It was on 9 April 1960 that my life changed. By then we had acquired a television and that afternoon my father suggested I come in and sit with him to watch Scotland play England. I found it fascinating and exciting and was amazed at the vast crowd who were there to watch. We cheered as Scotland took the lead through Graham Leggat and groaned when England luckily (at least to us) equalised. However the result did not really matter to me. I had discovered a new and more exciting version of the game of football.
As soon as the game finished the street was full of kids kicking balls and playing impromptu games. Our schoolyard games too would change. Previously we had just kicked the ball around in the general direction of what was perceived to be the opposing goal. In one part of the yard there were two sets of drainpipes which we used as goals. However they were at separate ends of the same wall so our game meant dribbling and kicking in a U shape out from our goal and back round towards the opposition one.
However after we had seen that international match our horizons changed. The area of play was more defined with jackets or bags for goals at a reasonable distance apart. We even introduced corners. Shies were a bit different. On one side was the school wall. It was generally agreed that the wall was part of the game and a “pass off the wa’” became a perfect way of learning the 1-2 skill. The other side was a bit different as there was no immediate boundary. A shy was claimed by just picking up the ball and throwing it back in when you felt it had travelled too far away. Naturally the definition of “too far” depended on whether it was to your advantage to continue or not. Posts and crossbars were imaginary with a rough rule that if the goalie could not reach the ball with his arms fully extended then it was “ower the bar”. Defenders and attackers did not always agree on this rule!
If that Scotland v England match had introduced me to the excitement of football then another game a few weeks later showed me its artistry. I still was not too clued up on professional football so when I went to school on the morning of 18 May I had no idea what was happening that evening. In the line waiting to go into the classroom Joe Flanagan said to me “Are you going to be watching the European Cup Final on the tele tonight?” “Oh aye” I replied with no idea of what he was talking about.
“I reckon Real Madrid will win” he said. I had never heard of Real Madrid but when you are 9 years of age you are not going lose respect and credibility by admitting it so I replied “me too”.
By listening to others I found out that Real Madrid were playing Eintracht Frankfurt in the European Cup Final at Hampden Park that evening. As there were no floodlights at Hampden the game kicked off early and I watched the first 15 minutes or so before my father came home and joined me in front of the TV.
Watching the International the previous month I had been on the edge of my seat with excitement. This was different and not just because it was two teams who I had no connection with. On this occasion I sat spellbound, mesmerised by the football artistry on display especially from the team in all white.
I wish I had the literary skill to write about the impression this game had on me. It was like seeing a beautiful piece of art for the first time, or hearing a piece of music that stops you in your tracks. My mind was thinking if this is what you see when you go to a football game then I want to go to one. Of course I had never been to any major game before so maybe I thought that this type of performance was what you got at the likes of Shawfield or Firhill every Saturday afternoon. For older people like my father though it was a real eye opener. If this was football what the hell had he been watching over the last few years?
The next morning Real Madrid was the talk of the playground. Everyone saw themselves as Di Stefano, Puskas or Gento and the schoolyard seemed like Hampden. Real Madrid were exotic and glamourous with their superstars from Spain, Hungary and Argentina. You would never get a Scottish team capable of competing with them.
