LISBON LION Tommy Gemmell will be celebrated when a statue of the Celtic legend is unveiled in his hometown of Craigneuk at 2pm tomorrow.
The club icon was the scorer of the crucial and utterly unforgettable equalising goal as Jock Stein’s side became the first British club to conquer Europe when they overcame mighty Inter Milan 2-1 in the glorious sunshine on the evening of May 25 1967 in the Portuguese capital.
CQN are marking the well-deserved honour to a genuine Celtic great with an EXCLUSIVE series in the countdown to the big day.
Celtic book author Alex Gordon, a lifelong friend of the iconic Celt and who co-wrote Tommy’s 2014 best-selling autobiography, ‘All The Best’, looks back at the remarkable career of a completely one-off character.
Here is another edited chapter from Tommy during his three-year manager’s stint as manager of Dundee.
Please enjoy.
I TOOK an immediate shine to Ian Redford when I helped out with the Errol amateur side in 1976. As a player, I had some spare time and I thought I would do my bit for the locals and I’m glad I did because it brought £210,000 into Dundee’s coffers in 1980.
In between, we got four years’ sterling service from a very clever left-sided player. I wasn’t surprised to see Redford linked with a whole host of clubs and it was only a matter of time before we would receive a decent offer for him. It duly came from Rangers manager John Greig.
Was I surprised about a bid from Ibrox? Not really when you consider I had previously been informed the player had been tapped by them! So, it was just a question of when that call would be made. My old adversary didn’t disappoint. I was ready for him. The conversations were a bit like this:
GREIG: ‘I like the look of your young lad Ian Redford.’
ME: ‘I’m not surprised, John. There are a lot of teams who like the look of him. I don’t blame them, he’s a very good player.’
GREIG: ‘What are you looking for him? How much will you be willing to accept?’
ME (getting ready for the transfer game to begin): ‘Well, he’s not for sale, John, but you know the policy at this club. We’re fairly healthy at the bank at the moment, but we are always open to a reasonable bid for any of our players.’ (I knew my chairman would bite the hand off Rangers if they offered anything close to six figures for a player.)
GREIG: ‘We can go to £100,000. What do you think?’
ME: ‘Nope. I wouldn’t let him go for that. No chance.’
GREIG: ‘Maybe we can take it up to £110,000. Does that sound reasonable?’
ME: ‘I don’t think my board would be interested in losing our best player for that sort of figure, to be honest, Greigy. If you want, I’ll put it to the chairman and get back to you, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up. I know the chairman is a big fan of the lad. He won’t want him to leave.’
DERBY DAY RIVALS…Tommy Gemmell, standing in as Celtic captain with Billy McNeill injured, shakes hands with his Rangers counterpart John Greig before kick-off.
The Rangers manager agreed to give me a telephone call the following morning to get a progress report. Greigy didn’t know it, of course, but I was comfortable in this game of bluff and double-bluff.
For a start, they had contacted the player, so they had shown their hand. They had targeted him and I was going to push them all the way. I took a chance at this point that might have backfired.
I didn’t bother to tell Dens chairman Ian Gellatly of Rangers’ interest or their £110,000 bid. The following day Greigy made the call.
GREIG: ‘Have we got a deal, Tommy?’
ME: ‘Sorry, old mate, it’s a no from my board. They would prefer to keep the player. They accept they will have to let him go at some point as he keeps making progress, but not at £110,000.’
GREIG: ‘I can take it up to £120,000, Tommy. Would that do it?’
ME: ‘No, I don’t think so. Maybe £150,000 might be of interest to the board. I can’t promise, but that will get them listening.’
GREIG: ‘I’ll phone this afternoon. Okay? I’ll go back to my board.’
At some point before five o’clock, as I was tidying up things to go back to the hotel, the telephone shrilled. I had a fair idea of the identity of the caller. On came the Rangers boss.
GREIG: ‘My board will stretch to £150,000. I don’t think we can go beyond that. Will you get back to me tomorrow?’
I said I would and now I was in a bit of a quandary. I realised only too well what Ian Gellatly would say if I told him Rangers were offering £150,000 for one of his players. I had to tell him, I couldn’t leave him in the dark any more.
I put a call into him. ‘Take it!’ was his expected response. ‘Tommy, don’t hesitate – take it!’
I told him I thought we could still get more. Our chairman often smoked a pipe and I could just about hear the excited puffing coming down the line.
I duly telephoned Ibrox the following day. I was probably putting my job at risk, if not my entire career in total jeopardy. I took a chance.
ME: ‘Greigy, sorry. but they’re not interested at that price, either. Any chance you can add to it?’
The Rangers manager was obviously hell-bent on getting his man. Equally obviously, was the fact he had already had a pow-wow with his directors.
GREIG: ‘We can offer £160,000. How about that?’
ME: ‘Look, Greigy, this could be a right good player for you. I know that and so do you. How about £180,000?’
GREIG: ‘Christ, Tommy, are you joking? I can’t go to that. Look, you better deal with one of our directors. I’ll let him take it on now. Okay?’
SCOTLAND THE BRAVE…John Greig heads the team, followed by keeper Bobby Ferguson and Tommy Gemmell for a game against England, led by Bobby Moore, at Hampden.
I said that was fine and he gave me the telephone number of Jack Gillespie. Actually, I knew Jack personally. He was a garage owner in Lenzie and our paths had crossed on several occasions. As you might anticipate, our chairman was eager to be kept in the loop.
When I told him I had knocked back £160,000 he said, ‘Good God! Do you know what you’re doing, Tommy? That’s a lot of money.’
I could hear the furious puffing of the pipe in the background.
‘Leave it with me,’ I said with more confidence than I should have possessed. I just had a feeling Rangers were so keen on the player that I could push them that little bit further. I put a call into the Rangers director. I knew he had a vast personal fortune and was used to dealing in high figures.
The game was still afoot, as Sherlock would have said.
GILLESPIE: ‘What’s happening, Tommy?’
ME: ‘You want one of my players, Ian Redford, and we’re willing to sell – but only at the right price.’
GILLESPIE: ‘What’s the right price, Tommy? John Greig mentioned something like £180,000. Is that the figure?’
ME: ‘It’s an offer I would put in front of the board, Jack, but I still can’t promise anything.’
GILLESPIE: ‘Okay, we’ll bid £180,000. Will you get back to me?’
Just like that. In a space of a few days and several phone calls, I had managed to get Rangers to add £80,000 to their original offer. Deep down, though, I was convinced there was more to come.
‘Take it!’ said Ian Gellatly, predictably. ‘Take it! We’ll not get any better than that. Take it!’
Once more I got the impression the frantic smoke signals must have been engulfing the entire Gellatly household.
INTERNATIONAL GET-TOGETHER…Scotland boss Bobby Brown discusses tactics with Celtic double-act Billy McNeill and Tommy Gemmell with John Greig also listening in.
‘Leave it with me, chairman,’ I said. I was on a roll and I believed Jack Gillespie wouldn’t want to be seen backing down in this situation.
ME: ‘Sorry, Jack, they’ve said no again.’ (Okay, I was a bit economical with the truth there.) ‘They’re looking at all the big dosh that is being paid down south at the moment and they believe it’s only a matter of time before they get a massive bid from England for Redford.’
GILLESPIE: ‘I’ll go to £200,000, then. Will you put that to your board and get back to me?’
ME: ‘No problem. I’ll talk to them tonight.’
‘Take it!’ was the echo of a response from my chairman. In his mind the money had already been banked. ‘Take it!’
I got the impression, with all that manic puffing of his pipe, that the Gellatly spread now resembled a scene from Victorian London. The following day the Redford Saga was about to come to a halt. I telephoned Gillespie.
ME: ‘You’ll not believe this, Jack, but they want more.’ (Okay, I was being extremely economical with the truth at this point.)
GILLESPIE: ‘How much more? What are we talking about now?’
ME: ‘I think they’ll settle for £210,000. I’m pretty sure that will get the deal done. I don’t see them knocking that back.’
GILLESPIE: ‘Okay, we’ll go to £210,000, Tommy, but that’s the end of it. There’s no point in asking for more. This is our final bid. Absolutely final.’
I duly got in touch with my ecstatic chairman. He cried, ‘What? They went to £210,000? Well done, Tommy. Great job. I never doubted you.’
There wasn’t such puffing activity on this occasion as his heartbeat obviously got back to normal. There were no instalments or anything like that. The money went in as a lump sum.
Mind you, I never saw a penny of that cash. A couple of quid would have helped me bring in some new players to freshen up the squad, but, as I had already guessed, that money was heading straight into the bank account of Dundee Football Club. Such is life.
LIONS ON TAYSIDE…Tommy Gemmell watches as Jimmy Johnstone goes through a routine shortly after the former Celtic greats got together at Dundee.
I was grateful for Dundee giving me the opportunity to manage their club. Sitting behind the manager’s desk certainly added to my football education.
I was also fortunate that the Tayside club only had three directors. There was Ian Gellatly, Graham Thomson, the Managing Director of Timex, and Willie Lyburn, a farmer from Blairgowrie.
It helped if you needed a swift decision from the board. It wasn’t a Cecil B De Mille job with a cast of thousands. It was three guys who could make a few phone calls and get things done in jig-time. There was no animosity when I was relieved of my duties after three years in 1980.
We were relegated from the Premier League after starting off with two seasons in the First Division. It was all a massive learning curve. Words from Cloughie came back to me.
He said, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day, young man. But, then, I wasn’t on that particular job!’
TOMORROW: DON’T MISS CELEBRATING TOMMY GEMMELL: DAY FIVE
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