Eleven reasons why Jimmy McGrory was not a success as Celtic manager

ELEVEN REASONS WHY JIMMY McGRORY WAS NOT A SUCCESS AS CELTIC MANAGER…

Jimmy McGrory was Manager of Celtic from July 1945 to March 1965. His record was poor – one Scottish League, two Scottish Cups, and two Scottish League Cups and one Coronation Cup. Hard luck stories weren’t really all that frequent either – four Scottish Cup final defeats, one Scottish League Cup defeat and only once we were second on the Scottish League. We won the Glasgow Cup four times, the Glasgow Charity Cup three times and shared it once.

We had a support that was potentially more numerous than that of anyone else in the world (they waned badly by the early 1960s however) and had some wonderful players like Tully, Fernie, Collins, Evans, Peacock, two McPhails, McNeill, Crerand – men who could stand comparison with most players in Celtic’s history. Why did we do so badly under the lovable and still heroic Jimmy McGrory?

There are 11 reasons that one can identify. These reasons, naturally intertwine with each other and naturally they all come back to the Chairman and Directors of the club, as is always the case. In a country one blames the Prime Minister when things go wrong, in a school one blames the Headmaster, in a business firm one blames the Chief Executive, and in a football club, one blames the Chairman. Twas ever thus, of course, but the men at the top are the men who can do something about it!

1. Jimmy McGrory was not, by nature, a Manager. Great players do not always make great Managers. On the other hand, great Managers are often GOOD, but not great players. One thinks of Ferguson, Shankly, Stein and Maley, who were all competent but not outstanding players on the field but were great Managers. In McGrory’s case, there was a lack of “devil”.

Managers sometimes have to be tough, hard, even devious. James McGrory was tough, certainly, on the field but was basically too nice a man for this tough and undeniably cut-throat world of football management. Even Rangers supporters and players had respect, and a few even had a little affection for the man with the phenomenal goal scoring record and who was a household name for his gentlemanly demeanour and lack of boorish behaviour.

2. Chairman Robert Kelly dominated things. He had been Chairman since 1947 and was difficult to dislodge because of who his father (James Kelly) had been. No-one could doubt his commitment to the club, but his judgement was often faulty.

Much was made of the undeniable fact that it was he who chose the team. There was nothing remarkable in that, for even in Maley’s day, the Directors and Chairman, in theory at least, chose the team. The difference between Maley and McGrory in this regard was that Maley was a far stronger and more persuasive character and had in any case a very good relationship with the Directors, until he got old and awkward!

McGrory was far more malleable a character and was too keen to do what he was told. Kelly deserves credit for his fight to retain the Irish flag at Celtic Park, and also for his work with the SFA . It is often claimed that Celtic were some sort of pariah club in Scotland. Not so! Kelly made sure that Celtic were at the centre of things. It was his judgement in specific footballing matters which was suspect. And he did make many mistakes. The four unsuccessful Scottish Cup finals, for example, in 1955, 1956, 1961 and 1963 could all be blamed on a poor team selection.

3. Celtic had many good, even class players, but they did not always coalesce as a team. There was for example, Charlie Tully. He was a personality player and in some ways his arrival in 1948 was just exactly what the deprived Celtic support craved and needed. He had all the trickery, craft, ball control and skill that one would want – but he wasn’t always a team player. It wasn’t that he was necessarily always selfish, but he sometimes was several steps ahead of his team mates.

Willie Fernie was similar. On his day, as good a player as any in the country, but often accused of overdoing the dribbling and failing to release the ball to team mates. Pat Crerand was a brilliant passer of the ball, but notoriously critical of some of his team mates, one in particular. John Hughes could run through a brick wall with the ball, but was notoriously unpredictable, yet capable of some astonishing brilliance. But these individually outstanding players did not make a team.

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4. The supporters let them down. There is a certain element of truth here, but this was basically an effect rather than a cause of poor performances. The unhelpfulness of the supporters came across in two ways. One was sheer hooliganism. Away defeats were often accompanied by totally unacceptable outbreaks of bottle throwing, fighting with locals and vandalism of public and private property. Falkirk seemed to get it more than most towns, but it happened at Dundee, Perth, Kilmarnock, Stirling and Edinburgh, and it was no uncommon sight to see Celtic players appealing to their fans to behave themselves.

But even more widespread and a great deal more deleterious to the performance of the team was the booing, catcalling and slow-handclapping of the team with several players being particularly targetted. Steve Chalmers, Bobby Murdoch and John Hughes were frequently picked on, and only to a point could one sympathise with the viewpoint that the support had been frustrated for so long. It simply did not help the team.

5. The other teams in Scotland were good. Funnily enough, this was not necessarily a great time in the history of Rangers either, but they were usually professional enough, organised enough and lucky enough to eke out victories, particularly in the early 1960s when Celtic often gave the impression of being beaten before they started and that, somehow, Celtic were not allowed to beat Rangers! Rangers had some good players –one thinks of Ian McMillan and Jim Baxter – but most were competent and brutal rather than clinical and brilliant.

But there were other good teams around as well – Hibs in the early 1950s had their Famous Five forward line, Hearts developed into a top class outfit in the late 1950s and early 1960s and many people were of the opinion that the Dundee side of 1962 was one of the best teams that Scotland had ever seen. In addition, Kilmarnock and Dunfermline, both from a low budget, did well in both Scotland and Europe. But, no matter how good the opposition were, it is incumbent upon Celtic to be better.

6. The facilities were not very good. The stadium was an absolute disgrace with that awful cow barn of a Jungle in place with its holes in the roof and the flaky stuff looking suspiciously like asbestos that kept falling down on one’s head. In 1957 a shelter was built at the Celtic End or Railway End of the ground, but it only reached half way down and there were windows at the back which were sometimes broken and no-one thought of repairing them.

Weeds grew on the terracing, and floodlights came to Celtic Park in 1959, several years after other teams like Rangers and Hibs, and players had to be sold to pay for them. If it is true that children and families do not thrive in sub-standard housing, it is difficult to reject the contention that football players do not do well in an awful stadium, which nevertheless still rejoiced in the name of “Paradise”!

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7. Training was very poor. Several players, notably the late Charlie Gallagher, mentioned that other teams often finished the game in better shape than Celtic did. There was a training ground of sorts at Barrowfield, a few hundred yards away on the other side of London Road, but quite a lot of the training was done on Celtic Park itself and it consisted of endless running round the track under no supervision, and very rarely was there any practice in ball skills.

Stories are told of players nipping into the Jungle for a smoke when they should have been training. This is often told in the context of “laddish” behaviour and “oh, weren’t they awful” but this slipshod approach to training probably cost Celtic several trophies. For this the Manager must take some of the blame.

8. Youth policy – shortly after the 7-1 game in 1957, the team began to break up and established players were replaced by youngsters. There was an excellent example in England of a very successful youth policy employed by Manchester United Manager (and unashamed Celtic supporter) Matt Busby.

They were called the Busby Babes, and the Chairman looked for a Scottish parallel, calling them the Kelly Kids. The trouble was that youth policies take time to work, and need to be strongly monitored, but the club allowed the departure to Dunfermline Athletic in 1960 of the one man who might well have made a success of all this, Jock Stein.

No-one seemed capable of moulding the talented youngsters, and things were allowed to drift, with, for example, youngsters being given two or three games in the team and suddenly dropped without anyone telling them why. On several occasions, Mr McGrory gave journalists the impression that he did not even know the names of some of his youngsters.

9. Referees – only to a very limited extent can one blame referees for Celtic’s lack of success. Yes, Celtic got the occasional bad deal from an official, but so too did other teams. Bobby Davidson of Airdrie, for example, was much excoriated at Parkhead, but where he was really unpopular was Ibrox after the 1958 Scottish Cup semi-final replay when what looked to Rangers supporters a very valid equaliser was ruled out. As far as Celtic were concerned, it would be very hard to sustain a case that the 20 years of failure were in any way contributed to by any sustained campaign against them by referees. The odd decision, yes, but no more than other teams.

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10. Match Fixing – we are on dodgy ground here, and nothing can ever be proved. Was there a “Trojan Horse” inside Celtic Park? There were certainly rumours, and one would have to be very naïve to say that it could never happen, but there is a distinct lack of evidence. Goalkeeper Dick Beattie was indeed convicted of this crime, but that was years later when he was playing in England and there was never any evidence to connect him with this sort of thing at Celtic. He did have a dreadful game in the 1957 Scottish Cup semi-final replay against Kilmarnock and was badly at fault for the second goal in the 1956 Scottish Cup final against Hearts – very uncomfortable watching on You Tube! – and it may be that some newspaper reports of those games are trying to say something, but no, the balance of opinion must be that this was not a factor. It certainly was not a factor for the whole 20 years!

11. The media? Once again, this may have been a factor, but cannot really be said to have been a major reason for Celtic’s lack of success in the black 20 years from 1945 to 1965. There is little point in denying that the BBC TV (Peter Thomson (“Blue Peter”) in particular) and the Scottish Daily Express, for example, in the early 1960s were pro-Rangers. But on the other hand, Celtic were so big in terms of support and circulation figures,that it would not make sense to ignore them.

And there were times when The Glasgow Herald in particular showed a distinctly pro-Celtic inclination, not least in the dispute about whether the Irish flag should be allowed to fly at Celtic Park. Similarly, the 7-1 victory was universally praised to high heaven by every section of the Scottish media. The truth was, and always has been, that success on the field will be reflected by praise in the Press. There was little coming out of Celtic Park to enthuse anyone. It may be, however, that the all-pervasive lauding of Rangers may have had an effect of the impressionable young Celts of the early 1960s, and have contributed to the feeling that Rangers were somehow pre-destined to triumph.

To sum up, it all comes down to the simple fact that Celtic were baldy led and badly organised. Mr Kelly eventually admitted he was wrong and brought back Jock Stein to lead the club. Jimmy McGrory remained much loved and admired by everyone. He was a great player – probably a candidate for the centre forward spot in an all-time World XI – and he was gentle, modest, friendly and lovable. After 1965 he became the Public Relations Officer, a job for which he was ideally suited. Jock Stein still called him “Boss” and told his players to do likewise.

But Jimmy McGrory was no Manager.

David Potter