Simp-Lee the Best

by Lee McCulloch

  Often when he was in the bath he would shout me through and ask me to run down to the shop for him because he wanted some chocolate, maybe a cake or two as well. His favourite saying for the chocolate run was, ‘Take your time going, son, but hurry when you’re on your way back.’ Genius. Tam was hard but in general quite fair.

  However, I remember on one occasion my dad lost the plot with him. We used to get free football boots from Motherwell but on one occasion I was told that the supply had been used up and there was nothing left for me. I went home and told dad he needed to go out and buy me new boots. He was having none of it. So, he marched up to Fir Park and demanded to see big Tam. He more or less got him by the scruff of the neck and told him it was unacceptable that I had to buy my own boots.

  The following day I had my boots from Tam. And by the way, he actually gave me two pairs. Now, of course, with Tam being a Rangers legend as part of the 1972 European Cup Winners’ Cup side, he works on match days visiting the Hospitality Lounges. I will sometimes bump into him. To this day, we still have a laugh about that episode and he always finishes with, ‘Mind and tell yer da’ I was asking for him.’

  I played in the BP Youth Cup team when I was on S-form at that time and that was good. I also got called up for a few reserve games and had the privilege of playing and training with the late, great Davie Cooper. Davie used to wear a big black bin bag under his training gear every day and then at lunchtime he would not stop eating chocolate digestives. He was the star player at Motherwell at the time and I was in awe of him and his talent. When I was lucky enough to play in the same team as him, at training he would say repeatedly, ‘Just give the ball to me.’

  Like any busy young kid would have done, I followed him around, watching his habits and trying to copy him. He used to say to me that he thought I was a decent young player and that I had a future in the game. But he then told me he thought I was too fat and would have to keep an eye on my waistline. That was fair comment, I suppose.

  I reckon I must have been a bit chubby at school as I never trained too much. So, Davie’s comments more or less put me on a diet for life! It was a privilege to get that wee taste of life with him. It was tragic that he died in 1995 from a brain haemorrhage at just thirty-nine years old. But it was fitting that the North Stand at Fir Park has been named after him.

  Tragedy has followed so many players at Motherwell from the 1990s. Jamie Dolan died in 2008 when he was just thirty-nine. Paul McGrillen took his own life at just thirty-seven. And there was Phil O’Donnell losing his life on the Fir Park pitch in 2007. Again, it was only right of Motherwell to name a stand after Phil.

  The time spent on work experience was beneficial and I must have made a good impression. Motherwell offered me the chance to join their YTS scheme as an apprentice footballer. But by this stage, Manchester City and St Johnstone also made it clear they wanted me to join them full-time. I decided I was going to sign for St Johnstone. They had an excellent youth set-up and had players coming through the ranks such as Callum Davidson and Phillip Scott. My heart was set on going there and I was prepared to move to Perth and live in digs. And then, in the summer of 1994, I was introduced to Alex McLeish.

  McLean and Forsyth had left Motherwell to take over at Hearts. McLeish was appointed as the new Motherwell boss. It was his first job in management after a hugely successful playing career with Aberdeen. John Park was Motherwell’s chief scout at that time and I had informed him I wouldn’t be accepting the club’s offer of a YTS and was going to St Johnstone. Motherwell weren’t best pleased and started to play funny buggers with me. Because I was an S-form with them they held my registration and weren’t prepared to release me to move to Saints. It got me down and weeks of wrangling started. This was just before Big Eck McLeish was appointed.

  I couldn’t understand why Motherwell were making life difficult for me and a course of action I wanted to take was to stand outside the main entrance at Fir Park with a bottle of wine and twenty cigarettes to make me look like a no-hoper. I was going to act drunk and cause a scene. In my infinite wisdom, I thought that would make them ditch me. Mum told not to be so stupid and there would be another way to sort it out to my satisfaction. She was right.

  John Park had spoken highly of me to McLeish but explained the situation to him. The new manager thought I was worth the effort and invited me and my parents into his office for a meeting. Our intentions were to tell him I was going to St Johnstone and there was nothing he could do to change our minds. We decided to meet him out of politeness.

  Big Eck was very polite and made a fuss of us all, particularly my parents. He told them his plans for the club and that youth would be given its chance. He was convincing and charming. Mum was putty in his hands. So was I. Within an hour I had signed a two-year YTS for Motherwell and it was all because of Big Eck. We were getting our pictures taken together and I was proud as punch. I think I was his first signing for Motherwell, although keeper Stevie Woods might have signed on the same day.

  There’s no doubt, looking back on it now, he had learned plenty from the Master – Sir Alex Ferguson. Big Eck’s man-management skills in his office that night were different class. He concentrated on my parents, told them everything they wanted to hear and they couldn’t resist. I was given £80 per week for my first year and £100 per week for the second year of my apprenticeship. Believe it or not, that was very good money back then for an apprentice footballer just out of school.

  I felt like a million dollars when I walked into Motherwell on my first day as a YTS footballer. I was proud of myself and vowed not to waste the opportunity I had been given. And it was only a two-minute walk to the front door. I was given my ‘duties’ on my first day and I had to look after Billy Davies, Paul Lambert and the gaffer. I had to make sure their boots were spotless and shiny and that all their training gear was there for them every morning. I’d get in at 8.30am and was often there until 5 at night. I also had to clean the shower rooms every day, and in the winter months I had to make sure the huge kit hampers were put on the Fir Park pitch overnight to try and beat the freeze. Back then, we didn’t have under-soil heating!

  My eleven YTS colleagues were a great bunch and we had brilliant times together. Garry Gow became a close friend. He was a typical goalie – daft as a brush and great fun. He was very opinionated and argumentative but great company. He grew very close to my family as we’d sometimes nip home to mine during the day for a cup of tea. He moved to Australia a few years ago and is happily married to Brie. I miss him.

  We were lucky to have a very good first-team dressing room. The senior players really took to us and looked out for us. They’d encourage the YTS lads – particularly Gowser and myself – to get involved in wind-ups, whether it was hiding the clothes of a team-mate or a set of car keys. We would mess about every day and verbally slaughter some of the first-team guys. We had no fear. Some of the senior pros loved our cheekiness, whether it was our patter or watching us having dance-offs to our rave music.

  We also had a couple of scams on the go. One was that we’d wash the first-team players’ cars for a fiver. We’d be hard at it with the buckets of water and the sponges but we found a huge hose at the other side of the ground and we used to drive the cars there. The first team, of course, were unaware we were driving their cars. Our little empire was going well until one day one of the lads crashed one of the cars into a taxi. The car belonged to Billy Davies and he was raging. The club got involved and it all got rather messy. Needless to say, that was the end of our venture into the world of business.

  But Billy Davies and Paul Lambert were good to me. They’d give me a few quid every now and again and always looked after me at Christmas time. To be fair, I think I earned it. Both of them were a pain in the backside when it came to their boots because they demanded I Tipp-Exed different logos onto their boots to protect their sponsorship deals. I’d have to do that every week because on match days the Tipp-Ex would come off after about ten minutes.

/>   One of the other wee scams we had going before I joined the YTS was with the match day tickets. We all got two tickets each. Craig Dargo also got two tickets but he stayed too far away to travel in. I used to get my big mate Chris ‘Tiffy’ Reid to go to the Fir Park ticket window and get Dargo’s tickets. He had to sign for them with Dargo’s signature. Then Tam Forsyth found out about it and he battered me all over the place.

  We also used to get McDonald’s gold cards. The league was sponsored by McDonald’s and all players got given cards that allowed us to eat free at any of their restaurants. It was brilliant. We were there four or five times a week. I gave mine to big Chris and he’d go into MacDonald’s with the ticket and would have to declare how he got the privilege tickets. He said he played for Motherwell. He was 6ft 4in, with really long hair and a big, hairy growth. A lady behind him in the queue heard him state he played for Motherwell and asked for her and her son to get a photo taken with him. The big man posed quite the thing. Absolutely no shame.

  As the weeks and months passed in the YTS I had a lot of time for our manager. Alex McLeish was a fabulous guy and made me feel so welcome and very relaxed. He loved a laugh and a joke with the young guys but would also exert his authority every now and again if ever he felt we needed to be reminded. One afternoon he called me away from cleaning the showers and into his room. He was getting dressed – stood half naked in front of me, if truth be told – and had his serious face on. He kept asking me, ‘Who am I?’ and I kept replying, ‘You’re the gaffer.’ This conversation went backwards and forwards at least half a dozen times. I had no idea where this was leading and I was panicking a little. He then pulled down his jumper from the peg and pointed to the logo on the left breast. He then asked me again, ‘Who am I?’ and I this time I said, ‘You are the Boss.’ He was wearing a Hugo Boss jumper. He said, ‘That’s right. I am the Boss. And don’t ever forget it. Now, fuck off.’ Then he started to laugh.

  He was great for me and I have absolutely no doubt I would not have made the grade as a full-time professional footballer had it not been for him. He was an unbelievable influence on me and just perfect at that stage of my career. He knew the game of football inside out, but more importantly, he knew the personalities of the players and what made them tick, how to get the best out of them. Like I said previously, definite touches of Sir Alex about him. There is no doubt he was a huge influence on Big Eck when he was manager of Aberdeen.

  I was also fortunate to have really good senior players at the club. The likes of Tommy Coyne, Rab McKinnon, Dougie Arnott, Lambert and Davies were very helpful. They could tell I was interested in learning the game and wanted to know what was required to keep progressing. Every day I would watch these guys train and it was an invaluable education, but it also left me with quite a bit of self-doubt and questions would gnaw away at me, most importantly, ‘Would I ever be good enough to get up to their standard?’ But I wasn’t for feeling sorry for myself and throwing in the towel. Quite the opposite. It made me work harder, ask more questions and listen more intently. I had gone from playing against kids on public parks to training with talented and experienced professionals. It was a huge step up but I had to, and was desperate to, take the challenge on.

  Tommy Coyne was very serious and analytical about the game. Young lad or not, he’d give me pelters if I didn’t do something right on the park. He was doing it for the right reasons but I had to stand there and listen to him going off on one. I could either go into my shell or stand up and be counted. I chose to show I had the balls for this game. It gave me the determination not to get another rollicking from him, not to repeat the mistake again. Owen Coyle was also very helpful. He always had time for the younger players. It didn’t surprise me he went on to become a very successful manager. His knowledge of the game is superb as are his man-management skills.

  As much as I enjoyed it in the YTS and we had our laughs and bits of mischief, I never forgot what I was actually at Motherwell to do. My only objective was to get through the YTS and sign professional forms. At the end of my first season the twelve YTS lads were called in for a meeting in the gaffer’s office. Unfortunately eight of the lads were released. I felt for them but that’s how cruel football is. I was kept on. I continued to work hard and tried to improve my fitness, first touch, my heading and my all-round game awareness. By this point I had a clear understanding of what I needed to do to try to make the grade.

  I was rewarded a few months later when the Boss took me off the YTS six months early and gave me a professional contract. I went from £100 per week to £250 per week and also had a £250 bonus every time I played for the first team. I felt like a millionaire. It was brilliant. But just as rewarding was when the Boss sat the rest of the YTS lads down and told them that I was to be their benchmark. If they worked hard and showed the right attitude they’d be able to follow in my footsteps and get a contract. That was very humbling. At the same time, Big Eck sat me down for a heart-to-heart. He told me I would need to make sacrifices to continue to progress in the game. He laid it on the line and pulled no punches.

  Away from football, I hung around with about a group of twenty guys, most of them from my school days. We used to get up to the usual stuff. Our meeting place, our ‘local’ if I can call it that, was the Fir Park café, just a free-kick from the ground. People used to come from far and wide to get their ice cream from there. We’d play pool there and the jukebox would be on.

  When I was at school we’d also go to a wee den on weekend nights and get absolutely blotto. We were away from civilisation in our wee hideaway. We’d try to get into pubs and discos, Philleas Foggs and Bar One. We’d hang around the Civic Centre as well. Most of us would hang around with white trainers on but we weren’t allowed entry into the disco with them on. One night, me, Tiffy and JP were so blitzed we decided to take our black socks off and put them over our trainers to make it look as though we had black shoes on. Needless to say, we were found out by the bouncers and chased away.

  A few of the lads in the group of friends I hung around with were into drugs and other stuff. The Boss made it clear I had to distance myself from that and I knew exactly where he was coming from. It was an easy choice for me to make but it was a difficult one to go through with. I had to cut my ties with them. I know a few of my pals thought I was a Billy Big-Time for doing so and that I had suddenly developed ideas above my station. A few of them slagged me off behind my back. I found that hard to take and was very disappointed.

  I knew my true friends would stick by me, such as big Tiffy and JP. I’d spoken to them about it and they backed my stance. They knew why I had to keep away. That’s true mates for you. I’ve been vindicated and I’d advise any young player to do the same. Don’t allow yourself any excuses. Even if it means you have no pals left, do the right thing. This was my time to truly become a man.

  Big Eck agreed with what I was doing and decided to loan me out to a couple of Junior teams to toughen me up and prepare me for life in the big, bad world. I had a spell at Cumbernauld United and that was a bit of an eye-opener, but not too bad. The main thing I remember about being there was the guys in the team came up with my nickname ‘Jig’, and it has stuck ever since. All sorts of reasons for me being called this have been floated but the story behind it is this. I scored a few goals for Cumbernauld and it made it into the local newspaper. The headline would scream out across the page, ‘Gigantic school kid scores again’. Now, because the first team used to always mention my ‘package’ then it all started from there, saying it’s ‘jiganourmous’ then that was shortened to ‘Jig’. So there you have it, and all rumours are put to rest!

  Eck then wanted to send me to Carluke Rovers and it caused a major argument with him and my mum. Serious words were exchanged during a telephone conversation and I thought it was going to end my Motherwell career. Mum said that I would end up getting seriously hurt and that she wasn’t going to stand back and allow this to happen. The Boss argued that the move would be the mak
ing of me. After a day or two of talks, the Boss got his way, and rightly so.

  However, a few weeks later I broke my ankle in a game for Carluke. When the Boss phoned the house to see how my recovery was going he was given a right ear bashing from Mum. My God, she let him have it with both barrels. I thought I’d be shown the door. However, another few weeks later, I was given a new contract.

  Deep down I think Big Eck probably admired my mum for being outspoken in that way. They hit it off the day he persuaded me to sign for the club and that fondness for one another is still there. If Eck had to walk into a room and see me, the first thing he’d ask is, ‘How’s Iris getting on?’ Guaranteed.

  Indeed I remember when he was Scotland manager and myself, Allan McGregor, Barry Ferguson, Kris Boyd and Alan Hutton had a drinking session at a hotel. There’s no doubt we’d had a few too many vodkas. We phoned SFA official Richard Simpson to come and join us. He was delighted to get an invite, that’s the kind of guy he was. When he arrived we poured a glass of orange juice all over him. Disgraceful behaviour. Appalling, in fact. He immediately went to Big Eck to report us, which, I suppose, was fair enough. Eck wasn’t pleased, but, I suspected, not particularly bothered either.

  He sat us down and had a word, telling Barry he should be setting a better example, that kind of thing. I was last in line and when he got to me, he looked straight at me and said, ‘Well, big man, what do you think Iris would think of you for doing this?’

  After I recovered from my ankle injury I started to play reserve games for Motherwell. I was progressing nicely. The Boss would pull me aside most days to tell me to concentrate, that I wasn’t far away from the first team. He told me that the first-team guys were all nervous that I was going to take one of their places. He would come away with little gems to me, telling me not to blow my chance and to make sure I would go on to have a career for the next fifteen or twenty years. He said to me, ‘Don’t be the guy in the pub shouting at the telly. Be the guy on the telly getting shouted at.’ I’ve never forgotten that.