The 100 Greatest Scottish Sporting Icons day nine: Numbers 16-11 revealed

Altogether now . . . Simpson, Craig, Gemmell, Murdoch, McNeill, Clark, Johnstone, Wallace, Chalmers, Auld, Lennox. It is a sequence that trips off the tongue, but among them one stood that bit taller. No other person in Celtic’s history has given the club so many great memories.

As a player, Billy McNeill won 23 trophies. During his two spells as manager, eight further cups were added to the collection. That only tells half the man’s story at best.

It was he, Big Billy, who alone lifted the European Cup on that day in May as his team-mates were kept back in the dressing room. There he stood, with sweat dripping off him and strong arms dealing with the famous silverware, striking a pose in front of the jubilant supporters.

With his boots on, he scored the winner in Celtic’s 1965 Scottish Cup final win over Dunfermline, the day that started it all. He was captain during all of nine-in-a-row, two trebles, many doubles, another European Cup final and two semi-finals.

With his suit on, three times Rangers were beaten in cup finals, the double in Celtic’s centenary year was secured in a season many claim to be their favourite and then there was the night 10 men won the league. Only Jock Stein is ahead of him in the list of Celtic all-time greats.

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

There have been better centre-halves in the history of Scottish football, but no captain ever fitted the role better than ‘Cesar’. McNeill was never injured. He played more than 800 games for the club he supported. When you add in his spell as manager ,he gave service for over 1200 matches.

Jock Stein said his Celtic would not have been as successful if McNeill had not been such an inspirational leader. Where Stein went, his skipper wasn’t far behind. The two had their moments but they shared a special bond.

McNeill fits comfortably into this list. Not just for his achievements as footballer and manager but also because he is a brilliant bloke. No airs or graces, unlike some others who haven’t held aloft the European Cup.

The Lions are immortal. They achieved something no other Scottish football team will ever do. They did so with style and flair. Everyone loved them. Even Inter Milan, defeated in 1967, came to realise that the best side won in Lisbon.

Celtic were 1-0 down against a bunch of players who were born to defend. The No.5 kept calm, made sure his team-mates retained focus and after a few choice words at half-time, Celtic destroyed the holders and champions of Italy.

McNeill and his men were not finished. They just kept winning and winning. They are British football’s greatest. They paved the way for the English success which was to come. Celtic were the first. That makes them stand out.

Because of McNeill’s incredible playing career, his years as manager – he spent a successful time with Aberdeen as well – tend to be overlooked.

Apart from the trophies, McNeill bought Murdo MacLeod, Davie Provan and Frank McGarvey to the club for buttons. Charlie Nicholas and Paul McStay were given debuts. This was at a time when Aberdeen were managed by Alex Ferguson and Jim McLean was doing his thing at Dundee United, and yet Celtic managed to win leagues and cups.

Brought back as a club ambassador in 2009, there is no living Celt more beloved. It doesn’t matter what scarf you wear, everyone respects Big Billy. We have been lucky to have him.

Neil Cameron’s reflections

A grand statue of McNeill now greets visitors to Celtic Park. It is a fitting tribute for someone who will never be replaced.

I was part of a group of journalists who were put in a small pen as we awaited McNeill’s arrival with former team-mates and the current Celtic team when the statue was unveiled last year.

The affection towards the great man from the supporters was genuine and us hacks, all naturally cold hearted and cynical, were genuinely moved. We all knew tribute was being paid to a special man.

I have watched McNeill buy drinks for punters in Valencia the night before a game. He would chat happily with people who couldn’t quite get their head around the fact a legend was spending time with them. You wouldn’t mess. Reporters back in the day tell tales of getting an angry phone call if one had dared criticise one of his players.

However, his good humour meant he never bore a grudge and even those who were on the receiving end of his harsh words just took it because, well, because it was Billy McNeill.

Few in the history of Scottish sport have won so much at the very highest level. His career was remarkable, as was the dignified way he carried himself at all times.

Hero. Legend. Good bloke.

15

Stephen Hendry

When Ian Doyle went to watch his son play in a junior tournament, he returned with Stephen Hendry as his first signing.

He had only started playing snooker as a 12-year-old on a table his dad Gordon had bought as a Christmas present, yet Hendry was a professional by age 16, having already appeared on TV in the Junior Pot Black tournament.

His path to the top was charted by manager Doyle. He helped Hendry in many ways, but arguably one of his cleverest decisions was to pitch the teenage Scot in to a six-night exhibition tour with world champion and world No.1 Steve Davis. Hendry lost on all six evenings, but the lesson he learned from the masterclass delivered by Davis was something he never forgot.

He saw first hand what it took to be a champion. Arriving on the scene so young and given his unbelievable talent, Hendry was bound to start setting records as the youngest player to achieve a whole string of feats on the green baize.

The ultimate prize however, the World Championship, would eventually be his in 1990, Hendry beating his boyhood hero Jimmy White to take the title at 21, to become the youngest winner of the trophy, one of the records he still holds.

Hendry made The Crucible his own during the 90s, as he had done at Wembley, with five consecutive wins at the Masters. In total, Hendry won seven world titles, a record that is still his own in the modern era, the last of those in 1999 when he beat Mark Williams in the final after an epic semi-final – regarded as one of the best matches ever – against Ronnie O’Sullivan.

He also captained Scotland to the World Cup in 1996 and the Nations Cup in 2001.

By the time he retired, Hendry had amassed 36 rankings titles, 775 century breaks, including 11 competitive maximum breaks. He signed off at The Crucible with one against Stuart Bingham, on his way to reaching the quarter-finals for the 19th time.

The debate on whether Hendry was the greatest player of all-time will always see him pitched against Davis, O’Sullivan and John Higgins. Make it the greatest winner and Hendry wins hands down.

Stewart Weir’s reflections

I worked around and with Stephen for more than two decades. His work ethic would embarrass other ‘professional’ sportsmen, while he was also a dream for sponsors and media. 

He had some real battles on the green baize, but his biggest fight was off-table. Quite simply, Hendry was never given the credit he deserved as he was constantly pitted against Jimmy White and Ronnie O’Sullivan, the darlings of the tabloids, who could do no wrong. That was exemplified in ’94, when one hack was forced to break off from phoning in his copy about White putting his Crucible hoodoo to bed, to watch Hendry take his fourth world title.

Hendry did reach one more world final in 2002, against Peter Ebdon in a last-frame decider. He should have won that one, if only so I could have shifted several boxes of ‘Hendry the Eighth’ t-shirts.

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

His career, however, took a downward turn when his cue, was smashed in transit by airport baggage handlers. It wouldn’t mend, and people sent possible replacements from all over Britain, but he couldn’t find a match.

His management company threatened to ‘sue for millions’ – they’d already handed over £10,000 years earlier when the cue was ‘kidnapped’. Eventually the insurers offered a settlement figure; forty quid, exactly the price it was purchased for pointing out that it wasn’t the cue that was magic, but the guy holding it …

14

Jim Clark

The question, ‘who was the best F1 driver of all time?’ will always spark a debate. Many will suggest the late, great Brazilian Ayrton Senna as a worthy contender. Now imagine having a Scot rated every bit as highly –
if not higher – than Senna. Then, you might get close to appreciating the talent of one, Jim Clark.

Born into a farming family and sent to private school, Clark passed his driving test aged 17 and started to enter a series of races, rallies and tests. His prowess was quickly recognised, with wealthier friends presenting him with an array of sports cars to drive.

In 1958, Clark found himself racing at Brands Hatch at the wheel of a Lotus Elite where he impressed the race winner in a similar car – none other than Lotus founder Colin Chapman, who offered the Scot the chance to race a Lotus Formula Junior. Two years on and Clark was promoted to the Lotus F1 team.

His first race however, almost turned him against motorsport when Stirling Moss was seriously injured at Spa and in the same weekend, Chris Bristow and Clark’s team-mate Alan Stacey were killed.

Chapman convinced Clark to stay and their relationship brought a first Grand Prix win for Clark, ironically, the Belgian Grand Prix around Spa.

The 1962 world championship slipped from his grasp in the last race when his car developed an oil leak (an identical fate would befall him again in 1964), but in 1963 Clark was crowned Formula One world champion winning seven races. He won another six in 1965 to take a second F1 title.

That same year, Clark – who in ’64 further showed his dexterity and versatility by driving a Lotus Cortina to take the British Touring Car Championship – arrived in the USA and beat the Americans in their own back yard by taking the Indianapolis 500 in a special Lotus constructed by Chapman for racing at the famous ‘Brickyard’ oval.

Clark began 1968 by eclipsing Fangio’s record with a 25th GP win in South Africa. Tragically, however, in an F2 race at Hockenheim in April, a tyre deflated on Clark’s car, pitching him in to the trees. He was 32.

Stewart Weir’s reflections

I can remember the news coming through on that Sunday afternoon. The TV was turned up, then off after Clark’s death was confirmed. The air of disbelief was palpable. Everyone knew how dangerous motor racing was back then, but surely not Jim Clark?

He may have lived a jet-set lifestyle as a works Formula One driver, but Clark was seldom happier than when back on the land. His last resting place is in the churchyard at Chirnside. Clark’s gravestone lists his achievements, including his OBE, but is capped, simply, by ‘Farmer’.

13

David Wilkie

To say that the American men’s swimming team was dominant at the Montreal Games in 1976 would be an understatement of Olympian proportions. Even their drug-fuelled East German female counterparts, who won 11 of the 13 gold medals available to them, could not match their prowess in the pool where they claimed two thirds of the medals in total and all bar one gold.

It is against that background that the late Alan Weeks’ near hysterical commentary on the 200 metres breaststroke final and the failed bid
of the defending champion, one of the stars of that American team, to retain his title, must be set.

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

John Hencken, the American in question and the 100-metres breaststroke champion at that same Olympics, had touched the wall first at the halfway point, but he was overhauled in the next 50 and left trailing down the final length in the wake of the Scot who was instantly identifiable because, odd though it seems now, he alone was wearing swim hat and goggles.

“David Wilkie is absolutely superb,” roared Weeks as the 22-year-old – very much possessed of that 70s look, moustachioed and long-haired – powered to victory, slicing more than three seconds off Hencken’s world record as he did so.

In fairness it was far from a shock.  Born in Sri Lanka, he was introduced to the sport at the Colombo Swimming Club and had developed at the Warrender club after being sent to boarding school in Edinburgh, going on to become an early British beneficiary of the American scholarship system. In doing so, he effectively used their methods against them in Montreal, so much a product of that system that he admitted afterwards to having felt the need to accentuate his commitment to Great Britain in the course of the event and he was unbeaten in 200m breaststroke races for four years prior to competing at the Olympics.

He retired a month after as British, Commonwealth, European, World and Olympic champion and remains the only Scottish swimmer to have won an individual gold medal at an Olympics, Belle Moore – still the youngest British woman to have won Olympic gold – having done so as part of the 4x100m freestyle relay team in 1912.

Kevin Ferrie’s reflections

Wilkie sparked a sequence of success that contributed to men’s breaststroke becoming a very special event for British swimming, with Duncan Goodhew, Adrian Moorhouse, Nick Gillingham, Michael Jamieson and, most recently, Adam Peaty achieving great things in Olympic pools.

Moorhouse’s account of how Wilkie’s swim inspired him as a youngster who was just beginning to compete, would even seem to go some way to justifying claims that have been made about the ‘legacy’ effects of medal-winning success in terms of inspiring future generations.

It has long been obvious that such linkage between elite success and the encouragement of increased participation leading to wider public health benefits is bogus, however, as was most recently highlighted in BBC Scotland’s ‘The Medal Myth.’ During that programme academic evidence was provided to debunk that connection, but the best was provided by Jamieson, the Scot who came within fingertips of emulating Wilkie’s achievement when he set a new British record but was pipped by Hungary’s Daniel Gyurta in the 200m breaststroke final at the London Olympics, as he set a new world record.

“When I grew up as a kid learning to play football and play basketball, cross country running, swimming, it was just about being active,” said Jamieson. “General activity was the real passion for me at a young age and trying to learn all these new skills.

“For someone who’s fairly inactive, who lives a fairly sedentary lifestyle, is at home watching sport I don’t think there’s going to be a lightbulb moment where they automatically think I’m going to change my life, I’m going to become an athlete, I’m inspired by this performance.”

The real lesson from David Wilkie’s success and what has followed is the importance of environments. Those in which youngsters are introduced to sport, playing with friends can have health benefits for the wider populace. However, as Jamieson so eloquently explained, it is quite another matter to offer the facilities and support required for the tiny percentage of people who have both the talent and commitment required to achieve at the highest level. That can benefit only those who have had the chance to take part in sport at an early age, disproportionately favouring the well to do.

12

Eric Liddell

Ian Smith, ‘The Flying Scot’ whose achievements were recorded early in this series, was one of rugby’s greatest ever finishers, but he might never have had his opportunity had the man he replaced in the team not had different sporting priorities in 1924.

In fairness, Smith directly replaced one Chris Mackintosh, whose solitary cap was earned in what was then a rather embarrassing defeat in Paris, but the man who had played on the right wing throughout the previous year’s Five Nations Championship would have been rather more difficult to replace.

Eric Liddell’s international strike rate of four tries in seven matches bears decent comparison with that of Smith and that year his sights were most certainly set on a sporting trip to Paris, but not to play rugby.

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

Long regarded as the fastest man in Scotland, his faith meant he could
not contemplate competing on the Sabbath, which ruled him out of what was considered his best event, the 100 metres, because the heats were to be run on a Sunday.

As one journalist of the era reported: “Liddell has already decided that the race he has chiefly to run in the world is not on the cinder track.”

With both the 4x100m and 4x400m relays ruled out for the same reason, he was aware of the schedule sufficiently early to adapt his training regime to switch to the 400 metres, but even then the difference in disciplines was such that it seemed unlikely that he could be competitive.

Consider, too, that in the midst of a heatwave in the French capital, the 400m semi-finals and final were run on the same day; that Liddell, having got that far, found himself in what was then as now considered the unfavourable outside lane; and that inside him was Horatio Fitch, the leading American contender who had broken the world record in the semi-final.

“There was a gasp of astonishment when Liddell was seen to be a clear three yards ahead of the field at the half distance,” the Press Association would report.

“Nearer the tape Fitch and Butler strained every nerve and muscle to overtake him but could make absolutely no impression on the inspired Scot.

“With head thrown back and chin thrust out in his usual style he flashed past the tape to win what was probably so far the greatest victory of the meeting. Certainly there has not been a more popular win. The crowd went into a frenzy of enthusiasm.”

He retired from sport soon after to focus on his studies before returning to China, the country of his birth, to pursue the same vocation as his parents, as a missionary in a poverty and war ravaged corner of the world. Asked in late years whether he ever missed the cut and thrust of competition, Liddell – who, imprisoned in an intern camp by the invading Japanese, would die aged just 45 as a result of a brain tumour – replied: “It’s natural for a chap to think over all that sometimes but I’m
glad I’m at the work I’m engaged in now. A fellow’s life counts for far more at this than the other.”

Maybe so, but rightly or wrongly it is as a great sportsman that he is principally remembered.

Kevin Ferrie’s reflections

Long-time Herald Sport contributor Alan Lorimer has, for many years, dined out on having been among the runners whose legs are pictured striding across St Andrews’ West Sands to the sound of Vangelis’ rousing theme tune, but he is by no means the only sports lover who should feel deep gratitude to the producers of ‘Chariots of Fire’, the 1981 cinematic homage to two magnificent athletes.

Some sneer at the artistic licence applied, which saw historical accuracy sacrificed to accommodate dramatic tension, but no more compelling or evocative sports movie has ever been made and without it little would be known of Eric Liddell, the great all-round sportsman, just as, without his sporting career, even less would be known of astonishingly brave people like Liddell and his parents who undertook such selfless work in the name of their God.

11

Alan Wells

The mini-movie ‘No Easy Way: Allan Wells, One Man’s Olympics,” is a fairly early example of a documentarist recognising the opportunity to follow an athlete through the build-up to a major event and getting the right man.

It takes its title from a quote of Wells: “There’s no easy way.
They say dedication but I dinna’ think that word comfortably covers it because I think it’s madness just about.”

Around midway through that film, Lyn Davies, then the British team manager and a gold medallist at the 1964 Olympic Games in the long jump – the discipline in which Wells first appeared on the national scene – discusses, during a warm weather training camp, Wells’ approach.

“For want of a better word he really is a fanatic,” he said. “I’m not saying the other athletes are not dedicated or committed in their approach, but Allan is totally committed. In some ways they are very good qualities and in others they appear to be selfish and ego-seeking and everything else. But when you look at levels of competition today, unless you are totally committed there’s no way you’re going to win an Olympic gold medal.”

Few knew much about Wells until he won Commonwealth Games gold, not in the 100 metres, but over 200 metres in 1978, pipped in the shorter race by Don Quarrie. Little wonder that he is filmed saying, after the first of the Olympic heats in which he had edged the Jamaican out:
“I wanted to beat that bugger, because I knew he wanted to beat me.”

Pitted in a quarter-final in which four of the heat winners were up against one another, Wells won again and his semi-final before meeting the other favourite, Cuban Silvio Leonard, for the first time in the final. Bizarrely they were placed in the outside lanes, making it all the harder to judge, even on slow motion, until it was finally confirmed that Wells was the victor.

This time it was the other way around as he finished runner-up in the 200 metres final, but he was the only man to win a medal in both, neither of the gold or bronze medallists in the 200, having made it to the 100-metres final.

It was an Olympics blighted by an American boycott while, although he ran in a British vest, Great Britain has no real claim on his medal, the Thatcher government having turned its back on the athletes in supporting an American boycott.

Wells’ response to the claim that his medal had been devalued by the absence of the Americans was to accept an invitation to race them in Germany two weeks later. Up against a quartet of them, which included 1984 Olympic champion Carl Lewis, Wells made his point.

His achievements have also been blighted by accusations of drug taking which were encapsulated in a BBC Panorama programme two years ago, with Drew McMaster, who has admitted to doping and was Wells’ team-mate in that 1978 Commonwealth Games gold medal winning relay team which also featured another confirmed drug cheat in David Jenkins, his chief accuser. Wells has consistently and firmly rebutted all such claims.

Kevin Ferrie’s reflections

Since they find themselves alongside one another on this list it seems particularly apt that when asked whether he saw his Olympic gold medal win in 1980 as a suitable tribute to Harold Abrahams, the previous Briton to have won the 100 metres title having died just two years earlier, Allan Wells reportedly replied: “No, this one is for Eric Liddell.”

Keep in mind that the movie ‘Chariots of Fire’, which heightened awareness of the roles played by Liddell and Abrahams in the 1924 Olympics, had yet to be released, hitting the big screen the following year and Wells’ awareness of what he had achieved seems all the more telling.

A proud Scot who had generated nothing short of astonishment when, as a 26-year-old, he won the 200 metres at the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, just two years after switching to sprinting – also claiming gold in the 4x100m relay with McMaster, Cameron
Sharp and David Jenkins – he clearly knew his history and that with his Olympic win he was winning for Scotland a prize that it might have claimed 56 years earlier, but for Liddell’s moral stand.

Whatever accusations may have been levelled at him what meanwhile emerges in the ‘No Easy Way…’ documentary is that deep intensity to which Davies made reference, but which is also accidentally highlighted by wife Margot – also his training partner who would become something of a sprint guru in her own right – when asked between the Olympic 100m semi-final and final how Allan would prepare.

“He’ll just read his book. I think he’s reading now ‘Forty Years of Murder’,” she said, giggling, before adding: “He’s reading two . . . ‘Nuremburg Trials’ and ‘Forty Years of Murder’.”

He was, admittedly, mentally preparing to take down the gunslingers of the track.