Read Online Football – Bloody Hell! by Patrick Barclay - Free Book Online
Authors: Patrick Barclay
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were sent in by the Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, to be generally welcomed by Catholics, even though they were to be dragged into a bloody conflict with the IRA that lasted for decades.
The songs of hate were incessant on the stadium slopes. Soon after the death of the Republican hunger striker Bobby Sands in May 1981, Rangers met Dundee United in the Scottish Cup final at Hampden Park, which echoed to gleefully repeated chants of ‘Sands is dead’ (to the tune of ‘Hooray for the Red, White and Blue’) and, had the martyr been a Loyalist, no doubt the same would have been heard at Celtic’s Parkhead. But it was a soft sectarianism that football harboured.
The difference between Rangers and Celtic in that era was that, while Celtic would employ Protestants – Jock Stein and several members of his great side included – Rangers avoided giving Catholics work, reflecting the discrimination that had led to the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland. It would still be wrong to deny that Rangers had signed Ferguson knowing he had followed in the family tradition of marrying whom he pleased.
So was Ferguson just not up to the international standard Rangers expected? The words most frequently used in descriptions of his playing style were ‘enthusiastic’ and ‘elbows’ (though not necessarily in that order). He was even to allude to the latter in renaming a Glasgow pub he had acquired the Elbow Room. John Greig recalled: ‘Obviously I played against him as well as with him [they were even sent off together after Ferguson had joined Falkirk towards the end of his career] and he was always a handful, a pest. He bustled about with his elbows parallel to the ground – and he was all skin and bone so that, when he got you, it was like being stabbed.’
Davie Provan said: ‘I’d give him about seventy out of a hundred as a player. As far as effort was concerned, he was a hundred. And he did score quite a few goals for us.’ Bobby Seith added: ‘He was typical of good goalscorers. If you saw any picture of a match in which Alex was playing and the goalkeeper was on the ground with the ball, you could bet your bottom dollar that Alex would be standing over him, waiting for him to let it go. He was always looking for goalkeepers or defenders to make mistakes. So, if you were playing against him, you had to be very careful not to make a wee slip – because he’d be there and the ball would be in the back of the net.’
So why did Scotland prefer the likes of Colin Stein, let alone Law? ‘He lacked a bit of pace,’ said Seith, whose other criticism was more subtle. ‘Perhaps his work rate was not all it could have been – certainly not what you’d expect in the modern game.’ The modern striker, by harrying defenders in possession or obstructing their lines of communication with those further forward, acts as a first line of his own side’s defence. ‘People would cover for Alex,’ said Seith. ‘As they should when a striker’s putting the ball in the net. But it is fair to say that he liked to save his energy for the business of scoring goals.’ In which case he fooled a few. Newspaper accounts often spoke of his crowd-pleasing energy and combativeness. And Greig expressed surprise that Ferguson’s industry had been questioned. ‘I don’t think Alex ever scored from outside the eighteen-yard box,’ he said, ‘but I’ve never before heard him accused of not working hard enough. He gave defences a lot to do. But you have to bear in mind that there was a lot of competition for Scotland places in those days.’ Too much for Ferguson.
Fighting at Falkirk
W illie Cunningham still wanted Ferguson, so it was off to Falkirk and another dip into the Second Division, albeit a brief one. He joined in December and five months later the club were promoted with Ferguson contributing plenty of goals in partnership with Andy Roxburgh, later to succeed him as Scotland manager.
They were to have a long
The songs of hate were incessant on the stadium slopes. Soon after the death of the Republican hunger striker Bobby Sands in May 1981, Rangers met Dundee United in the Scottish Cup final at Hampden Park, which echoed to gleefully repeated chants of ‘Sands is dead’ (to the tune of ‘Hooray for the Red, White and Blue’) and, had the martyr been a Loyalist, no doubt the same would have been heard at Celtic’s Parkhead. But it was a soft sectarianism that football harboured.
The difference between Rangers and Celtic in that era was that, while Celtic would employ Protestants – Jock Stein and several members of his great side included – Rangers avoided giving Catholics work, reflecting the discrimination that had led to the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland. It would still be wrong to deny that Rangers had signed Ferguson knowing he had followed in the family tradition of marrying whom he pleased.
So was Ferguson just not up to the international standard Rangers expected? The words most frequently used in descriptions of his playing style were ‘enthusiastic’ and ‘elbows’ (though not necessarily in that order). He was even to allude to the latter in renaming a Glasgow pub he had acquired the Elbow Room. John Greig recalled: ‘Obviously I played against him as well as with him [they were even sent off together after Ferguson had joined Falkirk towards the end of his career] and he was always a handful, a pest. He bustled about with his elbows parallel to the ground – and he was all skin and bone so that, when he got you, it was like being stabbed.’
Davie Provan said: ‘I’d give him about seventy out of a hundred as a player. As far as effort was concerned, he was a hundred. And he did score quite a few goals for us.’ Bobby Seith added: ‘He was typical of good goalscorers. If you saw any picture of a match in which Alex was playing and the goalkeeper was on the ground with the ball, you could bet your bottom dollar that Alex would be standing over him, waiting for him to let it go. He was always looking for goalkeepers or defenders to make mistakes. So, if you were playing against him, you had to be very careful not to make a wee slip – because he’d be there and the ball would be in the back of the net.’
So why did Scotland prefer the likes of Colin Stein, let alone Law? ‘He lacked a bit of pace,’ said Seith, whose other criticism was more subtle. ‘Perhaps his work rate was not all it could have been – certainly not what you’d expect in the modern game.’ The modern striker, by harrying defenders in possession or obstructing their lines of communication with those further forward, acts as a first line of his own side’s defence. ‘People would cover for Alex,’ said Seith. ‘As they should when a striker’s putting the ball in the net. But it is fair to say that he liked to save his energy for the business of scoring goals.’ In which case he fooled a few. Newspaper accounts often spoke of his crowd-pleasing energy and combativeness. And Greig expressed surprise that Ferguson’s industry had been questioned. ‘I don’t think Alex ever scored from outside the eighteen-yard box,’ he said, ‘but I’ve never before heard him accused of not working hard enough. He gave defences a lot to do. But you have to bear in mind that there was a lot of competition for Scotland places in those days.’ Too much for Ferguson.
Fighting at Falkirk
W illie Cunningham still wanted Ferguson, so it was off to Falkirk and another dip into the Second Division, albeit a brief one. He joined in December and five months later the club were promoted with Ferguson contributing plenty of goals in partnership with Andy Roxburgh, later to succeed him as Scotland manager.
They were to have a long
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