Brawls, Bribes and Broken Dreams

Graeme Strachan

Description

Dundee were the punch-drunk underdogs when they chased European Cup glory after winning the league in 1962. AC Milan, Benfica and Real Madrid were at the peak of their powers and Ipswich would represent England after winning the league under Alf Ramsey. Dundee were about to enter a new world of glamour. Expectations were so low that just ten Dundee fans put their names forward for a special flight to mark the club's first venture into the unknown. The Dark Blues were up for the fight though, and destroyed Cologne 8-1 in a blitzkrieg at Dens Park that left the German Embassy reeling. In the week they shared the same bill as boxing legends Sonny Liston and Sugar Ray Robinson, the British Army rescued Dundee from a mass riot with as many punches thrown in the return leg. As this remarkable Cinderella story unfolded, fans of city rivals Dundee United were soon hitch-hiking across the continent to watch Dundee as they came close to conquering Europe, before it all ended in brawls, bribes and broken dreams.

Sujets

• Central Scotland

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 16 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781801502658
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2022
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
Graeme Strachan, 2022
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Prologue
1. The Other Shankly
2. Smoke and Mirrors
3. The Blitzkrieg that left the German Embassy Reeling
4. Planes, Trains and Automobiles
5. Sonny Liston, Sugar Ray Robinson and the Battle of Cologne
6. Tall Ships Go
7. Taming the Lions of Lisbon
8. The Big Freeze
9. From Bayview to Brussels
10. Tears of a Clown?
11. Meet the Mad King of Catenaccio
12. Bobby Cox and the Magic Lamp
13. Flashbulbs and Flashpoints
14. Singing the Blues
15. Absent Friends
Photos
For Esm e and Lewis
Acknowledgements
THANKS TO Jane Camillin at Pitch for believing in the project and Duncan Olner for the cover design which brings that special period to life in glorious colour.
Llew Walker set the ball rolling while David Powell, Barry Sullivan and Gary Thomas from the DC Thomson archives team have been of great assistance throughout. David Lord has been hugely supportive and a big thanks to Patrick Barclay for sprinkling his magic dust and taking us down memory lane with his foreword.
A special mention also to Ruth, Rachel, Esm e and Lewis, who have kept the home fires burning while I pounded the laptop at ungodly hours of the day and night!
Finally, my heartfelt thanks to Norrie Price, who played the Bob Shankly role, and whose help and guidance throughout has been above and beyond the call of duty.
Foreword
By Patrick Barclay
I WAS delighted to be asked to write the foreword to Graeme s latest book Brawls, Bribes and Broken Dreams: How Dundee Almost Won the European Cup .
That was an era that remains close to my heart and I know that to be the case for many others also. It brings back so many wonderful memories - they never actually went away - of our youth, the city of Dundee as it was then and of course that wonderful Dundee FC team of the early 1960s.
I went on to write about the game professionally and was privileged to enjoy glamorous trips to far-off places in Europe and indeed across the world. This involved covering games in the Champions League, successor of course to the European Cup, World Cups, European Championships and even the Africa Cup of Nations. None of that, though, gave me as much joy as that Dundee team did between 1961 and 1964.
The club had enjoyed great days before, most recently the two League Cup wins featuring the great Billy Steel in 1951 and 1952. My grandfather used to tell me about the players in the 1910 Scottish Cup-winning team and I badgered him to take me to Dens Park. It was the mid-50s when he finally relented and although he, himself, was no longer keen on attending, he dropped me off behind the main stand with a shilling in my pocket for admission.
I think we beat Hibs that night but it was a rocky period of transition for the club under Willie Thornton. He had, though, signed several talented youngsters and his successor Bob Shankly then blended these players with the experience of Bobby Seith, Bobby Wishart and the great Gordon Smith, whose classy displays were to bely his age.
Smith provided glamour. This was a guy who would holiday in Cannes and had a taste for jazz. He became a close friend of Sidney Bechet and even had dinner with Brigitte Bardot. Smith not only mixed with film stars but he looked the part and here he was in Dundee!
They were all heroes but like thousands of others my favourite player was Alan Gilzean, whom I idolised. I was there at Muirton Park as a 14-year-old when Dundee won the league and was amongst the thousands who invaded the pitch. I d travelled on one of the supporters buses but inevitably the crowded, joyous road back to Dundee meant I was late for my paper round which on Saturday evenings mainly meant delivering the Sporting Post .
The newsagent, however, merely gave me a kindly shake of his head and that night the customers were every bit as understanding! For us back then, this was simply our Dark Blue heaven! Now it was on to the European Cup. Along with a couple of pals, I was in the Provie Road end for the initial tie against Cologne holding aloft my home-made banner which my mum had helped me put together.
On an incredible night, Dundee scored five times before half-time and my flag disappeared into the ecstatic crowd. This was to be a European journey like no other. There was an abundance of goals, violence on and off the field, bumper Dens Park attendances, allegations of bribery - all to a background of the worst winter in living memory.
History will tell that Dundee fell short at the penultimate stage, as had other British clubs like Hibs, Rangers, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United before them. Had they reached Wembley, I believe that they would have gone on to win the European Cup. And had they done so might we also have held on to our top stars like Ian Ure and Alan Gilzean - and gone on to further successes?
We will never know but what I can say is that this irrepressible team were happy together. They were exceptional people, they were exceptional players. The one downside was that we, the fans of that era, were spoiled for we would never quite see their like again. How a provincial club like Dundee almost won the European Cup makes fascinating reading and has catapulted me back in time. I hope you also enjoy this fabulous trip down memory lane.
Prologue
If we win the league on Saturday you ll be famous forever more.
Gordon Smith
IT WAS a glorious summer back in 1962.
Dundee FC had just been crowned champions of Scotland for the first time and qualified for the European Cup, later to develop into the Champions League.
Young boys played football in the streets and parks of Dundee, imagining themselves as their very own heroes in dark blue.
The championship success had brought a feelgood factor to the city, the centre of jute, jam and journalism with a population of 180,000.
This was a Dundee side that would never be forgotten.
Author, broadcaster and authority on Scottish football Bob Crampsey declared that Bob Shankly s Dundee FC in the early 1960s were better than Jock Stein s Lisbon Lions and the best pure footballing team produced in Scotland since the war .
Indeed, now - even 60 years on - that heroic Dundee XI of Liney, Hamilton, Cox, Seith, Ure, Wishart, Smith, Penman, Cousin, Gilzean and Robertson still trips off the tongue of every Dens Park fan.
George McGeachie, Bobby Waddell, Alex Stuart and Craig Brown made up the squad of 15 and all played their part.
But that famous XI missed so few games during the 1961/62 season that it was they alone who became known as the Dundee FC league-winning team.
Previously, the club had won the Scottish Cup in 1910 and more recently League Cups in 1951 and 1952, but this was by far the pinnacle of their achievements.
Shankly had prepared them with a summer tour of Iceland that cemented an enduring bond and Dundee began their 1961/62 league campaign with two wins and a defeat before going on a thrilling 19-game unbeaten run which included a double over Celtic and Rangers in early November.
First they dumped Celtic 2-1 with goals from Bobby Wishart and Alan Gilzean before Rangers were taken apart 5-1 in a blanket of fog with Gilzean scoring four.
Goalkeeper Pat Liney famously had to ask right-back Alex Hamilton what the score was because he couldn t see the Rangers goal area.
That left Dundee seven points clear of the champions, but there were other highlights galore.
There were high-scoring wins over Kilmarnock 5-3, Motherwell 4-2 and Raith Rovers 5-4.
There was home and away success over the Edinburgh pair of Hearts and Hibs.
Opponents were adjusting, though.
They were figuring out ways to cut off the supply line from talented winger Gordon Smith and slow Dundee down.
A shock Scottish Cup exit to St Mirren at the end of January was followed by a worrying loss of league form which brought just one draw for their next five games.
It was an ill-timed dose of the wintertime blues but in mid-March came the high-noon moment with the midweek visit of league leaders Rangers.
Billed as a winner-takes-all confrontation, the result was a no-score draw on a tension-ridden night before 35,000 fans at Dens.
But although the Ibrox men remained three points ahead, Dundee s battling performance had restored their flagging belief.
Indeed, they proceeded to win their next five matches with Liney highlighting a gift of a good luck charm as a possible reason for their change in fortune.
A woman and her daughter gave Liney a piece of dried meat from a River Tay seal with dark blue ribbons wrapped around it.
Liney took it on to the park for his next game and put it in the net behind him.
On 31 March 1962, with five games remaining, Bob Miller of the People s Journal declared: Dundee should hammer the lot - except maybe (Dundee) United. Stirling Albion and Airdrie were defeated.
But although Dundee had won the earlier derby 4-1 at Dens, the Easter Monday clash at Ta