by Martin Greig
“Pah! When?”
“When I was f-f-f-fourteen.”
“Where?”
“At P-P-P-Pluscarden Abbey. I’m sure I’ve t-telt you this before.”
“So you had a religious experience. What happened – did you realise all the other monks had willies?”
Eddie somehow appears physically uglier in this mood. His skin greasier, his hair wirier, his features blunter.
“Get to f-f-fuck.”
“I will n-n-no,” mimics Eddie cruelly. “Here Rock, did ye hear the one about the fella with the terrible stutter? He goes up to the dancing looking for a lumber. He’s jigging with this bird, who as it happens has also got a stutter, and he goes, ‘M-m-m-my name’s P-P-P-Peter, but I’m no a s-s-s-saint.’ And the lassie goes, ‘M-m-m-my name’s M-m-m-Mary. But I’m no a v-v-v-v-very good dancer!”
“I should c-c-congratulate you Eddie,” says Mark.
“On what?”
“T-t-twenty years of d-dedication and you’ve achieved it.”
“Achieved what?”
“Being a complete p-p-prick.”
Silence in the car. Delphine looks awkward.
“Mark. Your favourite-ever match,” I say.
“I can’t be f-fucked.”
“Go on.”
“You t-tell it. May 20th, 1953. You were there t-too.”
“I certainly was. I was one of the 117,000 there. The Coronation Cup final. Celtic 2 Hibernian 0. Sure Hampden was covered in banners of green. What a day. We had beaten the English champions Arsenal, then Manchester United, to get there, but now we were up against the greatest forward line in the world; and probably the best Scottish football had ever produced: the Famous Five. Smith, Johnstone, Reilly, Turnbull and Ormond.”
“Away!” interjects Rocky. “The Celtic forward line that won the 1938 league title was the greatest ever. Delaney, McDonald, Crum, Divers and Murphy.”
I smile, thinking of Dad. That’s his favourite team.
“Jimmy Delaney was some player right enough,” muses Iggy. “The classic Celtic winger. So flamboyant. So skilful.”
“Well for the sake of my and Mark’s story, and considering that none of us were alive in 1938, can we just pretend to agree that the Famous Five were the best ever? Anyway, nobody gave Celtic much of a chance, not least ’cause Charlie Tully was injured. Hibs had beaten Spurs and humped Newcastle to get to the final and were in great shape and determined to win. But Neilly Mochan was on fire and scored with a thunderbolt on the half hour. In the second half Hibs battered us, the Famous Five doing their stuff. But Johnny Bonnar was magnificent that day. Some of the saves – you should have seen them! It was as though the spirit of Johnny Thomson had come back to wander the Earth. Jock Stein was tremendous. I always admired the Big Man for his honest and committed play; he truly arrived that day. Served notice that things were gonnae be different at the club from now on; that we were gonnae start winning things. Willie Fernie was also on fine form. And with just three minutes left Jimmy Walsh sealed it. Amazing. We went on to win the double the following season. No the most dominant Celtic performance ever, but a famous and vital victory nonetheless.”
Iggy turns to Mark.
“How is it your favourite gemme, Mark?”
Mark looks thoughtful.
“It was my f-first-ever match. My d-d-da took me, God rest his s-s-soul. He put me on his sh-sh-shoulders so that I could see Big Jock lift up the c-cup . . . it was just so s-s-special.”
There is respectful silence in the car as we ponder the premature demise of Mark’s dad. He was a lovely, devout Irish gentleman. Mark worshipped the ground he walked on. The only sound is the hypnotic throb of the Zodiac’s pistons and the whirr of rubber on damp asphalt. I steal a glance at Eddie. His face looks grim. He takes another draught of cheap wine. He speaks.
“Stop the car.”
“What?”
“Stop the fucking car.”
I pull over. Eddie leaps from the rear before the Zodiac has come to a halt. He strides up a bank and over the other side.
“Where the fuck is he away to?”
“I’ll see to it.”
I follow him up. He has stopped over the brow of the bank, out of view of the car. He aggressively withdraws his fags and lighter, lights up, drags from the cigarette as though his life depends on it. I approach tentatively. The earth is baked as hard as ceramic.
“Gonnae be some party if we win this.”
No response. He scans the horizon as though searching for something. Need to make him feel better.
“Mark can take a joke, you know.”
Silence.
“Come on ya maniac, come back to the car.”
He turns to me. His eyes are glassy. He holds it together. Just stares at me, his eyes pleading, desperate.
So we sit for a while under a juniper tree, smoking our fags as the sun casts a gilded splendour over the pastures of Aquitaine. Soon it will begin its exeunt from the stage and we will reach the ocean.
~~~
I watch for him out of the window of my new office. Look at my watch. Five minutes late. Ten minutes. Then I spy a figure in the rain, sneaking through the side entrance. Looks like something the cat dragged in. My blood boils. Wee bastard. I bolt downstairs, taking three at a time. I can feel the anger rising, like a fuckin’ volcano ready to erupt. I’ll kill him. I’ll fuckin’ kill him. No-one fucks with me like this. No-one fucks with Big Jock.
I burst into the dressing room. The players are all in their training kits. I scan the room manically. Jimmy is there, too, with his training kit on. Looking like butter wouldn’t melt.
“How the fuck did you get changed so fast?” I ask.
“What do you mean boss?”
I look at the pile of clothes lying beside him. Then I look right through him. He looks away, like a frightened puppy.
“You’re at it son. I just watched you come through the fuckin’ side entrance less than two minutes ago. You were late. And no for the fuckin’ first time.”
“No me boss. Must have a lookalike . . .”
I look him up and down. My fists are clenched. I’m shaking with rage. Scared of what I might do next. Then, my gaze returns to his feet.
“Are you going to fuckin’ train in those,” I scream, pointing at the pair of brown brogues he has forgotten to remove during his lightning-fast change routine.
His face turns scarlet. The players laugh uproariously. I glare. I could murder him. I could fuckin’ murder the disrespectful little bastard. But something holds me back. Something kicks in, tells me this is not the time or the place. I unclench my fists. Then, I turn and walk deliberately away.
I walk back upstairs. Slowly, this time. One by one. Rage has passed. It’s something else now. An eerie calmness. I can’t explain it. I start to think of the job I have ahead of me. I have just taken over a club that has been underachieving. No silverware for seven years. It is my job to restore them to their former glory. Hundreds of thousands of hopes and dreams rest upon my shoulders. What a fucking burden to carry. I need men I can trust, rely upon.
Does Jimmy Johnstone fit? Sheets of rain sweep in from the Atlantic and the wind whips viciously around the training field. Strands of ginger hair are plastered to his skull. His socks are rolled down to his ankles. The cuffs of his sleeves are pulled over his hands. He grips them tightly as he hugs the touchline like a life-raft. He looks like a drowned rat. Then, the ball comes to him, landing with an almighty splosh, like a big steam pudden. Suddenly, his back straightens. He is on his toes now, tap-tap-tapping the ball with his right foot, searching for a potential victim. They all back off, but he seeks them out, bobbing and weaving, the pride o’ Parkhead, the Benny Lynch of the Calton.
I turn to Sean.
“I’m thinking of selling Jimmy.”
“Hmmm . . .”
“You don’t sound surprised.”
“I’m not. He’s everything you love and everything you hate rolled into one.”
>
“Exactly. Look at him now,” I say, gesturing to the training field. “That kind of talent is God-given. But what the fuck is he doing with it? He could be one of the greats, but he is always up to something, cutting corners here, taking liberties there. He’s cheating himself, he’s cheating us and he’s cheating the fans. I fuckin’ hate him for it. For wasting that talent. I used to want to murder the little fucker. Now, I think I just want him off my hands.”
“Let’s see how it goes, Jock,” says Sean. “It is early days. He might respond.”
Sean is right. No rash decisions or knee-jerk reactions. But his card is marked. More than marked. This job and this club are bigger than one player. I can’t let him run rings round me, like he does every day to his team-mates in training. I’ve got to lay down a marker, send out a message that no-one messes with Jock Stein. I’m the man at this club. Not the fuckin’ chairman or the rest of the board. Big Jock. No-one fucks with Big Jock.
What more powerful statement of intent than selling Jimmy Johnstone?
I think on this as I trudge through the glaur, back to the pavilion. Then, a roar goes up. I look back and see him skipping back to the halfway line having dumped Gemmell on his arse and stuck it past the goalkeeper.
Jimmy Johnstone. Jimmy fuckin’ Johnstone. This kid could make me or break me.
~~~
The road to Lisbon. A stretch of it kisses the Atlantic.
The evening sun, which has turned the water a gorgeous ultramarine colour, embroiders everyone and everything with a golden light that is so liquid it is almost tangible; you imagine you could reach out and hold a little pool of it in the palm of your hand. We follow the N10 southwards for a few miles before I spin the wheel and we drive down towards the last sands of France.
We happen across the accident almost casually, as though it is a random item of scenery, a banal piece of street furniture. It doesn’t announce itself with any drama; we just round a curvature in the narrow road and it is there.
I pull over and there is a moment of shocked inaction before we all get out.
It is surprisingly peaceful; the only unnatural sound is the low hiss of steam escaping from one of the two mangled vehicles’ radiators.
The driver of the truck is pinned by the steering wheel. Rocky approaches, turns away, is immediately sick.
Eddie approaches, clapping Rocky on the shoulder consolingly as he does so, examines the scene inside the cab, and turns to face us.
“Iggy – there’s a house back up the road. Drive Delphine there so she can call for an ambulance and the gendarmes. Mark – see to the guy in the car. Tim – help me here.”
He has taken command. Sobered up. Clear-thinking, levelheaded, practical. A different man.
I walk towards the truck, my stomach filled with dread.
Several tools and parts are scattered inside by the impact. A short shaft has impaled itself into the driver’s abdomen. He is conscious and in a great deal of pain. He is bleeding profusely.
“Can you smell that? Petrol. We need to get him out,” Eddie says. “Here, help me move the dash.”
The dashboard has disengaged from the chassis and is sitting on the driver’s lap.
“Come on, it’ll be okay,” he urges me. Presumably my face has gone chalk-white. I certainly feel very peculiar.
As I prop up the dashboard with a jemmy Eddie manages to haul the driver out while holding the shaft steady where it has entered the poor man’s body. Once he is clear I grab his ankles and we lift him away, and lay him gently on the grass.
“Give me your shirt,” Eddie says. “And your simmet.”
I obey, and he wraps the items round the wound and holds them there.
“Are you no gonnae pull it out?” I ask, the words almost sticking in my throat.
“Best to leave it in. Hopefully we’ll no be far from a hospital. Nip over and see how Mark is doing.”
I leave him and go over to the wrecked car. I walk by Rocky, who is crouched down on his haunches, his head bowed.
Mark is perched at the driver’s opened door, holding his hand, murmuring softly as he reads from a missal. The ground is covered in little cubes of glass. It is a silver sports coupé, its once sleek, tapered, bug-eyed front end now crumpled beyond recognition. I look inside.
The man, a young man, handsome and dapperly dressed, is terribly injured. He is dying. Yet Mark holds fast, speaking softly into his ear. I notice the man’s left hand is not only clutching Mark’s hand but also a rosary. Deep-red blood is flowing from under the man’s cuff and onto his and Mark’s hands. It then gushes down the beads and patters upon the road.
I listen in to Mark’s words. His stutter has evaporated.
“. . . May St. Joseph, the most sweet Patron of the dying, comfort you with a great hope. May Mary, the holy Mother of God, lovingly cast upon you her eyes of mercy . . .”
I look on in awe, because the man is smiling. There is actual joy – pure joy – on his face, as he gazes across the fields, into the Bay of Biscay, into the distance; yet beyond the distance. Beyond it at something else.
After a while the Zodiac returns and soon I hear the four-note phrase of sirens getting nearer. I notice that the man’s eyes have glazed over. He has passed away, yet he looks so peaceful and happy. Mark releases his hand, takes the rosary, which is drenched with gore, kisses it, and places it upon the man’s breast. He then closes the man’s eyes and makes the sign of the cross.
Two gendarmerie motorcycles roar into the scene, quickly followed by an ambulance. The motorcycles halt and splutter to inertia. The gendarmes are strikingly impressive in their leather jerkins and boots. They flip up their goggles, the lenses of which are smoked dirty yellow, onto their white half helmets, peel off their gauntlets, and dismount. Immediately they take charge of the situation and we are ushered aside.
The truck driver is lifted onto a stretcher by the ambulancemen and swathed in blankets. As he is carried past us he reaches out and clutches Eddie’s hand.
“Merci mon ami. Tout va bien.”
Delphine relates our brief story to the gendarmes. She then comes over and buries her head on my shoulder. I notice that Eddie and Mark are both blotted with blood. It is on their faces, their clothes; their hands are soaked with it. Both of their expressions bear strain, but at the same time they look heroic in the gloaming light. Eddie turns to Mark and looks at him for a wee while. He places his hands upon Mark’s shoulders and embraces him momentarily.
As Mark moves to step by me I grab his lapel and eye him desperately.
“Say something Mark,” I beg.
“What like?”
“That bit from John about light and darkness.”
“What b-bit?”
“They say it at Christmas. From John chapter 1. Say it, for Christ’s sake.”
Mark emits a little self-conscious cough.
“In Him was life, and the life was the light of m-men. And the light shines on in the d-d-darkness, and the d-darkness has never put it out.”
“Say that again,” I request, “the last bit.”
“And the light shines on in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out.”
Everyone walks over to the car, oblivious to the tears rolling down my cheeks.
~~~
“That’s two rounds we have had in the European Cup and the challenges are different, Sean. We’re no getting the same space to create as we do in Scotland. Teams are fitter, stronger, better at denying space. Don’t get me wrong, we have enough threat to overcome it, but it’s only going to get more difficult from now on. Those bloody defensive Tallies are influencing other teams, too. Teams are happier to sit behind the ball, try to hit you on the counter. You saw that at times against Zurich and Nantes. Bloody catenaccio. It’ll be taking over the world, soon, but no if I have my way.”
“So what’s your thoughts, Jock? How do we cope with these bloody defences?”
“I can’t stop thinking about the full-backs, Sean. Defens
ive teams want you to attack the way teams have always attacked; play right into their hands. They want to smother the strikers and shadow the runs from midfield areas. They’re good at stopping those sort of attacks. But what if we get our full-backs right up there, too? That’ll blow their bastard minds. Big Gemmell has a shot like a cannonball. Look at that thunderbolt against Zurich in the first round at Celtic Park! Let’s free him up to get more shots in. And what if we switch him wings, so he plays on the left . . . that way, he can cut inside onto that right foot of his and get shots on target.”
“I like it, Jock. Their heads will be spinning. But who will play on the right if you switch Tommy to the left? You thinkin’ about switching Willie O’Neill, too, or bringing in Ian Young?”
“I’m thinking about Jim Craig. He slotted in well when we moved Tommy into centre-half for the St Mirren game in early November. He’s an athlete, loves getting up and down that line. Loves hitting the byeline and getting crosses in; he could give us another dimension in Europe. I’m thinking of bedding him in the New Year and taking it from there.”
I sit at my desk and listen to the rain lash persistently against the frosted window pane. A stormy night in the east end of Glasgow. The calm before the real storm. Tomorrow night we face Vojvodina in the quarter-final of the European Cup. 1-0 down from the first leg. Problems not hard to find.
It has been a difficult few months. The 3-2 loss to Dundee United on New Year’s Eve was our first of the season and represented a setback, if not a fatal one. A run of six straight league victories restored momentum but the state of the pitches caused us to lose some fluency. The Saturday before the first leg we could only manage a 1-1 with Stirling Albion – hardly the most confidence-inspiring result to take into the first leg.
The first leg against Vojvodina in Yugoslavia showed their quality. We had to defend for much of the match and conceded after a mishit back-pass by Tommy Gemmell saw us breached midway through the second half. The result was a fair reflection of the match.
Have we met our match? Twice in previous years we have lost first-leg matches and twice been eliminated. Why should it change now against this quality of opposition? Why should we succeed against a strong, powerful team with great technique? Vojvodina are the champions of Yugoslavia, winning the league ahead of Partizan Belgrade, who lost the European Cup final narrowly to Real Madrid last year.