Jock Stein – Brian Wilson tribute 1985

BONNAR, Haughney and Meechan; Evans, Stein and Peacock; Higgins and Fernie, Fallon, Tully and Mochan .. that was the first Celtic team to trip off the tongues of my generation. They won the Scottish Cup in 1954, and most of them had also been there when Celtic landed the one-off Coronation Cup in 1953. But the decade that followed was far from being a vintage spell for Celtic. The patience of the support was strained until, in 1965, Jock Stein returned to Celtic Park as manager. Celtic promptly won the Scottish Cup.

That was indeed the start of an extraordinarily successful era. Our loyalty through the lean years was amply rewarded when, suddenly, Celtic under Stein started winning most things in sight – and doing so with a thrilling brand of stylish, attacking football.

Non-Catholic Celtic supporters were relative oddities in these days. I had been reared in a belief in Celtic as a non-sectarian club with a social conscience, which was probably a minority perception. But now, here was Jock Stein carrying all before him – the walking antithesis of all sectarian attitudes, We were exonerated.

Of all his achievements, Stein's success in rendering ridiculous the religious cliches of Scottish football was one of the most lastingly admirable. The fact that he was not a Catholic mattered nothing to the Celtic board, players or supporters. And nobody ever had a more finely-honed rapport with the followers and traditions of the club. Supporters of all creeds, and none, flocked to his standard.

The European Cup of 1967 was the apex of Stein's career. Every Celtic supporter recalls exactly where he was to witness Steve Chalmers scoring the goal that beat Inter Milan. In being the first British manager to hold that cup, Stein also turned the tide against defensive football – and Celtic were elevated above the narrow confines of the Scottish scene. We worshipped Stein for the miracle.

He blossomed as an authoritative commentator on the game worldwide – a Scottish football manager whose knowledge and common sense commanded attention. He took Celtic to nine League titles in a row, and those of us who had gone through our teenage years stoically resigned to disappointments, entered our thirties with the blase assumption of success.

When Stein moved on, the conventional wisdom was that he would not much care for Leeds United and, sure enough, he was not there long. The Lanarkshire miner in him made Scotland his natural stamping ground, and he returned as national team-manager to bring dignity and class to the job in the embarrassing aftermath of Argentina.

He replaced bravado with realism. In his father-figure role, he propagated the commonsense case for civilised behaviour on the terraces, with considerable impact. Always intelligent enough to recognise the limitations of his teams, as well as their potential, he saw qualifying for two more World Cup finals as a very decent achievement.

Like most men who have known the fellowship of the mines, he never lost either his political awareness or his preference for the company of down-to-earth, straight-talking folk. There were others indignants on his behalf when he was passed over for a knighthood after the European Cup victory while Sir Alf and Sir Matt got theirs.

However, Burns was right – the rank is but the guinea stamp. Those thousands who lined the route of his funeral procession on Friday provided the kind of tribute Stein understood – sincere respect and affection from Celtic people, Scottish people, his kind of people.