Many of a Celtic disposition will tell you that the club's legendary manager, Jock Stein, never fully recovered from a horrific car accident on the A74. The same could be said of Tony Queen, whose car Big Jock was driving that fateful night in July 1975.
Left close to death by the crash, Tony was the most seriously injured of the five friends who were travelling together when their car was in collision with a car heading in the opposite direction on the road between Scotland and England.
If the two men had been close before, the recovery
period which both were forced to endure in Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary cemented their relationship for the remainder of their lives.
Unable to speak because of their conditions, both men communicated by passing - and often throwing - little hand-written notes to each other, much to the amusement of nursing staff.
Observers could have been forgiven for thinking that Celtic had an extra member of staff each time the club travelled abroad on their many European adventures in the 1960s and 1970s. Yet the name, Tony Queen, never appeared on any team sheet.
As a founder member of Celtic's Businessmen's Club, he followed the team wherever they went to Brazil, where he met Pele, or to Lisbon the day Celtic won the European Cup.
Such glamorous adventures must have seemed like a dream to the barefoot boy from the back streets of Glasgow, the background into which Tony Queen was born.
His father was unemployed so it was left to Tony's mother, Sissy, to organise the lad's
education. When she was
summoned to his school by
the headmaster, she feared
that the street-wise Tony had been involved in some form
of trouble, yet again. But
she was informed ''your son
is too clever for this school
and I would like you to consider putting him forward for
a bursary.''
At Glasgow's St Aloysius College, the youngster excelled under the strict Jesuit regime, particularly in Latin.
However, at the age of 14, Tony left school to begin an apprenticeship as a printer's compositor. When the Second World War began, he enlisted in the army and served in North Africa and Palestine, rising to the rank of sergeant. He remained in the service briefly after the war and was granted the commission of lieutenant.
Military life was exchanged for the close-quarters combat that marked the life of a bookie's runner in Glasgow, when one was required to be light on one's feet with a keen eye for the local constabulary coming around the corner. However, when the guardians of law and order learned of his army commission, this particular ''villain'' received significant leeway. A target for thugs, he was once confronted by a gunman who was amazed to see his victim continue walking, despite his fatal threat.
The assailant asked Tony where he thought he was going and was told, simply, ''follow me''. Several yards later, Tony turned into the door of the nearest police station and, funnily enough, the gunman disappeared.
Such bravado was to prove a useful asset during his long career as a bookmaker. Tony built up a business of 27 shops, selling to Reo Stakis in 1973. He had barely embarked on a new career in the licensed trade, with the Virginian in Miller Street and the cavernous New Orleans in Rutherglen, when he came close to death in that 3am crash at Lockerbie. Former Celtic player and manager Billy McNeill recalls that he would walk through Glasgow's city centre with Tony, basking in the fame of being the first British football captain to lift the European Cup. Yet all the shouts from jovial passers-by were for Tony. It was literally a case of ''who's that with Tony Queen?'' he said.
Although Tony moved to Bearsden in 1960, after his marriage to Bunty, the love of his life, he never lost sight of his roots and would regale friends and family with tales of his harum-skarum upbringing in the city's less salubrious
districts.
For several years, he had been a familiar face around Bearsden Cross, enjoying his daily walks with his youngest daughter, Janice.
Tony is survived by his five children Tony, Jeff, Marie, Karen, and Janice, his two
step-daughters, Anne and Helen, and 11 grandchildren, whom he adored.
Unusually, for one who made his fortune from games of chance, Tony never placed a bet. He would laugh: ''Gambling? That's a mug's game.''
Tony Queen, bookmaker; born March 23, 1918, died April
13, 2003.
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