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Interview: Sean Fallon, former Celtic player
I MUST say, it feels odd asking Sean Fallon about Celtic's first-ever Scottish League Cup triumph, given that he would go on to sit side-by-side with Jock Stein in the dugout in Lisbon. It's a bit like saying to Orson Welles: "Yes, yes, Citizen Kane, greatest movie ever, blah blah. Now, tell me about those sherry commercials…" But the League Cup is what we've gathered in Newton Mearns to discuss, and Fallon, a lovely old man with a craggy face, a rasping Irish brogue and a wife who's sat on the edge of her seat in case she's needed as a prompt, is too polite and too modest to attempt to seize hold of the agenda. Trouble is, if I'm feeling disconcerted, so is Fallon. "It's so long ago, son," he says. "In my career I got too many kicks in the head, and too many times I had to head that big heavy ball away. The rule was it was only supposed to be 16 ounces, blown up. But see when water got into it? Like a bloody cannonball, so it was. If you got in the way of a cracking shot you'd be waking up in the infirmary, asking what the score was."
We shouldn't be surprised that Fallon is struggling to remember that 1956 victory over Partick Thistle. He will be 89 in July and the last time he counted, there were only two other survivors from the 3-0 win and one of them suffers from Alzheimer's. There's isn't really scope for a class of '56 reunion. Add to that, Celtic's relationship with this competition has always been pretty eccentric. They would later appear in 14 consecutive finals, winning six in a row then losing four on the trot – but it took them all of the League Cup's first decade to get their name etched on it. Dundee had won it twice by then, and East Fife three times. To cap it all, the '56 final was decidedly non-classic, despite Celtic and Thistle having two goes. According to The Scotsman, the first match in front of a crowd of 59,000 was hugely disappointing, an "inept" affair with Celtic mostly to blame. The Wednesday afternoon replay, for which the attendance almost halved, was "another poor display from both teams … drab and blundering". Who'd want to remember any of that? I'm just about to say, "Sorry, Mr Fallon, I'll not detain you any longer on this fine, daffodil-budding afternoon" when he breaks into a smile. "Billy McPhail, he got two of our goals. Billy was the younger brother of John, who played for us before – both grand lads. John was nicknamed Hooky because he aye kicked with the outside of his foot. Billy, a hairdresser to trade, was Teasy-Weasy. John went out of the game pretty early. He liked his wee drink – most of the players did. And Billy, don't you know, died of brain damage. Too much heading of that bloody big ball!" Then Fallon looks over to Myra, his wife of 52 years, and says: "Did I do all right? Do you still love me?" And Myra says: "Yes, if you up my housekeeping."
Sean and Myra have one son and five daughters and the youngest of them, Siobhan, has popped in for the next chapter of his story, the almost mythical 7-1 drubbing of Rangers with which Celtic kept hold of the League Cup, even though everyone in the family, including all the grandchildren, must have heard it a thousand times before. Fallon, as we've established, isn't a boastful man; he just gets asked about that game a lot. It remains the biggest winning margin in any British final, the biggest in an Old Firm game and Rangers' heaviest defeat. "We hadn't been doing that well, and Rangers were top dogs in Scotland," says Fallon. "But that day everything went right for us and it all went wrong for them." A crowd of 82,253 witnessed what The Scotsman called "the most astonishing final ever staged". Rangers, in the quaint language of the time, were lacking "something akin to sociable cordiality", their defence "affected by indecision to a paralytic degree".
Celtic "knew a bad team when they saw one" and rattled in goals of "magnificent precision, such as can only be described in boys' serial story papers"."Of course we were elated at the end," adds the left-back. "But more for the supporters than ourselves. I remember the manager Mr (Jimmy] McGrory's team talk. Very stirring, so it was. He told us to think about all those people who'd stood out there in the rain, hail and snow and how much we owed them. 'For God's sake,' he said, 'give them a performance today.' I think they were pretty enamoured with what we did.
Billy McPhail helped himself to three more goals – all with his head. There was crowd trouble involving what The Scotsman termed "brawling, bottle-throwing hooligans". Five of the goals were missed off the TV coverage; a lens cap was blamed, although some Celtic fans accused BBC Scotland of a Rangers-favouring conspiracy. The Gers goalie was George Niven and "What's the time? … Seven past Niven!" became a popular Glasgow street-corner exchange, with the win also being celebrated in a song which ripped off a Harry Belafonte hit. Did Fallon and his team-mates – fellow Irishmen Bertie Peacock and Charlie Tully among them, along with the two Bobbys, Collins and Evans – commiserate with the opposition? "We tried, but we couldn't find them! They must have been hurting because Celtic v Rangers was a great, great rivalry in our day, too, although I had good friends in the Rangers ranks, guys like Corky and Deedle (George Young, Willie Waddell].
The League Cup had been a bit of a bogey tournament for us up until those years, but I think for Celtic fans even now it's still special and that's because of 7-1." The tale of how Sean Fallon came to play for Celtic is another that appears to have been ripped from the pages of the Hotspur or the Hornet. He advises me to have another slice of sponge cake while he tries to remember it, but the old memory-box is whirring nicely now. "A few miles up the coast from Sligo, where I was born, there was a little seaside resort called Strandhill. Scots lads used to go on holiday there and see if they could pick up girls. But swimming at Strandhill was tricky, and one time my sister Lily got into difficulties. I was a lifeguard but wasn't there that day and her rescuer turned out to be the son of 'Nap' McMenemy, who was a grand player for Celtic. "Our two families became very friendly and they'd send me across Celtic books and strips. I liked Gaelic football but the high heid yins who ran it looked down on 'soccer', which was a bloody stupid attitude, so I think I ended up choosing football because of that. "And when it came to going full-time with a club – I was a confectioner to trade – Celtic were my team because my father, who was in the Great War and got hit by a dum-dum in the Dardanelles, was hospitalised into Glasgow, where he used to watch them play. West Brom offered me much more money but I'd always dreamed of going to Celtic, even though they were tight with the old pennies."
In his first full season, 1950-51, Celtic won the Scottish Cup, beating Motherwell 1-0. Three years later, the Hampden attendance again topped 130,000 for a 2-1 triumph over Aberdeen which completed the double. "We couldn't score a goal – our first had been an o.g. – so I got put up front and managed to get the winner. Not bad for a full-back." But the 1950s, especially when compared with the revolution effected by Stein, were lean for Celtic. "Scottish football was a lot more competitive back then," says Fallon, who had a spell as captain. "Apart from Rangers, Aberdeen were always tough. Clyde won a cup, didn't they? Every club seemed to get a wee shot. And games with Hibs and Hearts were aye lively. Gordon Smith at Hibs – what a beautiful footballer although he was a contrary fellow who kind of looked down on you. Against Hearts one time I got my collar bone broken."
Myra: "Wasn't it Sammy Baird of Rangers who did that?" "No, Sammy wouldn't have dared. He'd have known I'd have come after him."
Arm in a sling, Fallon played on that day. His nickname was "Iron Man" but he says he no more deserved the appellation than any other 1950s footballer. "You played hard, you got up again – not like now. But the thing that wasn't in Celtic's favour at that time was our age. We were getting on in years and a lot more pace had started coming into the game." Myra is laughing. "Tell him," she says. "Well," says Fallon, "I lied about my age to get signed. I said I was 24; really I was 28. Mr McGrory found out when a lot of us had to get passports for a foreign trip. He wasn't happy but a lovely man, so he was." Creaking they might have been – John McPhail borrowed a trick from Ferenc Puskas of shortening his stride to give the impression of speed – but the Celtic of the 50s had a great camaraderie, and old pals are flashing through Fallon's mind now. "Bobby Collins, rare wee player – heart of a lion. Willie Fernie, Fife boy, great touch, kept the ball so close. Neil Mochan – scored the best of the seven against Rangers. Billy Craig – ach, whenever anyone was injured we'd give him a game. I'm kidding, he was Myra's brother. "And Charlie Tully! Wonderful player, awfie man. My digs were in Rutherglen, Miss McGuigan's, and Charlie would stay over if he had a drink in him rather than face the wife. I'll never forget the first time he sat on the ball – against Rangers! No-one, as far as I knew, had ever done that before. Their players looked stunned. We all used to get given passes to games, and Charlie always played with them in the pocket of his shorts. If he was playing well he'd hand them out to the opposition: 'Here, you'd be better off watching me from the stand.' In a cup-tie at Falkirk he scored two goals straight from corners."
Tully was among those who questioned the signing of Jock Stein as a centre-half from Llanelli. "A few of the guys thought he was too old. When I was captain I made him my vice-captain so he'd get more respect. At that point it was still a secret that I was actually five months older than Jock!" Stein didn't forget that gesture and when he became Celtic manager he made Fallon, forced into retirement through injury after 254 appearances plus eight caps for the Republic of Ireland, his No 2. A reserve-team trainer, he'd made a couple of key signings before Stein took charge. "I brought Ronnie Simpson in. We'd had a string of goalies who'd been bloody terrible. I also brought back Bertie Auld. Jock said to me: 'Jesus, you've signed trouble.' but that one worked out fine as well."
The Fallon signings continued to flow into what became the Lisbon Lions team, also the one after that: Bobby Lennox, Tommy Gemmell, Kenny Dalglish, Danny McGrain. Later, managing Dumbarton, he was supposed to have tried to lure a veteran-class Johan Cryuff to Boghead. "Ach, sorry to disappoint you, son, but that was a publicity wheeze. I kidded on I'd gone out to Amsterdam to meet him. Jock had a million made-up stories designed to gain a wee advantage. I was trying to play you press-boys like him. "We hit it off right from the start, the Big Man and me. In our playing days there was a ritual after training of going to Ferrari's in Sauchiehall Street for our lunch, and Jock and me would always be trying to see what films were showing at the Paramount across the road. Sometimes Bertie Peacock would come with us. We loved Westerns the best. Jock's favourite was John Wayne; mine was Gary Cooper." Cooper seemed to get through an entire shoot-'em-up career using only "Yup" and "Nope". In the dugout alongside Fallon, Stein was similarly a man of few words. "He was too busy concentrating on the game. I can still see him grinding his fist into his palm. He opened his mouth at half-time, of course, but what he said was always instructive. He knew football so well." Lisbon was thrilling confirmation of that – the night Stein, like his cowboy hero, got to be called John. By 1967, Celtic had League Cups coming out of their ears but a decade before, they were relieved to have finally won it once. "Just a wee piece of the history," says Fallon with his customary deference.
Nice story, nice man, but I worry that I've tired him out. "No no, I'm just getting warmed up. I want to make it to 90, you know." "Don't we just," laughs Myra.
Sean Fallon: a man with an eye to pick out outstanding talent
14 Aug 2012
Stephen Sullivan
The Herald
At 12.35 this afternoon, four days on from his 90th birthday, Sean Fallon will take centre stage at Celtic Park.
It is not a position he is accustomed to. Although few have contributed more to Celtic's 125-year history than the man unfurling the league flag, Fallon's three decades of sterling service were spent almost entirely in the shadow of others. From the fearless, unfussy full-back who watched Charlie Tully soak up the adulation, to the loyal assistant at Jock Stein's side, he was rarely the man in focus.
With Stein not around to laud his input, and Fallon himself humble to a fault, the result is a hero who – if not exactly unsung – has gone largely underappreciated. That conclusion was reinforced recently when some supporters, albeit a minority, grumbled about the 90-year-old being chosen over Fergus McCann for today's ceremony. Even forgetting the 250-plus appearances, the winning goal in the 1954 cup final and his contribution to Celtic's greatest Old Firm win, Fallon's influence during the Stein years ought to have shielded him from such ingratitude.
His signings alone should guarantee unqualified acclaim. When Celtic fans were polled for the club's greatest-ever team in 2002, more than half the final XI shared the distinction of having been recruited by the man from County Sligo. "That was one of Sean's great talents," acknowledged Jim Craig, who missed out on the right-back slot to Danny McGrain, another Fallon signing. "A good number of the Lisbon Lions, myself included, were either brought in by Sean or on Sean's prompting. And the Quality Street Kids were very much his boys."
Nor did the talent-spotting end with Dalglish, McGrain, Macari, Connelly and Hay. Among Fallon's final signings were two teenagers, Paul McStay and Pat Bonner, who would still be playing for the club four-and-a-half decades after he himself had first pulled on the jersey. Given this proven aptitude for unearthing gems, it's no wonder that Stein – a notoriously reluctant delegator – saw the wisdom in backing his assistant's judgment. "Jock trusted me," said Fallon. "If I liked a player, he would be happy for me to get it done. There would be no double-checking to see if I was right. He knew I wouldn't sign anyone I didn't believe was up to the job.
"Scouts would come to me every day with new players to recommend and I'd check them out personally. And the scouts weren't always right. I'd look for ability and potential, but also at whether a boy's mentality was right. Not everyone I signed went on to become a Dalglish or a McGrain, of course. But I do like to think I had an eye for a player and that I got more right than I did wrong."
Fallon's understated assessment is typical of a man who could, with justification, boast of having signed more world-class players than anyone in the history of Scottish football. Yet it is this kind of humility that has allowed credit for many of his most eye-catching acquisitions and achievements to be apportioned elsewhere. Bonner, for example, will recount how he was spotted and signed by his fellow Irishman, but continues to be referred to as Stein's final signing.
Not that the absence of public recognition rankles. As Fallon said: "The players and the people within the club at that time knew I was signing these boys, and that was good enough for me. Anyway, everything I did, I did for Celtic – not for Sean Fallon. I didn't think of the likes of Kenny and Danny as 'my signings'. They were Celtic's signings, and I was just happy to have played a part in bringing them to the club. I never felt the need to crow about it. Looking for good players was part of what I was paid to do."
Another unwritten but equally important aspect of Fallon's duties was complementing Stein's abrasive, if hugely effective, style of management. Whether it was in healing rifts or soothing bruised egos, he was expected to calm irate players while simultaneously reinforcing the message from the man in charge. "Sean played that role brilliantly," remembers Billy McNeill. "And Jock, for all his qualities, needed someone like Sean. He brought to the table all the things that the Big Man wasn't particular good at."
This proves to a recurring conclusion among players from McNeill's era, although Fallon characteristically dismisses the suggestion that he was indispensable to his former vice-captain. "Jock is up there with the greatest managers there has ever been," is his verdict. "He would have been successful in any era. His reading of a game was second to none and he could pick up on the smallest details quicker than anyone. And he was outstanding at getting the best out of players, which is the hallmark of any top manager. He was also a great friend. The four of us – Jock, myself and our wives – would go out every Saturday night together. And even then, Jock and I still talked about nothing but football. We both lived for the game, and for Celtic."
And nobody, one suspects, would be happier than Stein to see a little of Fallon's devotion repaid today.
BackPage Press will be publishing Sean Fallon's autobiography next year. It is the first time this Celtic legend has told his story, and you can find out more by following @SeanFallonCelt on twitter.
When it comes to the details, little things mean a lot . . .
Hugh Macdonald
Chief Sports Writer
Saturday 26 January 2013
IT'S all in the detail.
The Herald
http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/football/when-it-comes-to-the-details-little-things-mean-a-lot.20009780
A mate of mine regularly texts me with his observations after perusing the results and fixtures in The Herald. A 6.30pm kick-off in the Coupe de France tie between Avenir Foot Lozere and Le Havre will provoke his mild indignation at the trouble therefore imposed on the travelling support. The Azerbaijani clash between FC Baku and FC Neftchi will draw mild surprise that the latter managed to secure a draw against free-wheeling and big spending opponents.
Khanh Hoa Nha Trang's narrow victory in their Vietnamese league crunch match against Song Lam Nghe An will be described as a "coupon buster".
He is always grateful for the insertion of kick-off times. For example, PAS Giannina's home tie in the Greek Cup (last 16, first leg) against Fostiras was, unusually, a 5pm kick-off. The publication of this detail was invaluable to the convoy of supporters' buses congregating around Saracen Cross.
This is the sort of "football porn" that amuses my mate but grips the obsessive punter. It is accurately and unapologetically listed under the heading of Details.
My eye is drawn to it. The other one, of course, goes its own way.
I have my favourites in the Details. The progress of the Johnstone Paint Trophy (Northern Section) is never less than gripping and the Toto Sport Super Lig in Turkey always intrigues.
However, the adventures of Sligo Rovers in the Airtricity League remain of interest to me, mostly because of the club's connection with Sean Fallon.
Apart from being a Celtic legend, Mr Fallon always reminded me of my maw. She was a ferocious tackler, too. But there was another, affecting link. My maw was a nurse with the sort of work ethic that would have shamed a Korean car builder. She careered around wards all over Glasgow and beyond doing overtime shifts.
She liked a natter the way Shane McGowan enjoys an aperitif. Her patients were, therefore, her pals. She once came back from work to say that she had met someone from Celtic. One of his relatives was in the ward and he was visiting every night.
My mother knew nothing about football – and, yes, I know she has passed this on to me – but said the chap might be called Fallon. We lived the sort of life that this revelation – like a Vesta curry on Saturday nights – could be classed as spectacular. My brothers with the aid of enhanced interrogation techniques – they hid her fags – finally learned that the Mr Fallon was not John, the Celtic goalkeeper, but Sean, assistant manager and player of an extraordinary vintage.
"I told him that you were football fans," she informed them.
A couple of days later my brother answered the door to a dark-haired man in a suit. My brother, nervously twirling a baseball bat in the belief that the unexpected visitor was yet another sheriff officer, was shocked to learn that Sean Fallon had discovered the address of the nurse who was tending his relative and had come to pay a visit on an abode that could not have been any humbler if it had been made out of mud.
"Is this the home of Agnes MacDonald?" the visitor asked. My brother, forgetting the family motto of only speaking to strangers with a lawyer present, replied in the affirmative whereupon Mr Fallon handed him a envelope, bade him a good afternoon and strolled down the path casually flicking his shoe at a pack of rabid dugs.
The envelope contained two Scottish Cup final tickets. My brothers, showing the entrepreneurial spirit that has made them such successes in business, appropriated said tickets and only informed me of their existence on return from the match.
The passing of Mr Fallon last week has therefore saddened me. He will be remembered by the football world at large as a player in the famous League Cup final win over Rangers, as the coach who sat alongside Jock Stein at Lisbon or the recruiter of such stellar talents as Kenny Dalglish.
Yet the MacDonald family know him above all as a character who felt gratitude and who quietly and unobtrusively found time to give something to others.
It was a lesson. Mr Fallon was a big character but he appreciated life was all about the seemingly little things: the details.
Sean Fallon: a man whose loyalty to Celtic was never shaken
Friday 18 October 2013
The Herald
This is an extract from the authorised biography of Sean Fallon, by Stephen Sullivan:
IT was midway through the second half of a tempestuous 2-2 draw with Bari on Celtic's 1970 end-of-season tour of North America. Jock Stein turned to his assistant, Sean Fallon, and said simply: "I'm away home."
Within seconds, he had disappeared up the tunnel and was heading for the airport. Fallon was stunned. Celtic still had four matches of the tour to negotiate and he was left with players, staff and journalists pressing him for answers that, having been deserted without warning, he did not have. Eventually, Stein released a statement claiming that he had returned to handle a backlog of paperwork and receive treatment on his troublesome ankle. The truth, his wife Jean later revealed, was that "he didn't have his heart in it".
There was an additional factor. Celtic's first opponents on that tour had been Manchester United and it was while in Canada for that fixture that Jock Stein began tentative discussions about moving to Old Trafford. It was the beginning of a saga that would take most of the season to resolve and, for once, the manager chose to keep his principal confidant largely in the dark.
"Jock was very cagey about the whole thing," said Fallon. "He told me later that he was thinking about moving, but I think he knew I was annoyed with him over upping and leaving like that in America. That was one time I wasn't entirely happy with Jock. The uncertainty about the Man United thing wasn't helpful to anyone and I felt he could have been more up front about it all. But you just get on with it. There wasn't a big fall-out or anything like that; I just let him know what I thought. I wanted it sorted out one way or the other."
For weeks, months even, it seemed likely that Stein would leave. By February 1971, patience was wearing thin, with the minutes of a crisis board meeting revealing a hardening of attitudes towards the club's vacillating manager. "It was agreed to put out to the manager that he was being paid a very high salary, that 'loyalty to the club should play a very important part' in his thinking and that 'we were not prepared to enter into an auction'," the minutes read. Billy McNeill, in Hail Cesar, remembered driving to Stein's house to confront him on the persistent, unsettling rumours. "Jock was up front with me," wrote McNeill. "'I've been offered the Manchester United job, Billy, and I think I'm going to take it', he said."
Matt Busby, having made his initial approaches through Pat Crerand, met the Celtic manager at a motorway service station near Haydock on April 14, 1971. Terms were discussed and, seemingly, agreed. But within 48 hours, the deal was off. As Crerand explained: "Later that week, Matt said to me: 'That's some pal you've got. He took the job and then phoned me this morning to say he's not taking it after all.' I was surprised because I knew Jock definitely fancied coming to United, although I knew Jean [Stein's wife] didn't want to leave Glasgow.
"It was a shame because Jock would have been ideal for United at that time. To have had him and Sean come down, it would have been the perfect set-up. There's no doubt that he'd have brought Sean along, and I would imagine Neilly Mochan would have come, too."
Plenty would have made the same assumption, although George Stein suggested that this was in fact a critical issue on which Busby and his father did not see eye-to-eye. "Initially I was sure that he was ready to accept," he said in Jock Stein, the Authorised Biography. "Gradually, though, the more he talked, the more the doubts filtered through. Not about my mum's feelings, because he knew that she was reluctant to move, but about the job itself . . . He was insisting that he wanted to bring in his own backroom staff so that he had his own people round about him. But Sir Matt had his own loyalties."
Yet if this is indeed the case, and Stein was fighting for Fallon's place in the Old Trafford hierarchy, it was a needless battle.
"There's no way I would have gone with him to Manchester United. Jock never spoke to me about joining him there, but it wouldn't have interested me if he did. I wouldn't have left Celtic unless they wanted me out. Why would I walk out on a club I'd always dreamt of being part of? Manchester United is a great club as everyone knows, but it's not my club. So, honestly, I wouldn't even have been tempted. Jock and I had great years together and were very close, but my main loyalty was always to Celtic and he knew that. I actually don't think he would have asked me to come with him and, if he did, he would have expected me to say no."
As it happened, Fallon and Stein were at Old Trafford the following year, though merely to provide the opposition for Bobby Charlton's testimonial. But as Celtic's players trotted out for their warm-up, disturbing news reached the club's assistant manager. An enormous box of chocolates had, he was told, just been delivered to Old Trafford for his wife, who had travelled down for the match with Jean Stein. This was disconcerting because Fallon had ordered no such gift, and realised that Myra would know that only too well.
"It turned out Sean Connery had sent them. I know – the last man you would want sending chocolates to your wife! He was a good friend of ours at that time and would often come for dinner at our house in King's Park when he was over for games. I used to pick him up at the airport and he never wanted to go to a hotel or anywhere fancy. He always preferred to come up to our house. He was a lovely man. He'd be telling Myra, 'Now, please don't be going to any bother for me'. As you can imagine, she wasn't exactly put out by him being there. That was during his James Bond days, so he was the biggest heartthrob around.
"I remember once, when we were going to Celtic Park with him in the car, we stopped by the Steins' house to pick up Jean. She didn't know that he was with us, so we got him to go to the door and shout up in that great voice of his, 'Jean, are you ready to go?' All we heard was her screaming 'Oh my God!' He was just a very down-to-earth guy who liked his football and happened to be almost as handsome as me . . .
"I nearly had a heart attack that night at Old Trafford. But I must give him his due because, although he always had a soft spot for Myra, he never tried to steal her away from me. It was just a thank you for having him up for dinner again. It said a lot about him, and he was a pal of ours for quite a few years."
* Sean Fallon: Celtic's Iron Man, the authorised biography by Stephen Sullivan, is available in hardback from all good bookshops. It is also available as an ebook