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Willie Maley and the Celtic players lead the funeral procession of John Thomson.
30,000 AT FUNERAL – JOHN THOMSON, LAST GREAT TRIBUTE
JOHN Thomson has had a funeral worthy of such a Prince of Sportsmen. Amid banks of wonderful wreaths and through dense lanes of 30,000 people, the Celtic players carried him from his home in Balgreggie Road to Bowhill Cemetery, almost half-a-mile away.
The only sound which disturbed the slow tramping of thousands was the mournful tunes of the pipe band heading the procession. On his oak coffin there was a wreath shaped in the fashion of goalposts and a crossbar, the gift of the Bowhill Football Club, and immediately behind another wreath of lilles and heather on top of which proudly lay his international caps.
From the early morning, people had poured into this village from all over Scotland. Most of them were the humble folk of football. The miners of Fife, among whom Thomson worked as a boy of fourteen, were there in their hindreds squatting as miners do, by the roadside talking in subdued tones and now and then proudly picking out famous footballers as they walked past to the Thomson home, and there from the road they looked like senitels of sorrow silhouetted against the skyline. The funeral service was due to start at three o’clock, but an hour before that the narrow streets of Cardenden, were a seething mass of sympathisers.
Many of the younger men climbed the roofs of houses or on to the high walls and hedge rows which lined the road. People converged on Cardenden from every point of the compass. When I came up from Dunfermline, seven mles away, the road was black with silent mourners walking to the scene. Then when three special trains came in from Glasgow and motor-cars by the score unloaded their passengers there was hardly room to move. The surrounding pits were idle for the day. Neighbouring villages were deserted. Every man, woman, and child for miles around came to Cardenden to pay their simple tribute. The scene at the Thomson home was magnificent in its simple grandeur.
They had bought the oak casket out to the little garden in front of the house. There it rested, with a background of rambling roses waving in the sunshine, as if bidding sad farewell to their young master. There were generous wreaths everywhere. They lined the top of the privet hedges, lay along the garden paths, peeped out of every little corner, while dozens of mourners continued to arrive carrying more floral tributes. They filled two huge motor lorries with them and even then there were more. Celtic players preceded the coffin carrying masses of floral beauty, and half a mile behind the cortege were mourners bearing their tributes, patiently waiting to lay them on the grave.
Mr Duncan Adamson, an elder of the Church of Christ, conducted the service in the garden. The players and officials of the Celtic clublined up on one side, on the other were the leading legislators of the Scottish Football Association and the Scotiish football League, while at the head of the coffin stood Mr Thomson, the father of the dead intenational, and hsi brother and sisters. The service was as simple as the homage of the village folk. Mr Adamson conducted the ceremony after the fashion of his church. He read a chapte from the Bible, then delievered a brief address.
Women sobbed and eyes of many men glistened in tears as he finished by saying: ‘Good night, dear brother, good night!’ Then when they had driven a lane through the obident crowd the Celtic players hoiseted the coffin on their shoulders and the pathetic procession moved off. High up on the crags the senitels stood like statues loking don on an unprecedented scene.
I joined the procession along with John McMenemy and George Stevenson, of Motherwell, and Mr William McCartney, the manager of Hearts. All the famous players of Scotland were there. I noticed Alec McNair and Joe Dodds, the famous Celtic full backs of a decade ago, marching side by side. As the procession crawled along, a man in front of me, overcome by the heat, fell to the ground in a faint. He was carried to a near-by shop for attention.
Then, when the coffin passed into the main road, an old man overcome with emotion fell on his knees crying ‘Oh, John Thomson, we will never see your likes again.’ I had fallen in some twenty yards behind the bier, but as the procession had reached the cemetery I was far behind. Meanwhile the police had thought it wise to close the cemetery gates. Thousands of mourners stood outside while the service at the graveside proceeded. The Rangers players and some of the officals were among those caught in the dense crowd which jammed the roadway.
Finally, however, a way was made through the crowd and, led by Mr W. Roger Simpson, the secretary, the Ibrox players pushed and squeezed their way through to the cemetery gates. Here again Rangers were held up. One of the officers on duty doubted the identity of Alan Morton, and it was not until Morton had been vouched for by a colleague inside the gate that he and his collegues were allowed to pass.
Inside a service was conducted at the grave by Mr John Howie, another elder of the Church of Christ. The grave was just inside the boundary wall, which was lined by hundreds of villagers. Now and thena crackling of twigs at the roadside wall indicated that another impatient mourner had climbed the railings from the outside and burst through the subbery. On the far side of the cemetery, bank upon bank of wreaths streched for yards and yards along the foot of the wall. John Thomson is buried in flowers. When the service had concluded people filed past the open grave and threw their floral tributes on top of the coffin.
After Mr Howie had paid a long tribute to the dead international, Mr Tom White, the Celtic chairman, associated himself and the club with all that had been said by Mr Howie. Not til the service was over were hunders of mourners able to enter the cemetery and look into the grave. Theya re still filing past as I write – people of all stations in life paying their silent tribute to the greatest boy Scottish football has ever known.
