded, he again contested the British Championship with varying success. On the 1990 RAC Rally, McRae – cruelly now nicknamed “McCrash” – drove a battered and beaten Sierra Cosworth to sixth overall. The car earned its own moniker – “The Shed” – partly because one of the doors was jammed shut by the bolt from a farm gate.

His determination and speed, however, convinced Prodrive boss Dave Richards – himself the world championship-winning co-driver from 1981 – to offer Colin a works seat with the new Subaru team. And, as they say, the rest is history.

He won back-to-back British Championships then, in 1993, took his first ever world victory in New Zealand. A year on, he became the first home winner of the RAC Rally since Roger Clark in 1976 and, in 1995 in the same event, clinched the World Championship, partnered by his long-suffering co-driver Derek Ringer. McRae would change co-drivers, Ringer making way for Nicky Grist, and swap teams, Subaru replaced by Ford who themselves were exchanged for Citroen.

The wins and podiums would continue, but there was not another driver’s world crown. Not that his popularity ever diminished. Instead, McRae did his own thing; he developed his own car, drove at Le Mans, did the Paris-Dakar, and, of course, was the face and name fronting a series of lucrative video games.

Indeed, it wasn’t until he contested the X Games in the USA that many Americans realised he was real, not some fictitious Lara Croft-like character. Of course, he didn’t disappoint. Chasing a winning time, he spectacularly rolled his Subaru – then fired it up again as if nothing had happened, to finish second – and further enhanced his legendary status across the world.

Stewart Weir’s reflections

Like former world sidecar champion Jock Taylor, killed in 1982, I have no doubt Colin McRae would have had continued motorsport success had he not lost his life, along with his son Johnny and two others in a helicopter crash in 2007. In his early days, as already mentioned, he earned the nickname “McCrash” following some massive accidents, but Colin was living up to his mantra – “if in doubt, flat out”. He might lose, or go off, but it was only because he was always trying for the win.

On a WRC event, after rearranging every panel on his Subaru, Colin crabbed his car along the road, the front and rear end appearing to be in dispute about what way they should be facing, as he headed into service.

“Is there a problem Colin?” an eager reporter enquired. “Aye, the tracking is a bit out.” On another occasion, after numerous woes and retirement, he revealed the engine had failed when “a tree went through it . . .”

Winning, whatever it took, was what drove him. He once said he was considering having a broken finger amputated, because it might prevent him driving. He was joking, I think. I had the good fortune to sit beside Colin on many an occasion, sometimes in the pub, other times blasting through a special stage; a privilege, an education and a thrill. The world always felt remarkably slow the next day…

18

Sandy Lyle

He was the Big Scot in Europe’s Big Five and Sandy Lyle would make a big impact. His spontaneous jig of joy on the 18th green at Augusta in 1988 would have drawn scorn from Craig Revel Horwood and the rest of the “Strictly” judges, but Lyle’s golfing footsteps would blaze a trail on the world stage.

The plaudits, as well as the prizes, were bountiful and thoroughly justified. “The greatest God-given talent in history,” said the late, great Seve Ballesteros of a player who was a Scot by blood rather than birthplace. “If everyone in the world was playing their best, Sandy would win . . . and I’d come second.”

For a spell, in the mid to late 80s, Lyle was the best golfer on the planet and was part of a formidable posse, including Nick Faldo, Ian Woosnam, Bernhard Langer and Seve, which launched a purposeful European assault on the global game.

Lyle conquered St George’s in 1985 to win the Open – the first by a Brit since Tony Jacklin in 1969 – while his memorable Masters success in 1988 – the bunker and that 7-iron – was the first ever by a player from the United Kingdom and sparked a four-year reign of British dominance in the opening major of the campaign. In between, he became the first international player to land The Players’ Championship title in 1987, the same year as he made his fifth and final Ryder Cup appearance.

The donning of the Green Jacket would be the pinnacle of this brief but barnstorming period of prosperity. Amiable, honest and always approachable, Lyle’s final regular-tour win would arrive in 1992 but, by that stage, his lasting impact on the game was already established.

Nick Rodger’s reflections

With the putter raised above his head in triumph and the dampness under his oxters highlighting the general lather-inducing nervousness of the nail-nibbling finale, Lyle’s jubilation upon winning the 1988 Masters remains one of golf’s enduring images.

It appears the meal of haggis he served up to those with more sensitive stomachs at the following year’s Champions dinner in the Augusta National clubhouse was rather enduring too. “Everybody had some on their plate . . . but most of it stayed on the plate,” said Lyle of his offer of that sturdy Scottish delicacy which left some diners looking greener than the famous jacket.

In his pomp, Alexander Walter Barr Lyle, served up some exceptional golfing fare. That aforementioned 7-iron from the fairway bunker on Augusta’s 18th, which whistled out of the sand and trickled down to within eight feet of the flag, remains a shot for the ages.

Born in Shropshire and the son of a Scottish professional, Lyle honed his game at the Hawkstone Park club near Shrewsbury. The pearls of wisdom and the gentle encouragement of his father, Alex, would have a lasting impact on a player who possessed an abundance of seemingly casual, natural talent.

“Even yet, every time I pick up a club I can hear his voice in my ear repeating the mantra, ‘Tempo not temper’,” reflected Lyle. “My dad always used to say, ‘Sandy, I don’t care what you might or might not achieve over the rest of your life. You’ve won the Open, you’ve won the Masters, if I die tomorrow then I will die a very happy man.’ I miss dad more than I can say, but console myself with the thought that he did just that.”

Read more: The 100 Greatest Scottish Sporting Icons day seven: We reveal numbers 28-23

After such a remarkable period of global plunder, Lyle’s final regular-tour win would arrive when he was just 34 – an age when many golfers are still waiting to hit the peak of their powers.

Despite his standing and conquests, Lyle, like the rest of his contemporaries in Europe’s “Big Five”, never did earn the Ryder Cup captaincy, a snub which cut deeply. There were self-made controversies which did him no favours on that front, of course. When he walked in after just 10 holes of a torrid, wind and rain-lashed first round of the Open at Birkdale in 2008 while sitting 11-over, many in golfing circles condemned his actions.

The following year at Turnberry, he opened a real can of worms when he accused Colin Montgomerie of a “form of cheating” after Monty’s controversial drop during the Indonesian Open of 2005. The public palaver that ensued between two of Scotland’s finest golfers was all rather unseemly. “We don’t send each other Christmas cards, put it that way,” said Lyle of this lingering animosity.

Despite such incidents, Lyle’s place in the pantheon of golfing giants cannot be denied. He was a truly great champion and remains a very fine man.

17

Jimmy Johnstone

Jock Stein once said one of his greatest achievements had been keeping the “wee man” in the game for a few more years that he might have otherwise stayed. Jimmy “Jinky” Johnstone was a tearaway. He was also a genius. Thankfully, he had the right manager who, for the most part, kept Celtic’s greatest ever player on the straight and narrow. Not that he ever played straight. This was a footballer blessed with a greater imagination than Michelangelo. Those fortunate enough to have watched him play knew what they were witnessing.

Born in Viewpark in deepest, darkest Lanarkshire, as a primary schoolkid the even littler Jinky would drive the neighbours underneath his parents’ house to distraction by dribbling a tiny ball around milk bottles.

His one and only book was by Stanley Matthews and the great winger’s methods were meticulously copied by Johnstone.

For hours he would practise on his own. In all weather. In the dark. Such dedication was to pay off and then some. At St Columba’s Primary, more than one teacher pushed him to become a footballer at a time when such dreams were ordinarily knocked out of the pupils. It wasn’t long before Celtic took notice.

He was no overnight sensation. While the Celtic supporters took to the ginger winger right away he was in and out the teams in his early years at the club. Everything was to change when Stein returned to Celtic Park in 1965. Johnstone became a superstar, a Lisbon Lion, winner of 18 medals and third place in the European Player of the Year in 1967.
Some performances almost defied belief.

The night he beat Red Star Belgrade all on his own, when Stein promised (falsely) that the notoriously bad flyer didn’t have to play in the return leg if he did the business, was just one of many master-classes. At Leeds United, dubbed the greatest team in the world, poor Terry Cooper was tortured invthe first leg of the European Cup semi-final. Many a Rangers player was left on his backside after Jinky’s 15th turn.

However, his finest night came at the Bernabeu for Alfredo di Stefano’s testimonial when 100,000 Spaniards chanted ‘ole, ole’ as the Scotsman ran rings around their team. The claim that Real bid £1 million for Johnstone that night was never fully rejected.

In the days when players such as he had more to fear than their counterparts of today, Johnstone was particularly brave. When fouled, he demanded the ball again. Kicked to the ground, he would get back on his feet knowing revenge would be the humiliation of his assailant.

It is not nostalgia talking. We will never see his likes again, although we nearly lost him when a now famous boating trip went ever-so-slightly awry.

His private life could be chaotic. He had a long battle with drink and then cruelly when he was sober and enjoying being a grandfather, motor neurone disease became the only opponent to get the better of him. Johnstone died in March 2006. The outpouring of grief from supporters from all clubs showed how much he meant to this country.

Neil Cameron’s reflections

Many years ago, Celtic invited some journalists along to preview a Jimmy Johnstone DVD and there was also a chance to interview him. Henrik Larsson and Alan Thompson sat in on the showing and fell about laughing when they saw for the first time how Johnstone tore apart Real Madrid at their own stadium. Neither had ever seen football played like that before.

And that sums up Johnstone. He was truly a one-off.

Thankfully there is enough footage for those of us who weren’t lucky enough to have seen him play. Take your pick from his greatest moments reel – which goes on forever. The two goals he scored at Ibrox in 1967, the day Celtic won the league title.

His performance for Scotland, just days after his mishap off the Largs coast, when England were beaten 2-0 and the Celtic man,
not always a favourite of that crowd, was unplayable.

He seemed to have a groin made out of iron. No defender
could guess which way he would turn next; perhaps because Johnstone didn’t know himself. He played on instinct and that instinct was to entertain the Celtic support who worshipped the ground he walked on.

Days after what was a suitably funny and entertaining funeral, Hugh McIlvanney, who himself is rightly on this list, wrote: “Solemnity was always handed its coat early in Jimmy Johnstone’s company and something as ordinary as death had no chance of altering that.”

He then quite brilliantly added: “When he was at his best, the performance was so extravagant and idiosyncratic, so full of wildly imaginative impertinences and a small [5ft 4in] man’s defiance of the odds that it touched us profoundly but lightly, as sport should. The natural reaction was not to gasp in awe, which would have been in order, but to smile or even to laugh out loud.”

Jimmy was always polite and helpful whenever you got the chance to interview him, almost as if he was unaware of his own greatness. Even when ill, he had a glint in his eye. To know him was to love the man.