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Fullname: Thomas Ian McAdam
aka: Tom McAdam, Tam McAdam, Thomas McAdam
Born: 9 April 1954
Birthplace: Glasgow, Scotland
Signed: 9 September 1977 (from Dundee United)
Left: 26 February 1986 (released)
Position: Striker – later converted to Defender in May 1979
First game : Rangers away league (sub) 2-3 10 September 1977
Last game : Queens Park home Scottish cup 15 February 1986
First goal : Clydebank home 1-0 league 24 September 1977
Last goal : Dundee home 3-0 league 24 April 1984
Internationals: none
Biog
Signed from Dundee United in September 1977 for a fee of £60,000, Tom McAdam was a boyhood Rangers fan whose brother Colin played for the Ibrox club (1980-84), and in time they faced each other in matches between the two sides.
Tom McAdam made his name as a noted striker with Dumbarton and Dundee United. When he signed for Celtic he had already scored seven times against the Celts so the Parkhead fans knew what he was capable of in advance, and one benefit is that he could not put us to the sword again.
Originally signed as a striker, Tom McAdam made his Bhoys debut against their rivals from Ibrox when he came on as a sub in a 3-2 away defeat on 10th September on the day when Celtic had blown a 2-0 lead at half time.
Between September 1977 and December 1978 Tom McAdam scored a respectable 25 goals in all completions although by March 1979 he had lost his striker’s position to a young George McCluskey. With four games left of the 1978/79 season Billy McNeill was faced with a defensive crisis and on 7th May 1979 he tried Tom as an experiment at centre half against Thistle at Firhill. It was not a great start as Doug Somner scored against a hesitant Celtic defence after only three minutes but the Celts fought back strongly to win 2-1. Celtic won their remaining fixtures including the legendary 4-2 Rangers victory on 21st May to become champions, and Tom McAdam would stay at the back for the remainder of his career. Interestingly in this season 1978/79, Tom was the top league scorer with just 7 goals to his name.
In 1979/80 he had an impressive season as sweeper, mainly behind Roddy MacDonald. He was now an established Celtic player although he was bitterly disappointed at being booked against Partick on 26th April 1980 as it suspended him from the Scottish Cup Final victory against Rangers 14 days later.
He developed a good partnership with Roy Aitken from August 1980 as Aitken settled into a more defensive role. Tom McAdam was instrumental in the title wins of 1981 and 1982 although he was an under rated player who tended to face the brunt of any criticism after a defeat as some fans still viewed him as a striker. During this period Tom McAdam turned out against his brother Colin who was signed by Rangers in 1980. Tom generally came out in top of their confrontations although it was difficult to believe they were brothers, Tom an elegant fair headed player, and Colin a lumbering powerhouse forward with dark curly hair.
Tom McAdam was an under rated striker during his spell with Celtic and tends to be more fondly remembered by the fans for his time as a defender as this was during a more successful period. He had a wonderful game against Motherwell at Fir Park in October 1978 when he led Celtic to a 4-1 win with two goals, the first a flashing header and the second a crashing volley from distance.
On 10th April 1982 Tom McAdam was thrown up front again as make shift striker and scored in Celtic’s 2-1 win. He had a wonderful scoring record against Rangers and scored against them on 12th November 1977 (1-1), 9th September 1978 (3-1), 13th December 1978 (2-3), 19th September 1981 (2-0), 21st November 1981 (3-3), 10th April 10th 1982 (2-1) and 14th May 1983 (4-2). Likely to have made for entertaining banter in the family household.
He had a magnificent game against Sporting Lisbon in November 1983, playing splendidly in defence and contributing the vital second goal in Celtic’s memorable 5-0 victory.
By the 1984/85 season Tom McAdam was still centre half and had seen off challenges from Davie Moyes, Willie Garner and Pierce O’Leary for his position in the team. On 18th May 1985 he was centre half in Celtic’s gutsy 2-1 victory over Dundee United and a few weeks later a packed Kelvin Hall roared it’s approval as an emotional Tom McAdam took the stage as guest of honour of the Celtic Supporter’s Association.
By late 1985 he had finally lost his place as the young defenders Paul McGugan and Derek Whyte came on the scene. He suffered criticism after Celtic’s exit to Hibs in the League cup on penalties (after a 4-4 draw at the end of extra time) and, as Davie Hay began to look to his younger defenders, Tom eventually left Celtic Park in February 1986 when he was released on a free transfer.
He had made 354 starts for Celtic and scored 48 goals, and he played a good part in some great achievements, with three league titles, a league cup & a Scottish cup winner’s medal to complete the collection. For that he deserves respect.
Tom McAdam served Celtic well during his spell at Parkhead in both defence and attack and was a popular player in the successful late 1970’s-early 1980’s Celtic side, and so will be remembered very fondly by the support.
Post-Celtic playing career
He returned to Parkhead in June 1993 when he became a coach. During his time as coach at Celtic, he had a son, Steven, who was on the books of Rangers as a striker!
During Frank Connor’s brief but successful run as interim manager between the departure of Liam Brady and the arrival of Lou Macari, Tom McAdam stepped up from the reserve team coaching to work alongside Frank Connor. The unbeaten run in that time is something he should be proud of as it was during a really time with off-field (Celtic Takeover) and on-field issues generating a really shambolic set of circumstances.
It was a tough time as in their first match, a 2-1 victory over Dundee, Dundee actually scored first which led to Frank Connor retelling the moment as follows:
“Tam McAdam was reserve coach at the time and joined me in taking the first team. We beat Dundee 2-1 in our first match but lost a goal early in that game. I turned to Tam and said: ‘I hope you’re wearing a bullet-proof vest’.”
We wish Tom McAdam the best.
Playing Career
| APPEARANCES | LEAGUE | SCOTTISH CUP | LEAGUE CUP | EUROPE | TOTAL |
| 1977-86 | 261 | 31 | 45 | 25 | 354 |
| Goals: | 37 | 3 | 7 | 1 | 48 |
Honours with Celtic
Scottish Premier Division
Scottish Cup
Scottish League Cup
Pictures
Articles
The battling McAdam brothers
Spiers on Saturday
Graham Spiers
Saturday 24 August 2013
The Herald
Former footballers are fascinating people to catch up with.
Some are hard men, either vain or arrogant, who are rolling in money. Others – quite a few, actually – are modest and unassuming, akin to a very likeable neighbour over the fence. A man such as Tom McAdam.
The former Celtic defender of the late 1970s and early 1980s is now 59, and drives a delivery van around Glasgow until all hours of the night.
Tom had been living quietly, but emerged from the shadows three weeks ago due to the sudden death of his brother, the former Rangers striker Colin McAdam, at the age of just 61.
So there was Tom, the once handsome, flaxen-haired figure of his playing days, at his brother’s funeral. A throng of 500 turned up at Clydebank Crematorium. “It was unbelievable,” Tom says. “It was amazing to see that so many people had respected Colin.”
They had grown up pretty close, always playing football together, with Colin, the older by two years, being the harder one. Someone once perceptively noted that, while Tom was fair and even slightly angelic to behold, Colin on the other had was a bit ungainly, with a squashed boxer’s nose and a rasp of darker, unkempt hair.
“Colin was the clever one of the two of us: he got eight O levels and five highers,” said Tom. “But he was also a bit of a hard man, he could look after himself. Quite often in games when we were young, if someone landed one on me, Colin would say: ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get him.’ Maybe he was just joking but he was a hard opponent.
“It was actually Colin who got me into professional football. He was at Dumbarton in 1970 and said to the club, ‘why don’t you go and look at my wee brother . . . he gets lots of goals.’ The next Saturday a scout came to watch me, and in that one game I scored eight goals for Weir’s Pumps in a 12-1 win against a bottom of the league side. It sounds amazing but it’s the truth, and Dumbarton signed me on the spot. I was just 15.”
It was many years later, though, when fate would bring the brothers face to face in the heat of an Old Firm derby. In the early 1980s, fans were fascinated by the jousts of the McAdams of Rangers and Celtic. Prior to that, though, Jock Stein had crucially intervened.
“I’d left Dumbarton [in 1975] to go to Dundee United, but I wasn’t happy under Jim McLean,” said Tom. “Wee Jim was doing my head in; he was a nutter. I was a striker back then and was scoring a few goals, but I wanted away. To be clear, I didn’t hate Jim McLean at all. And he was a great manager, there is no argument. But he was doing my nerves in.
“One day he called me and said: ‘There’s a club in for you . . . are you interested?’ I told him I was and he said, ‘Right, it’s Celtic, so get down to Glasgow.’ I couldn’t get myself down quickly enough to speak to Mr Stein, who came and picked me up at Queen Street station. As I was leaving Wee Jim told me: ‘You’ll be getting no money from us when you go.’ That was typical of him. I didn’t care. I wanted away. And I was going to a huge club like Celtic.”
A story was unfolding which would bring Tom and Colin face to face in Glasgow. In truth, Tom did not settle at Celtic initially, but injuries then forced new manager Billy McNeill’s hand in the spring of 1979 and, on a momentous night at Celtic Park in May of that year, McNeill asked McAdam to fill in at centre-back for a title-decider against Rangers; a game 10-man Celtic won 4-2.
That night the home fans discovered that, out of nowhere, they had a new central defender. “I’d spent a lot of time on the bench, but then came that famous night in 1979,” he says. “I was a stop-gap that night but my Celtic career took off after that. I had pretty much six very happy seasons there after that.
“It was Big Billy who asked me to play centre-half. I’d always been a striker but when I went back into defence I found I really enjoyed it. And I was always decent in the air. Funnily enough, Colin went the opposite way. He started out as a defender – he even played right-back when we were at Dumbarton together – but then moved up front in his career. It’s a strange one, that.”
In the years that followed, with Colin now at Rangers, the brothers faced each other in several Old Firm derbies between 1980 and 1982. There was not always an outpouring of familial love.
“We got a lot of attention when Colin went to Rangers from Partick Thistle [in 1980] and I was at Celtic. We faced each other quite a few times in games and quite often there would be dirty tricks, elbows and such.
“We played one game at Parkhead when I elbowed him as a corner was coming over and, about 10 minutes later, up at the other end, he put a gash in my leg in retaliation when I was trying to shoot. I needed to get stitches put in it at half-time. I remember Sportscene on the BBC made a thing of it later that night. They played Neil Sedaka’s Little Brother over an edit of me and big Colin going at it. They were great times. We always respected one another and shook hands at the end. But we had battles.”
Tom left Celtic in 1986 for Motherwell. Colin had already left Rangers after four years at Ibrox. “I left Celtic when I was 32 and feeling as fit as a fiddle,” says Tom. “Fair enough, Davie Hay came in and wanted to make changes. But 32 today is nothing for a central defender.”
Recent weeks, and the sadness of his brother’s passing, have brought back memories of these more innocent days in Scottish football. Plus this horrendous thought: time is marching on for all of us, once the young men.
“It was shocking when Colin died, totally shocking,” says Tom. “He had suffered a mild heart attack and my wife and I went up to see him at the hospital. He was sitting up, laughing and joking, and we left and went home.
“But a couple of hours later the hospital phoned and said he’d had a setback, a brain haemorrhage, and was on a ventilator. He died shortly afterwards. The doctor said he had suffered a terrible reaction to being given warfarin. But being given it, I was told, was a routine procedure for some people who had suffered heart-attacks.
“As I say, Colin’s funeral was amazing. Around 500 people turned out, it was a terrific show of respect. We had some great times, I’m happy to say.”