Archie MacPherson tells CQN about Jock Stein, how he changed Celtic and detested Rangers
Jock Stein changed Celtic from being one the most underachieving clubs in football, a club who had not won a trophy in seven years and won only three leagues in 40, into nine-in-a-row winners and European Champions with virtually the same squad of players
His biographer, Archie MacPherson, had a ring-side view of that transformation, “When Jock Stein arrived at Celtic Park he knew he had to improve the team, but there was also a political dimension under exploited.
“Bobby Lennox had great speed, but would run out of the park if you let him. Billy McNeill thought he was off to Tottenham, Jimmy Johnstone was in and out of the team. Jock sorted them all out.
“Jimmy McGrory [Stein’s predecessor] was the nicest man you would meet anywhere, but that didn’t help Celtic.
“John McPhail told me that he was playing badly and expected to be dropped. Jimmy McGrory and the directors had a meeting outside the dressing room after which McGrory read out the team, including John McPhail, but [then chairman] Bob Kelly was not with the other directors when the team was announced.
“After the game, Bob Kelly asked John McPhail why he was playing. McPhail said, “I was picked”, to which Bob Kelly replied, “You were not supposed to be”.
“It turned out the Bob Kelly had diarrhoea and was unable to get instructions through on who he wanted to play.
“Celtic were on their way to play Airdrie when Jimmy McGrory saw reserve goalkeeper Jimmy Goldie wearing his Celtic scarf on his way to the game. McGrory stopped the bus, brought Goldie on board and played him as a reward for supporting the team. Crazy stuff like that was going on.
“Some months after Jock arrived, Celtic played Dynamo Kiev [in March 1966] and he and Bob Kelly had a showdown over Jim Craig. Kelly didn’t want Craig picked but Jock was not going to be bossed around the same way as Jimmy McGrory.
“At a board meeting a few days later Jock laid it on the line, and told the board he would only do the job if he was allowed to do it without their interference. Bob Kelly never crossed the line again.
“Jock needed to do this. The trouble with Rangers at the moment is no one speaks up to Murray.
“Kelly initially tried to get Jock Stein as assistant manager to Sean Fallon, and then as co-manager with Fallon, but Jock only agreed to come if he was to be manager in his own right.
“Jock paid attention to Bob Kelly and never forgot what he had done for him. They were never great friends, but they got on well, both were great horse racing men, but Jock needed control of the team.
“Rangers were a hard team, they could always bully Celtic and Stein knew this had to change. In his first League Cup Final [October 1965] the Celtic right back, Ian Young, clattered Willie Johnstone inside the first two minutes.
“This was something new; we had never seen a tackle like that from Celtic. That was Stein laying virility and steel into the team. He sent out a message, ‘We’re harder than you’.
“Before Celtic signed Jock he was going through a hard time; he was unhappy in Llanelli. His wife was still in Burnbank and the house had just been broken into.
“He told me years later that if Celtic had not come in for him he would have come home and gone to watch Rangers. George Young was his all time hero, even later in life, and Jock loved to watch him play. There was something about the ‘centre halves union’ about it.”
Archie explained that Jock’s feelings towards Rangers soon changed.
“There might previously have been people in the Celtic dressing room who didn’t like Rangers, but no one hated Rangers as much as he did, he detested them.
“When he joined Celtic as a player he was shunned by his former friends in his home village. The boys at Burnbank cross would ignore him. He told me a man he regarded as his best friend walked out of his parents house when he heard that Jock was upstairs, and never spoke to him again.
“He was out on a limb when he joined Celtic, and he never forgot what the club had done for him. Even his own father never said, “I hope you win” before an Old Firm game, neither did his mother.
“The Celtic supporters loved him and the feeling was reciprocated. He respected that they came from a community used to breaking through barriers to get on in life.
“Jock Stein is the best ever British manager. When you look for the best of anything you have go back to see who stared it, who made all the new rules.
“He was the first tracksuit manager, he started that at Dunfermline. Before than managers wore suits; Scott Symon at Rangers would turn up to training for about 15 minutes a week, I don’t know if Jimmy McGrory spent that long, they were all the same back then.
“He was the first manager to take a chef abroad with him; he understood that players would perform better if they ate the same food, he was years ahead of his time.
“He also intimidated everyone, players, directors, the media and referees. Before Dunfermline played Valencia the referee was going to abandon the game as there was six inches of snow and the pitch was completely unplayable. Jock convinced him otherwise.
“He was tactically aware. He could talk me through the Rangers team as if he was their manager. Blow by blow, what they were going to do.
“[Sir Alex] Ferguson has copied him, as did [Jim] McLean, none of them would have the gall to act the way they do without Stein.
“Jock detested the BBC. When I joined, [the BBC] he didn’t know me, but he knew I was associated with Peter Thompson, a well know Rangers supporter. I remember when I discussed the BBC with him he told me, “The head of the house is a Rangers man”; he thought you were either ‘for us or against us’.
“He would not give the BBC an interview unless it was broadcast live in case it was edited out of context. I had to work at winning his confidence.
As well as being, “on my banker’s side”, Archie retains a genuine affection for Jock Stein, the players he moulded into greats and the gift he gave to our community. He also sends his best wishes to Celtic Quick News readers.
(interview with CQN 2006; Source:http://www.celticquicknews.co.uk/2007/04/archie-macpherson-tells-cqn-about-jock.shtml)