Books – Different Class (2003)

Details

Title: Bobby Murdoch: Different Class
Author: David Potter
Published: 2003
Player Homepage: Bobby Murdoch

Synopsis

The rise of Bobby Murdoch from trainee to first team fixture at Celtic mirrored his club’s emergence from Rangers’ shadow and the liberating atmosphere of the Sixties. Following a promising performances in Celtic’s dysfunctional teams of the early 60s, Murdoch went on to become a powerhouse in the team that swept all before them in the latter part of the decade.

Aside from the Celts’ Annus Mirabilis of 1966-1967, when they won every tournament they entered, becoming the first British team to triumph in the European Cup in the process. Celtic, with Murdoch in midfield, became one of the most formidable teams in British football history – winning an unprecedented 9 Scottish titles in a row, 5 Scottish Cups and 5 Scottish League Cups between 1965 and 1973. Murdoch played a big part in this success.

The accuracy of his passing was his hallmark while his combative ability in the middle of the park was essential to the team’s ability to win possession and power forward. The turning point in Murdoch and Celtic’s career, came with the arrival of Jock Stein. Before ‘The Messiah’s’ influence Celtic always appeared to cow to Rangers’ physical approach and many Celtic supporters reckoned that their domination by their Old Firm rivals in the late 50s and early 60s came about more because of an inferiority complex rather than footballing ability. Stein changed all this and his decision to move Murdoch from inside-left to wing-half was of particular importance, utilising the youngster’s energetic approach in midfield.

Until the end of his Celtic career in 1973, Bobby became synonymous with the Celtic style of play and it came as a surprise to many when he was sold to Jack Charlton’s Middlesbrough at the age of just 29. In England he contributed to a resurgence on the Tees, helping Charlton’s team to a Second Division title in his first season and First Division responsibility thereafter. David W. Potter’s biography of one of Celtic’s greatest players, is a celebration of the era and the man.

The 1960s represented the dawn of a new era for Britain in general and Glasgow in particular, while Potter’s prose sings with the delight of being around at the time.

Review

(From NotTheView)
Modern footballer biographies should generally be treated like the SARS virus, but this one has everything going for it; a legendary player who was also a wonderful character and whose career blossomed during extraordinary times, both for the club and for society as a whole. In the hands of a skilled writer the finished product is as good an example of the genre as I’ve read.

Part biography, part autobiography and part social history (where else are you going to see John F Kennedy, The Beatles, The Book of Revelations and the West Indies cricket team – to name but a few cultural reference points – all mentioned in the same context as one of the Lisbon Lions?)

It chronicles the life and times of a man whose adulation and status as one of the greatest Celts of all time came not as a result of any media constructs, but from the grass roots supporters. As Potter points out, even twenty years or more after his football days were over, Murdoch would be mobbed by fans on his frequent visits to Celtic Park, many of whom were too young ever to have seen him play on anything but VHS.

One of the remarkable aspects of Murdoch’s Celtic career, as recorded in the book, is that it very nearly didn’t get off the ground at all. Pitched into a shambles of a team in the early sixties, he must have been made of strong stuff to survive the barracking of his own supporters, frustrated by years of seeing the club run into the ground by a myopic board and never slow in those days to single out individual players for the treatment, even if they were inexperienced youngsters.

Potter isn’t afraid to confront such issues as the behaviour of the Celtic fans during the sixties either, a refreshing change from some of the romantic sanitised green -spectacled views of the period often put forward by official histories.

Having been played all over the pitch and never guaranteed an extended run in the team, even when playing well, Murdoch had decided to hand in a transfer request after being left out of the squad which travelled to Switzerland for a European match in 1963. He was even considering emigrating to Australia.

The turning point for Murdoch and Celtic was the arrival of Jock Stein. Subsequent events are part of Celtic folklore, of course, and it’s generally accepted that the ’65 Cup Final against Dunfermline was the lighting of the green touch paper. Yet that result was anything but a foregone conclusion and Potter brilliantly recreates the tension surrounding that game and the euphoria after it, relating that he ‘couldn’t eat his fish and chips after the game for sheer delirium mingled with the gnawing fear that it had all been a dream.’
Throughout the book the author intersperses the narrative with personal and humorous anecdotes of this kind adding both a fan’s eye view of Murdoch’s progress from callow youth with some potential to essential fulcrum of the ’67 team as well as a colourful backdrop to the events unfolding to a largely incredulous support.

By the time Lisbon came round Bobby had sustained the troublesome ankle injury, which was to plague him throughout his playing career and beyond. In fact he was very nearly declared unfit to take part in the game.

Considering he was involved in the build-up to both goals, how different the history of Celtic might have been…

Tributes to Murdoch’s consummate skill as a player appear throughout the book from a variety of teammates and opponents. One of the most glowing comes courtesy of Giacinto Facchetti, an adversary on that day in Lisbon. Commenting on the absence of Inter’s influential midfield player Suarez, he says: ‘I cannot stress enough that the absence of Suarez was a major blow to us. He was our playmaker and the most vital member of our team. It would be like Celtic taking the field without Murdoch.’
Apart from being a fitting tribute to the part that Murdoch played in Celtic’s success, Potter has done a remarkable job in conveying the insecurities of a man playing for his livelihood and facing increasing worries over injuries, weight problems and the arrival of younger players, signed by the manager to be groomed as his replacement. Being captain in Billy McNeill’s absence of the team, which failed so miserably in the 1970, League Cup final against Partick Thistle also seems to have had a profound effect on him. In my opinion this part of the book portrays the vagaries of this most fickle of occupations as well as anything I’ve read since Eamonn Dunphy’s diary of his life at Millwall.

Yet his resilience and strength of character once again saw him return to top form and have a few more successful seasons with Celtic before finally leaving to join Jack Charlton at Middlesbrough. It has been well documented in other books about this era that not all of the departures of the Lions to pastures new were particularly well handled by Jock Stein, and Bobby Murdoch’s was no exception. But it says a lot for him that he never expressed any bitterness about this in public and indeed he went on to enjoy ten happy years on Wearside.

While it’s true that Bobby’s recurring injury meant that he was never the player in the North East that he had been in his pomp, he still retained his class (there weren’t too many European Cup winners playing in the English league at the time) and still had his astonishing ability at passing a football. Consequently, his time at Ayrsome Park was anything but a failure. Led by Murdoch, Charlton’s team gained promotion to the old First Division and enjoyed a relatively successful spell after years in the doldrums. He was also instrumental in nurturing the career of a young Graeme Souness (‘I sometimes wish I hadnae bothered’ he is quoted as joking as Souness led Rangers to several leagues in a row).

It’s to Potter’s credit that he is able to infuse this part of the Murdoch story with (almost) as much life as his career in Scotland, albeit with occasional glimpses at what was happening back at Parkhead; doubtless Bobby would have been doing the same at the time.
When his boots were finally hung up in 1976 he was persuaded to stay on at the Boro as coach and then as manager. The latter job turned out to be a disaster, but by that time Middlesborough was in a financial mess. Potter likens Murdoch’s managerial career to that of McGrory at Parkhead: ‘both were outstanding players… and often assumed that players knew how to play the game as well – and as fairly as they did. They were great ambassadors for their clubs but failed at managerial level to bring success.’
The portrayal of Bobby’s final years is somewhat poignant, given his ill health and pain from his football injuries, but his good humour and humanity shine through until the end.

While he might not have accumulated the financial rewards that his skill would have derived from him in the modern era, he has at least secured his place in the pantheon of all-time Celtic greats. David Potter’s book will only enhance that status and ensure that future generations will have a worthy testament to how it was achieved. It’s an honest, affectionate portrait of a man who seemed to epitomise the best of his working class background and of the teams he became intrinsically linked with. Start dropping heavy hints about how you’d like Santa to drop it into your Christmas stocking. You won’t be disappointed.

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