28

Gary Armstrong

Introduced first by Jed-Forest then, almost immediately, by Scotland as a replacement for a clubmate who was also considered one of the all-time greats, Gary Armstrong went on to establish himself not only as the finest scrum-half but, according to Herald Sport’s ranking of Scotland’s 50 greatest rugby players, the best ever to represent his country.

Recognising the emergent talent, Roy Laidlaw – uncle of current Scotland scrum-half and captain Greig – had switched to stand-off at club level, even while he was still Scotland’s first-choice scrum-half in 1988, to accommodate Armstrong.

In a debut against arguably the greatest ever Wallabies side, Armstrong was recognised by the more knowledgeable rugby commentators as having more than held his own directly up against Australian captain Nick Farr-Jones.

What was, bizarrely, his only Lions tour brought a solitary Test appearance against Farr-Jones the following year and the pressures of amateurism on a man who was not one of rugby’s posh boys, meant he stepped away from the international game for a time in 1992/93.

Read more: The 100 Greatest Scottish Sporting Icons day six: The countdown continues with numbers 43-29

Not, though, before he was a central figure in Scottish rugby’s greatest success, the Grand Slam win of 1990, while it is no coincidence that Scotland has won nothing since his last year of international rugby when he led the team to the 1999 Five Nations Championship.The Herald:

Kevin Ferrie’s reflections

The first international match I covered for the Dundee Courier was Gary Armstrong’s debut in 1988. I remember thinking, and perhaps even foolishly saying out loud, that they had surely not just picked him on the basis that he was Roy Laidlaw’s deputy at club level.

Truth be told, I was also more impressed that day by the performance of another Borders half-back, Craig Chalmers, having played well for the under-21s in a curtain-raiser against a New Zealand Rugby News team that would include future All Black great Ian Jones.

It did not take long for realisation to dawn that – in what would become a great partnership – excellent as Chalmers was, there was something even more special about Armstrong.

By the time he made his return from self-imposed exile in 1994, I was commissioning a cartoonist to come up with a suitable image for Scottish Rugby Magazine demonstrating how Gary had single-handedly – one of his thumbs having been ripped out of its socket during the game – taken on the Irish to salvage a draw that avoided a Scottish whitewash that season.

Injuries would disrupt his career, but he was central to the Scotland successes that bookmarked the 1990s. It was Armstrong’s awareness of what was on and exploitation of narrow side space, jinking to take one man out, then cleverly pass out of the tackle of another, which gave Gavin Hastings enough time and room to put in the kick that Tony Stanger chased down to score the Grand Slam-winning try
in 1990.

Read more: The 100 Greatest Scottish Sporting Icons day six: The countdown continues with numbers 43-29

By 1999, Armstrong was Scotland’s inspirational captain as – with the midfield combination of John Leslie and Alan Tait also hugely influential in a campaign that saw Gregor Townsend score in every match – the last ever Five Nations Championship was won.

He retired from internationals after leading Scotland to that year’s World Cup quarter-final at Murrayfield in which they played well but lost, as ever, to the All Blacks.

However, his career having been saved by the sport going open, he continued to perform at the highest level for Newcastle Falcons for a further three years before winding down at Border Reivers, where he helped a callow Chris Cusiter learn his trade.

27

Dave Mackay

His pulse beat fastest for his beloved Hearts – who have won four Scottish titles; two of them in the 1800s, the third when Mackay was in the team in 1957/58 and the fourth in 1959/60 immediately after he left to join Tottenham Hotspur and their first Scottish Cup for half a century in 1955/56.

Demand for Dave Mackay’s ability made it inevitable that he spent the vast majority of a near 20-year career in England, however. Spurs would win the first ever English league and cup double, in 1961/62 – the second and, to date, last of their English league titles – three of the five
FA Cups they had won to that point of their history and their first European trophy, the 1962/63 Cup Winners’ Cup, with Mackay as their driving force.

Persuaded by Brian Clough to join Derby County in 1968, he led them into the first division and, while history repeated itself as he left the season before their first English title, he returned to the club and guided them to their second in 1974/75, the highlight of a 25-year managerial career that included lengthy spells in the Middle East as well as around England.The Herald:

Kevin Ferrie’s reflections

While Liverpool supporters would have been as amused as any Scot by the selection of Kevin Keegan ahead of Kenny Dalglish in the Royal Mail’s greatest British team of all time – weirdly released in stamp form to mark the 150th anniversary of England’s FA – Dave Mackay’s inclusion in that XI demonstrates the enduring reputation of a natural leader who was instrumental in creating winning environments which contributed significantly to the greatest successes in the history of three different clubs.

Those successes were principally achieved by leadership through example of the field of play and, while he is most readily remembered as a hard man in a tough era, thanks to one of the most famous football photographs of all-time as he grabbed fellow Scot and inspirational captain Billy Bremner by the scruff of the neck, Mackay disliked that image because he felt it wrongly portrayed him a bully.

In reality, he was a footballer of the highest class who was never sent off in the course of his career, suggesting he was responding to extreme provocation in keeping with Clough’s subsequent condemnation of that Leeds United team’s approach but, like it or not, it is a wonderful image that speaks to a very different era. Both players received a talking to, but not so much as an official caution.

26

Jim Baxter

If there is one game – accompanied by an individual performance – that optimises Scottish football, then the 1967 Home International between world champions England and Scotland must come damn close.

The result, a 3-2 victory for the Scots, would see them claim the title of “unofficial” world champions. If the outcome would rank among Scotland’s best, then, the memory of it will be accompanied forever by Jim Baxter’s display. Yes, others contributed to that win against Sir Alf Ramsay’s men, who less than a year earlier had won the World Cup at the same venue, but Baxter, arguably the most gifted Scottish player of a high-class generation, would be the star of the show.

It all looked so easy for the former miner. That was because it was, even when many a time he was feeling the effects of bevvying the previous night, or day, or week. It would take its toll, despite team-mates and friends pleading with him to forgo his chaotic lifestyle.

After two years on national service with the Black Watch, Baxter moved from Raith Rovers to Rangers for a record £17,500 fee and a basic wage of £22 a week. Baxter was the diamond in the Gers line-up that won titles and reached a European final.

Read more: The 100 Greatest Scottish Sporting Icons day six: The countdown continues with numbers 43-29

However, he was not quite the same player after breaking his leg in 1964 in a European Cup tie against Rapid Vienna and Rangers boss Scot Symon had already concluded that Baxter, mainly due to his off-field activities, was in decline.

In May 1965 he moved to Sunderland for £72,500. After 98 games and 12 goals, in December 1967 Baxter was sold for £100,000 to Nottingham Forest. A few months earlier, Baxter – who had scored twice at Wembley in 1963 in arguably his best game for Scotland, a few months prior to representing a Rest of the World side against England – had been peerless, unplayable as Scotland delivered England’s first defeat as world champions.

There was no title on the line, of course, but that didn’t prevent Scots then – and even now – ignoring that minor detail. Baxter taunted and teased the English, playing keepie-uppy, while giving Alan Ball the run-around, baiting him with cries of “come on wee Jimmy Clitheroe”, likening Ball to the diminutive English comic of the time.

For the record, Denis Law, Bobby Lennox and Jim McCalliog scored for Scotland. Sadly and simply, it never got that good again for Baxter. He only won two more caps after that England game and returned to Rangers in 1969. The following year, he quit football. Wonderful as that April day at Wembley was, it was ultimately only part of a failure. Having failed to reach the World Cup in ’66 and despite that Wembley triumph, Scotland failed to reach the European Championships finals after only drawing 1-1 in the reverse fixture at Hampden; a battle won, a war lost.The Herald:

Stewart Weir’s reflections

Back in 1994, after Jim Baxter had just received a liver transplant and there was still no indication whether it had been successful, I asked the late Ian Archer and Bob Crampsey the question, “just how good was Jim Baxter?”

“Bert” (Crampsey) thought for a moment, then rhymed off a list of players, household names from the 30 years since Baxter was in his pomp. There were none he considered as naturally talented or gifted, or “gallus” as Baxter.

It was just that none of them had “self-handicapped themselves quite like Baxter,” he reckoned. “Dan” (Archer) agreed with the all-star list, but added the name “Gazza”. Hugely ironic, given certain parallels that can now be drawn between the pair.

25

John Greig and the Rangers European Cup Winners’ Cup team

In 1999, John Greig was awarded the accolade of being the greatest ever Rangers player. Captaining the club to its biggest success – the European Cup Winners’ Cup – only embellished his citation because, even without that win in Barcelona, Greig would still have finished ahead of some of the biggest names in the club’s history. Not bad for someone who will always confess, first and foremost, to being a Hearts fan.

His list of achievements is impressive; no-one has made more league appearances for Rangers and, while he played almost entirely as wing-half or full-back, he scored 120 goals for the club. Twice a winner of the Scottish Player of the Year award, Greig skippered Rangers to two trebles in three years before becoming the club’s manager in 1978. He also famously captained Scotland when they became the first nation to defeat world champions England, while his last-gasp strike against Italy was one of the most memorable goals ever scored at Hampden.

But, on the field, it will be Greig’s part in seeing Rangers to European success that will always endear him most to supporters. Twice previously, Rangers had reached the Cup-Winners’ Cup final – first in 1961 when they lost to Fiorentina over two legs, then in 1967 to Bayern Munich when Greig himself played.

Having seen off French side Rennes and Sporting Lisbon (Rangers only avoiding elimination once it was confirmed away goals and not a failed penalty shoot-out had decided the tie), a 2-1 aggregate score was enough to account for Torino in the last eight. That set up a semi-final against Bayern again and Rangers put together two magnificent displays to see off the Germans, a 1-1 draw in Munich followed by a 2-0 win at Ibrox, the late Sandy Jardine netting the first from long range, the second, coming from Derek Parlane, making his European debut and deputising for the injured Greig.The Herald:

This would also rate as one of the all-time great results by a Scottish club in Europe, given the Munich side provided such a significant part of the West German squad that would win the European Championship later that summer and the World Cup two years hence.

It was also the bulk of the Bayern team that would win three-successive European Cups between 1974 and ’76. Beating Bayern was, to many, the final before the final. Rangers only had to turn up in Barcelona to win. In the decider at the Nou Camp they went 3-0 up on Moscow Dynamo inside
50 minutes, two from Willie Johnston and a raking finish from Colin Stein. The Russians scored twice before the end to make it a worrying last few minutes for players and fans alike.

Rangers held on but, because of crowd trouble, Greig – still sporting his “lucky” beard, having been unable to shave following a training accident early in the competition – was presented with the trophy in the dressing room. A low-key, even embarrassing conclusion to what was Greig’s and the club’s finest hour.

Stewart Weir’s reflections

As Rangers manager, Greig’s failure to win the championship ultimately cost him his job and meant that, for a period of time, this legend of the club had no part to play in or around Ibrox.

He would return to an ambassadorial role and later, with a media post before again being ostracised by a different regime. As was said, on the field, Barcelona was Greig’s greatest achievement as a player. However, that triumph came less than 18 months after the darkest day in the history of the Scottish game when 66 fans perished in the Ibrox Disaster.

No value can ever be put on John Greig’s leadership, strength and dignity in the aftermath of that fateful day and his presence then was equal to anything he brought on the pitch.

24

Graeme Souness

When Graeme Souness was sold by Spurs, he arrived at Middlesbrough with a reputation for being cocky and lippy. Neither trait particularly endeared him to a new manager who would also soon arrive, England World Cup winner Jack Charlton, who quickly told him there were two roads he could go down – one would lead to oblivion, the other could take him to a decent career.

Souness might also have landed lucky at Ayresome Park when he found himself playing alongside first Nobby Stiles, another 1966 winner, and latterly Bobby Murdoch, formerly of Celtic and who, like Stiles, was a European Cup winner.

Souness developed as a player after Charlton had switched him to a more central role and by 1977, he had joined then-European Cup holders Liverpool for what was at that time a record fee of £352,000. He helped them to a further three successes in that competition, including captaining them to victory in the ’84 final against Roma, before joining Italian club Sampdoria.

In 1986, however, Souness was named player-manager of Rangers ahead of Scotland heading out to the World Cup in Mexico, so setting in train a series of events that transformed the Scottish domestic game.

It was never dull with Souness around.

In his opening game against Hibs at Easter Road, Souness was sent off for a cynical kick on George McCluskey. Having won the League Cup and League title in his first season, Souness would steer Rangers to other titles and trophies, but would do so while often being at odds with those who ran the game north of the Border.

He would also break various transfer records along the way as he bought the best talent from England. He would eventually leave to re-join Liverpool in 1991, but by then, he had set Rangers on their way to winning nine-in-a-row.The Herald:

Whether appearing in the TV series Boys from the Blackstuff, his crunching challenge on Siggi Jonsson while on Scotland duty in Iceland, that debut red card against Hibs, his X-rated tackle on Gheorghe Rotariu of Steaua, signing Maurice Johnston, steering Liverpool to an FA Cup final win days after open-heart surgery, planting the Galatasaray flag in the middle of arch-rivals Fenerbahce’s pitch, or, being dismissive of his fellow Sky Sports experts, Graeme Souness has always done it his way.

Stewart Weir’s reflections

Graeme Souness is entirely charming and pleasant these days, as most 60-somethings are.

As a player, and especially during his time when he was Rangers manager, when I regularly came in to contact with him, he could be equally nice, insightful and even very funny.

There was however, always a hint of menace when dealing with him. He would conduct press conferences, standing, usually in the foyer at Ibrox, usually looking at his shoes.

If you asked a question and he looked up, you were never sure if he was going to chastise you, or nod in agreement. However, at least you were safe in the knowledge he couldn’t kick you . . . well, I don’t think he could . . .

23

Jim Watt

Just last Saturday in Herald Sport, former boxing impresario Tommy Gilmour said he believed that no all-Scots title fight has, in 44 years, come close to matching the British lightweight title fight between
Ken Buchanan and Jim Watt on what was the opening night of Glasgow’s St Andrew’s Sporting club.

Buchanan had recently lost his world title and, while he would beat Watt over 15 rounds to again claim the Lonsdale Belt, the decade would ultimately end with Watt champion of the world.

Read more: The 100 Greatest Scottish Sporting Icons day six: The countdown continues with numbers 43-29

Watt’s switch to work with Terry Lawless in 1976 gave the Scottish southpaw more promotional opportunities, eventually leading to the undefeated European champion’s tilt at the world crown in April 1979 against Colombian Alfredo Pitalua (pictured).

While never a devastating puncher, the accumulative effect of Watt’s accuracy, did for many an opponent, including Pitalua who succumbed in the 12th.

Watt made his first defence later that year, stopping Roberto Vasquez, his next in March 1980 against Charlie Nash, who had accused the Glasgow fighter of “bottling” a visit to trouble-torn Northern Ireland. However, despite a first-round knockdown at the Kelvin Hall, Watt rallied to fell Nash four times before stopping him in the fourth.

As an amateur, Watt had refused a place at the 1968 Mexico Olympics. He now faced 1976 Olympic gold medal and Val Barker Trophy winner (presented to the best boxer at an Olympiad) Howard Davis.

At a rain-soaked Ibrox, Watt turned in a faultless exhibition over 15 rounds to keep his crown.

In comparison, his last successful defence (Watt’s four defences were only surpassed by a fellow Scot when Scott Harrison beat his mark in 2003) was like a street fight. The Herald:

Cut over one eye by Oklahoma’s Sean O’Grady, Watt fought a rearguard action against “The Bubblegum Kid” before a clash of heads in the 10th left O’Grady, ahead on points at the time, bleeding profusely from a gash on his forehead. He was stopped in the 12th.  Watt eventually lost his world crown to Nicaraguan ring legend Alexis Arguello in June 1981,
at the Wembley Arena over 15 rounds. He then embarked on a career in broadcasting, first with ITV and then Sky Sports.

Stewart Weir’s reflections

Watt’s fight against O’Grady resonates with me for a number of reasons – first, it was often discussed in the old Evening Times office by John Quinn and Alan Davidson, who covered the 3am fight on November 1, before 12 hours later, re-convening at Ibrox to see Rangers beating Celtic 3-0 with Colin McAdam scoring twice.

Similarly, so did a mate of mine, Tam “The Blooter” Kennedy and his pal “Curwood”. They’d attended the fancy dress Hallowe’en Party at a local club – Blooter dressed as a US cavalry officer, Curwood as an Apache Indian. Once in their expensive seats at the Kelvin Hall they attracted the attentions of O’Grady’s sister in the audience.

Things were progressing with Scots-American relations until the 10th round when a clash of heads split O’Grady from nose to hairline. Blooter’s yell, to “knock the Yank’s head off” soured relationships between the Indian chief and O’Grady’s distraught sister. As I wrote once: “not even offers of a peace pipe, a powwow and a chance to visit the two-bedroom wigwam in Netherton could win the sister around.”

Blooter and Curwood hung around Glasgow for breakfast, and yes, like Quinn and Davidson, headed to Ibrox, still attired like something out of She Wore A Yellow Ribbon.

I related this tale to Jim Watt (who was also a good friend of John Quinn) one evening in the bar at Gleneagles. While Watt was putting
the work in, even he felt the “feel-good” factor emanating across Scottish sport and especially boxing, which even with more recent champions, has just never hit those heights . . .