Feyenoord 1970: A Total Football family affair

50 year on, Feyenoord's all-conquering team remembered

Many years ago, in that most British of traditions, I found myself acting as an adviser and confidant to a man in a pub.

He was faced with a perplexing dilemma. Widowed for several years, he was starting to become aware of Old Father Time and his uncanny habit of taking people without warning and leaving messy family matters unresolved.

In his case, there was the small matter that his two children were unaware that he had been married for a short time before he had met their mother.

I confess I was somewhat surprised to have this delicate problem presented to me as I couldn't say I knew the man well, certainly didn't consider him a friend and neither particularly respected nor liked him. Nevertheless, it was easy for me to advise him to reveal the truth because family secrets, casually discovered, can have a devastating effect. I knew this from personal experience.

Of course, the word, “family”, is thrown around in football rather too often. FIFA and UEFA delight in telling fans that they are all valued members of the “Football Family” and on no account should they feel that they are only important according to their ability to contribute financially to a massive corporate machine.

As for me, I was a very junior member of what many people still like to call the “Celtic family” in

1978, when I discovered our own dark secret.

Jock Stein had left the club and, while paying tribute to his many successes, a former player noted that he had “won one European Cup and been pipped once in the final”. A sickening chill ran through me, almost as if I had discovered a hitherto-unknown deceased stepmother.

What did he mean by that? I knew all about Celtic's great European Cup victory in Lisbon, against Inter Milan in 1967. I could never tire of reading about it. But “lost a European Cup final”? 

“Oh, we thought you knew,” came the unsatisfactorily dismissive answer from relatives.

Being a budding historian, I referred to my football books and was dismayed to discover the meaning of the words, “runners-up”.

1970 – European Cup runners-up.

The culprits, I found – who had no respect for Celtic's right to monopolise romantic victories –  were Feyenoord of Rotterdam. Their win over Celtic, ironically in the San Siro stadium in Milan, had many parallels to that 1967 Celtic glory.

Half a century later, many appear to have almost forgotten what would be one of the most significant victories in European football history.

For, while their Amsterdam rivals, Ajax, became one of the most admired and successful clubs in the world game, it was Feyenoord who were the first Dutch team to secure a major international trophy, opening the door for what would be the first great era of Dutch football and establishing the Netherlands as a football powerhouse that continues to this day.

And they did it using “Total Football”.

To many, the words are synonymous with the Ajax coached by Rinus Michels, with legendary players such as Johan Cruyff, Johan Neeskens, Piet Keizer, Rudi Krol, Johnny Rep, Gerrie Mühren and more who won three consecutive European Cups from 1971-74.

In fact, as Jonathan Wilson points out in Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics, “The term ‘totaalvoetbal’ itself appeared only in response to performances of the national side in the 1974 World Cup finals in West Germany.

Before that, Wilson notes, “Totaal” was applied as a prefix to a wide range of disciplines (in a way perhaps similar to the application of “Eco” today). When something was described as “Totaal”, it was thought to demonstrate inter-relationships between all of its elements – much as the great Dutch teams could seemingly connect and interchange as the situation required and as opportunities arose.

But, while Ajax and the Dutch national team became synonymous with the term amongst football fans, many of its principles preceded the 1970s by several decades.

Because, just as families pass on wisdom, values and traditions through the generations, so in

football, ideas and methods have always been passed on from coaches to players who become coaches themselves. As Cruyff learned from Michels and added his own innovation to Barcelona, so Pep Guardiola has become arguably the most influential coach of the past decade or more.

But listening to his words about his mentor can sound very reminiscent of a father-son relationship.

“He was unique, totally unique. Without him I wouldn’t be here. I know for sure this is why I am, right now, the manager of Manchester City and before that Bayern Munich and Barcelona.”

“Before he came we didn’t have a cathedral of football, this beautiful church, at Barcelona. We needed something new. And now it is something that has lasted. It was built by one man, by Johan Cruyff, stone by stone. That’s why he was special.

“I would not be able to do what he did. You hear all these people saying: ‘Oh Pep, what a good manager he is.’ Forget about it. Cruyff was the best, by far. Creating something new is the difficult part. To make it and build it and get everyone to follow? Amazing. That’s why, when I was Barcelona manager, I went to see Johan many times. I made especially sure I went a lot in my first year when we won everything, absolutely everything.”

“I always went that season to see Johan to try to make him feel how grateful I was to him. Of course I wanted to talk to him about new ideas, but the main feeling I always had when I said goodbye was that he might feel how pleased I am and see how deep my gratitude goes.”

Equally, it could be argued that the football that Feyenoord played had a direct lineage through an Austrian, a coach who would now be considered Czech, and an Englishman of Irish roots, all the way back to Scotland in a football heritage as real as any blood ties.

The Scottish Style

In the past, I have faced quite reasonable incredulity when trying to persuade Brazilian friends that the type of football for which their country became so loved in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, had its roots in what was once known as the “Scottish style”.

In fairness, that is not a term that is even Scots apply to modern football in Scotland – at least not in a complimentary way.

Nonetheless, as early as 1872, when Scotland and England played the first international match, it was noted by observers that the teams' approaches to the game were quite different. While the English focussed on strength and running with the ball until dispossessed, the Scots preferred to use the space afforded by the West of Scotland Cricket Ground, which hosted the match, with intricate passing patterns combined with dribbling.

This was the first great cultural divide in football, with English teams largely preferring to persist with their method, which Wilson believes was developed partly because many of their players learned the game playing in tight yards in the country's elite schools, while the Scots had enjoyed wide spaces and grass fields.

In particular, Queen's Park – the most powerful Scottish team in the amateur era – were specialists in the Scottish style.

The Scots, though, spread the word of passing football – sometimes known as “combination football” – with a missionary zeal, firstly through a group known as the “Scottish professors”, some of whom were academics who were employed by English schools and universities, and who taught their brand of football in their spare time. (The name was first given to a group of Scottish players who had joined Preston North End, when the club was a major power in the English game.) Others were tempted by the ability to make a living in football when the game in Scotland was still officially amateur.

Over the years, a number of notable Scots taught their style of football in Brazil, where Archie McLean brought the style to Sao Paolo while working as a machine engineer for JP Coats (who made thread) and Argentina, where Glasgow-born Alexander Watson Hutton emigrated to teach at Saint Andrew’s Scotch School and later established the Buenos Aires English High School.

(Johnny Madden would coach first in England before coming to Prague to coach Slavia for 25 years.)

By the early 20th century, the Scottish style was being taken to continental Europe, with the greatest advocate of the game being an Englishman, Jimmy Hogan.

Jimmy Hogan leads a training session

Born in Lancashire, in the North of England, to Irish parents, Hogan was the most influential coach of his time and would become known as the father of Hungarian, German and Austrian football, though his first coaching role was with Dutch club, FC Dordrecht, before taking charge of the Dutch national team for one match – a victory against Germany. He also coached in Switzerland and France.

He is probably best-known for laying the foundations of football in Hungary that would lead to that country's greatest-ever era of football with the “Golden Team” or “Mighty Magyars” as late as the 1950s still being said to owe a great deal to the methods he introduced almost 30 years previously.

In 1953, when Hungary visited Wembley, the English generally assumed that they were the greatest football nation on earth. They were soundly thrashed, 6-3, by the Magyars who had 35 shots to England's five, prompting Geoffrey Green in The Times to say, "Here, indeed, did we attend, all 100,000 of us, the twilight of the gods," under the headline: “A new conception of football”.

Jackie Sewell, one of the England players that day, said: “Their movement was incredible. They just passed around us all day long. They played little triangles, the give-and-go ones you see everyone trying to do now. But no-one did it back then - no-one I'd seen anyway.”

But when Sandor Barcs, president of the Hungarian FA, was asked for the secret of his country's success, he stated simply: “Jimmy Hogan taught us everything we know about football.” Coach Gustav Sebes later added: “We played football as Jimmy Hogan taught us. When our football history is told, his name should be written in gold letters."

But more directly relevant to this story is Hogan's influence in Austria and, in particular, on another legendary coach, Hugo Meisl. Though considered an Austrian, at the time, Meisl was born in Malešov, so the Czech Republic can justifiably claim him as its own son.

Meisl, who had played football at little more than a recreational level – and refereed in the 1912 Olympics – might only have been known as an administrator (he became General Secretary of the Austrian FA) had he not benefited from the input of Hogan, who helped him to devise a system of playing that emphasised keeping the ball on the ground.

This Austrian-Czechoslovak coached what would be known as the “Wunderteam”, still Austria's greatest national team and one that some would say has cast a shadow that the country has never escaped from.

The Wunderteam would not only be known for its success – reaching the World Cup semi-finals in 1934, only to lose to an extremely physical Italian team on its home territory. (Those same Italians won the final with Czechoslovakia being runners-up.) 

The team – which included Pepi Bican from 1933-36 before he represented Czechoslovakia – were also recognised as stylish advocates of the passing game.

As Brian Glanville, the English football writer, described Meisl’s style: “Soccer became almost an exhibition, a sort of competitive ballet, in which scoring goals was no more than the excuse for the weaving of a hundred intricate patterns.”

This has often been described as an early example of Total Football.

Widely recognised as one of the great teams in the world, the Viennese-born Feyenoord coach of 1970, Ernst Happel was eight years old when Austria attained their 4th-place finish in 1934. He

Ernst Happel

started playing youth football for Rapid Wien at the age of 12 and won the first of his 51 Austrian international caps in 1947, just ten years after Meisl stopped coaching the national  team (he died the same year).

Happel would go on to surpass even Meisl with a brand of football that was rooted in the Wunderteam's technique and use of the ball but adapted the beautiful, “balletic” team of the 30s with the addition of a pragmatism and strength that would eventually shock the football world.

Compared to their Ajax contemporaries, the Feyenoord team from 1970 have fewer immortal names, known to those outside Rotterdam: Eddy Pieters Graafland, Piet Romeijn, Theo Laseroms, Rinus Israël, Theo van Duivenbode, Wim Jansen [who would later manage Celtic], Franz Hasil, Willem van Hanegem, Henk Wery, Ove Kindvall, Coen Moulijn and substitute, Guus Haak.

Happel, has given his name to the home of his nation's major stadium, in Vienna, ensuring that he will continue to be mentioned amongst the greatest managers Europe has produced with a record that fully justifies that accolade. Happel won both leagues and domestic cups in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Austria as well as winning the European Cup with two clubs – Feyenoord in 1970, and Hamburg in 1983, the first coach to achieve such a double.

But the story of his 1970 team, which would also be recognised as de-facto World Club champions with an Inter-Continental Cup victory over Argentina's Estudiantes, is both remarkable and one deeply rooted in the history of football in Europe.

It is worth noting that Feyenoord's ability – or that of the Dutch in general – should not have come as a great shock to Celtic. Ajax had themselves been runners-up to AC Milan in the European Cup final of 1969 and Feyenoord had eliminated the champions en route to the final in the Italian club's home city.

But most of Britain felt confident that Celtic would win their second European Cup in four years, not least because they had eliminated Leeds United – then considered by many British fans and journalists to be the finest club side in the world.

The fact that Celtic had won both legs of that tie was generally taken as an emphatic statement of the Glasgow club's exceptional quality. It may also have prompted Celtic to underestimate Feyenoord, just as Inter Milan had been punished for doing to Celtic in Lisbon.

And while there have been many other possible reasons given for Celtic under-performing – including bonus disputes between the players and the board – it is widely recognised that Celtic were comprehensively dismantled by a team that was, on the night, superior in every department and which was far better than anyone associated with Celtic had been prepared for.

Celtic, including seven of the “Lisbon Lions” from their victorious 1967 final, actually took the lead against the run of play on 30 minutes, with a fierce Tommy Gemmell effort, but could only retain the advantage for two minutes before Rinus Israël equalised.

Somehow, Celtic held out until extra time before what seemed the inevitable winner from Ove Kindvall.

Scottish and English journalists were in no doubt as to the superior side. The Glasgow Evening Times reported: 

“The team that has lost only 14 goats in the Dutch season were certainly justifying their record.

“The man who did most to beat Celtic was the tall Van Hanegem. The inside left's ball control was tremendous. He would take on one Celt as a rehearsal before beating two or three more. He slowed the game to a walking-pace with the full realisation that Celtic wanted to go full- steam ahead.

“And all around him he had team-mates of equal subtlety who co-operated with him. I've never seen a Celtic team chase its tail so much.

“Whenever they lost possession they were bang in trouble. For Feyenoord passed and inter-passed, teased and tantalised when it was their turn, ...”

The same Geoffrey Green of The Times who had been so mesmerised by Hungary in the 1950s wrote: 

“Meanwhile, the scenes here tonight at the finish were memorable – certainly for the Dutch. With only four minutes left to a replay on Friday, a long free kick from the half-way line was misjudged by McNeill. Indeed, in his effort to recover his mistake inside the Celtic penalty area he appeared to have tried to punch the ball. But the alert Kindvall, who will be playing centre forward in the Swedish World Cup side, was too quick. He was round his man in a flash to lob the ball over Williams and Feyenoord were home.

“In those last moments Kindvall the hero was chaired back to the centre of the field by his colleagues.

“Yet if there bad been one hero even beyond this sharp moving cultivated centre forward, it was Hasil the Austrian. With Jansen and van Hanegem he formed a trio that completely dominated the centre of the field. That was where Celtic were beaten last night.

“The Dutch played beautiful football as they stroked the ball around in tight little circles, teasing and at times humbling their foe. On this form no wonder they had earlier beaten the former champions, AC. Milan, on whose home pastures this night they tasted their joy and their victory.”

In August of the same year, Feyenoord drew 2-2 with Estudiantes in Buenos Aires, with goals from van Hanegem and Kindvall cancelling out the hosts' early lead through Juan Echecopar and Juan Ramón Verón. That set up the second leg in Rotterdam, which Feyenoord won 1-0 thanks to a goal from Joop van Daele.

The Inter-Continental Cup was then a decider between the European and Latin American champions

Rinus Israel & Theo Laseroms with the Inter-Continental Cup

to with the winners recognised as the best club side in the world.

It seemed that Happel had taken the best elements of the football for which the Wunderteam had been known but added a vital element of “steel” that allowed him to turn creative, passing football into silver.

That is certainly the view of Rotterdam-based journalist, Robert van Brandwijk, who along with fellow Dutch journalist, Ellen Mannens, is preparing a book to mark the 50th anniversary of Feyenoord's most glorious year.

“Yes, it is accurate to say that, although Feyenoord had some of the most intelligent players in the game at that time. Israël was not only steel, but had a beautiful way of kicking the ball and could read the game. Furthermore Van Hanegem and Jansen were regarded – according to Happel – as to be among the best midfield players he ever saw. Tactically speaking they were on the highest level. You could say it was Total Football with character, team spirit and genius.

Mr van Brandwijk is also adamant that that Feyenoord win – and Happel himself – were crucial factors in the ascendancy of Dutch football at both club and international levels.

“Feyenoord was the first Dutch team to win a major competition. It gave a huge boost of confidence to football in our country. And also paved the way for a more professional attitude in the national team. Happel was critical about the gap between Ajax and Feyenoord on side and the Orange team on the other.

Michels would go on to lead the Dutch to a 1974 World Cup final defeat to West Germany in Munich while Happel would led the country to another final defeat against Argentina – again the hosts – in 1978.

But Mr van Brandwijk is keen to emphasise that people should remember Feyenoord: “Because of Ajax's three wins in the following years Feyenoord’s win is sometimes considered to be a lucky shot. It was not. Feyenoord was the first team that successfully played Total Football. During the tournament they completely dismantled the catenaccio of Milan and the aggressive attacking of British football (Celtic).

“Some people in Dutch football like to put Ajax on a pedestal, but Feyenoord has to be credited for tactical genius, character and team spirit. Unfortunately, as Happel said, you can only be a European Top Club if your success continues.

“In 1970 they were top teams, with Ajax being the more artistic and Feyenoord the more tactical side with more character.

“Happel made an everlasting impact on Dutch football. His tactical genius was uncompaired. The key to the 1970 Cup was: not just adjust to the opponent’s tactical plan, but always be sure that they have to follow your plan. So, analyse, adjust and dominate. A perfect example is the final against Celtic, a team that only had their opponent’s goal in mind. Happel surprised them completely by temporizing the speed of the game in midfield.”

One example of a player, often known for his physical toughness but who Mr van Brandwijk and Ms

Theo Laseroms

Mannens both agree should also be appreciated for his ball skills, was Theo Laseroms, who played in the Milan final as well as both legs of the Inter-Continental Cup.

Born in Roosendaal in the province of North Brabant, in 1940, Laseroms turned professional at 17 and spent much of his early career playing as a right-winger. Having played for his local club, NAC Roosendaall, followed by moves to NAC Breda and Sparta Rotterdam, he then tried his luck in the United States, with Pittsburgh Phantoms, in 1970, sparking an international dispute.

By now playing as a full-back, Sparta alleged incitement and pursued court cases in both the Netherlands and the United States with a Dutch court ordering that Laseroms should pay Sparta the equivalent of what would today be around 275,000 CZK per match, amounting to 10% of his annual contract per game he played for the phantoms. (The final fee was settled out of court.)

When he returned in 1968, it was to Feyenoord, where he would earn legendary status, mostly in the centre of defence, though the move was not universally welcomed at first.

“Theo was very important to the team,” Mr van Brandwijk explains but adds, “When he first came to the club, there was a lot of scepticism. Fans considered him to be an overweight ‘butcher’, unworthy of the Feyenoord jersey. But soon he became one of the most popular team members because of his attitude and fearless tackles.... His sliding tackles - some from 20 metres - left tracks in the pitches. No fear. Never.” This earned him the nickname, Theo de Tank.

But in many ways, Laseroms could be seen to have epitomised that shrewd judgement that allowed Happel such success with Feyenoord in conditions very different to those enjoyed by professionals today.

Mr van Brandwijk says, “Together with Israël he was the backbone of the team, it was hard to beat those two. In the 69-70 season Theo was pivotal in the matches against Berlin and Legia, played on pitches unworthy of European football.

“Theo always played on the edge. After the first Milan match Feyenoord got a letter from UEFA saying they should keep an eye on Theo. Furthermore Theo with his mentality, stories and jokes was a beloved team member.”

While the name, Theo Laseroms, may not be readily-recalled by many non-Dutch supporters, one member of his own family will be more familiar to Czech football fans.

His grandson, Slavia's Mick Van Buren, is the son of Laseroms's daughter, Astrid. Sadly, Laseroms died of a heart attack the year before Mick was born but Van Buren is understandably proud of his most famous relative (his father and uncle were also both professional footballers at Excelsior where Van Buren started out), though it was not an ever-present factor in his early days.

Mick Van Buren

“I don't think I was so much aware of it – like what he did. Because I never knew him. I heard he won the European Cup, he won the World Club Championship, but at that time, when I was young, I was not aware that it was so big.

“Of course when I started to be, like 15/16/17, when I started to be a professional player, myself, then you know how big it is to achieve those things because it's huge. It's like winning the Champions League; it's like winning the World Cup for Clubs – he was in the best teams in the world.

“Then you start to know that he was one of the best players.”

Naturally, over time, that awareness grew: “Yeah, many times I've heard stories or I've seen some interviews with him when he was a coach in Bahrain, for example. Yeah, you hear many stories about how he was as a player and it's always nice to hear. And many journalists ask about it – or know about it and tell you something, so I've always been hearing about it.”

“At Feyenoord Stadium [De Kuip], there's a big picture of him outside the stadium, inside the stadium as well, in the museum. Of course, that's a big inspiration, right?” There is also a cul-de-sac, Theo Laseromsstraat, in Rotterdam named after him.

“He was also a hard-working player. He was a defender, though, so that's maybe a different type of player than me, but the hard-working part – and the never giving up part – I think that's something that I also have. So, for sure he gives me inspiration.”

Despite having such strong footballing ties on both his maternal and paternal sides, Mick believes that his own footballing career owes more to as supportive environment than being truly “in the blood”.

“No, it's not like something in the genes … the talent and the hard work took me where I am now.”

“Yeah, in situations, [my father] would help and also my [he] was kind of the same position – he was maybe more of a midfielder than me – more like a number 10 striker, but in situations he would help me, we were talking about football, about situations in the games, from when I was 18 or 19.

“They never pushed me or anything but when you are in a football family, of course football is on all the time, your father is playing football with you all the time. My grandfather, I never knew, but my other grandfather also loved football. So, then you kind of grow up with football so it goes automatically.”

When I spoke to Theo's daughter, Astrid, she was keen to emphasise a side that people close to her

father saw, “He was the opposite of what people thought of him. They always said that he was very tough and very rough and we don't seem him like that at all.”

“At home he was very quiet and we, as his daughters, meant the world to him. He could be very funny but also very kind.”

“My father had a lot of respect for Ernst Happel. He always said things about him and, when he was a coach himself, he always referred to him.”

Robert van Brandwijk, however, is clear where Laseroms's footballing place should be: 

“Theo should be remembered as one of the icons of Feyenoord’s golden days. Happel considered him to be a world class player as a centre back.”

Ms Mannens, who hadn't been born when Laseroms played for Feyenoord says, “I have to admit that I also only knew about Theo's nickname, 'Theo de Tank', but now that I'm writing about season 69-70, I have to say he's my favourite player of that time.”

With their upcoming book, Ms Mannens and Mr van Brandwijk hope to remind the world of a story that is very personal to them: “Historically Feyenoord should be remembered as - with Ajax – as a club responsible for the rise of Dutch football,” Mr van Brandwijk says. 

“Today I think Feyenoord is still one of Europe’s biggest 'volksclubs', a club for the people. The everlasting magic of 1970 lies also in the fact that all those players were normal, ordinary guys the fans could relate to. Israël, Laseroms, Jansen, Moulijn, Van Hanegem, Kindvall, they were us.”

Almost like a Total Football Family.

Johnny Madden - the Grandfather of Czech football

By Bernard Thompson

Published in Nutmeg Magazine, Issue 6

On the fourth of July, this year, Celtic played out a 0-0 draw with Slavia Prague at the Czech club’s Eden Arena. Arguably, the most remarkable on-field event in the pre-season friendly was a knee injury to Dedryck Boyata that would keep the Belgian defender out of competitive action for three months.

Johnny Madden

But, before the match Brendan Rodgers and officials of Slavia gave speeches to mark the unveiling of a commemorative star and the dedication of a stand to the club's first professional coach.

Eden is a neat, modern stadium in the Vršovice area of Prague, holding only 21,000 spectators – about the size of Pittodrie – though Slavia is one of the biggest clubs in a country with a population roughly double that of Scotland’s.

The Czech capital dwarfs Glasgow and Edinburgh with a population of around 1.25 million in the city and more than two million in the metropolitan area and yet, even the biggest clubs can only look on with envy at the crowds routinely attracted to Scottish football venues.

That may surprise some, considering the fact that Czechoslovakia were European Champions in 1976 and the Czech Republic were runners-up in Euro ‘96 with the country’s famed “Golden Generation” including the likes of Petr Čech, Pavel Nedvěd, Karel Poborský, Jan Koller and Vladimír Šmicer.

The relative lack of popularity of football in the Czech Republic can be attributed to a passion for ice hockey and 40 years of Communism, during which period the notion of loyalties and affinities of every form were re-evaluated.

The prevailing regime decided, for example, that footballers playing for clubs would surely prefer to represent their workplace or factory teams, instead of carrying on age-old traditions related to tribal affiliations that pre-dated the Socialist utopia.

It may jar with some Scottish football enthusiasts that a country of similar land mass and whose national team has achieved considerably more than that of the land that “gave football to the world” should largely see the beautiful game as a secondary pursuit.

But it was not always this way.

Once, in fact, Czechs were not only full participants in the tidal wave of European enthusiasm for the game – there was a consciousness of the sport as something more. A vehicle on which to advance sporting, cultural and nationalistic ideals.

Regardless of the wider modern understanding of Czech and Slovak, even the word “Czech” does not fully denote the country now technically (though rarely in practice) known as “Czechia”. To people in Moravia and Silesia, “Czech” refers specifically to the Bohemian part of the country.

But, historically, Slavia had always represented something different.

In the late-19th century, when Slavia was formed – 1892, to be precise – the Czech lands were part of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

German-speaking Austrian-Hungary may already have been an anachronism to many by the end of the 19th century, but Slavia represented a symbol of a distinct culture within an empire fused from two foreign neighbouring lands.

Founded by university students, the name, Slavia, evoked Slavonic and Bohemian tradition not assimilated into the imperial identity of the occupiers of the Czech lands.

The club was to be a touchstone for Bohemian and Slavonic pride, wearing red and white – the colours of Bohemia – to denote the passion of their hearts and the purity of their ideals. Their badge would be a five-pointed star, not grounded but with two points towards the heavens denoting the desire to dream.

And yet, despite the potent nationalism that Slavia evoked, in 1905 it turned to a foreigner in its pursuit of greatness, who was honoured with a stand in his name on that day in July.

That foreigner was a Dumbarton-born Scot. And his name was Johnny Madden.

The son of Irish immigrants who had fled the Great Hunger in Ireland, Madden was born to Edward and Agnes (nee MacIlvenney) Madden on 11th June 1865 at 71 High Street (an address now occupied by Boots the Chemist) and would be one of nine children to whom Agnes gave birth.

It is not necessary to wax lyrical with tales of the poverty endured by the Maddens and those like them in the ship-building town. And, indeed, to do so through a 21st-century lens could be considered an injustice to Agnes and Edward.

They had braved the unknown so that their families might have a chance to at least survive, if not prosper, and they might justifiably have considered their courage to have been rewarded with success.

In his early teens, Johnny was already employed as a riveter’s boy and then a riveter at the local shipyards, work which involved swinging a heavy hammer at pins of red-hot iron, to fabricate hulls in the building of the West-of-Scotland ships which would be famed the world over for their excellence.

But, however thankful those employed were to have good, regular employment, no one would say that the work was easy. It was relentless, strenuous and dangerous.

Without trade unions, sick pay or a National Health Service, the options were to keep working, through fatigue, pain, injury and distress – or to founder.

The latter, while unthinkable, would be the ultimate fate of many men lacking the physical or mental fortitude to constantly plough on. They may have succumbed to any of a plurality of frailties; bad health, bad luck or quite often the perils of drink.

But we might speculate on the physical and mental qualities of those, like Madden, who consistently withstood the rigours of shipyard work. And that may even, in some part, explain the early success of Dumbarton FC, Scottish Cup-Winners in 1863, later the same year defeating Blackburn Olympic (6-1) to be hailed as the champions of Britain.

The following year, Johnny Madden would sign for Dumbarton Albion and, in 1866, would be described as Dumbarton FC’s first Catholic footballer. (One newspaper reported that Dumbarton was one of the first teams to play Catholics, so some forward-looking selection policies may also have contributed to the club’s early strength).

He made his debut in January 1887, scoring in a 3-1 win over Hurlford in the second replay of a Scottish Cup quarter-final tie. He would also play in the semi-final victory over Queens Park.

A few weeks later, Madden would play for Dumbarton on the losing side, “grazing the left upright”, in the Scottish Cup Final, with Hibernian winning 2-1 on what would be a highly-controversial occasion.

Dumbarton protested over the second Hibs goal, which was scored as the defending team had stopped playing, so convinced were they that there would be a call for offside.

But, worse, while the Scottish game was supposedly strictly amateur, damaging accusations were levelled against Hibs. It was said that the club was treating its players to daily steak dinners and compensating them for lost wages of up to a week, to encourage them to train for major games.

If paid training, while opponents swung picks, hammers or shovels, and providing a high-quality diet when most considered meat to be an occasional luxury wasn’t professionalism, some may have asked what the amateur ethos was really about.

We don’t know what effect, if any, this disappointment may have had on Madden; only that Hibs sailed very close to expulsion from Scottish football competition but survived. It is also said that Madden was often known to use a word that he may or may not have coined – “shamateurism”.

And there is some anecdotal evidence to suggest that he may have taken some of the lessons learned to the – strictly amateur – Slavia.

One of his few remaining relatives in Prague, a Czech TV personality and food-writer, Roman Vaněk, has described sheets in his possession of recipes compiled by Madden, including how to make broth from bones. It is said, that Madden brought the female relatives of his players together to teach them how to cook food that was suitably nourishing for players, he can be said to have been ahead of his time in recognising the value of nutrition to athletic performance.

From Dumbarton, he went on to Gainsborough Trinity – a power in the English game in those days – working in the docks during the week before travelling almost 300 miles south, by train on the Friday.

He would play on the Saturday, coach the team the following day and travel north again for his work. While that is remarkable by today’s standards, the prospect of leaving heavy industry to play football was only beginning to become a reality in those days.

Madden was earning between £1 and £1 10s for a week's work as a riveter but £2 to £2 10s plus travelling expenses as Trinity coach, making the journey worthwhile.

When he signed for Trinity, FA rules prohibited the club from offering him a professional playing contract, as he hadn't lived locally for two years. (This was apparently partly to dissuade clubs from raiding players from other associations.)

Gainsborough’s solution was to ask Madden to sign as an amateur player but a professional coach, to get around the issue, seeing this as merely a device. However, Madden quickly made it clear that he intended to fulfil the role of coach, as agreed, and the club acquiesced.

As author Clive Nicholson says: “Rather than lose him, Madden was allowed free rein. This proved to be an inspired decision. He quickly impressed on his new charges the need to pass the ball along the ground and retain possession. He was an expert in coaching the art of movement off the ball and creating space. He tailored skill sessions to suit each player's role within the team. Madden himself could shoot with great power and a back heel manoeuvre he perfected was pure genius. In addition to being a fine masseur and fitness trainer, he impressed on players the need to prepare mentally for a game, to eat properly and restrict their alcohol consumption. Madden was a man way ahead of his time.”

He won his first game as player-coach against local rivals Lincoln City and would be top scorer at the club in his first season, also winning a dribbling competition, which says something about his ball control to match his undoubted physical and shooting power. (One of the nicknames he would earn was “Rooter”, which was, according to some, a reflection of his having such a powerful shot that it could threaten to uproot goalposts. However, it might conceivably have been a corruption of the word, “riveter”.)

But perhaps his most significant achievement at Trinity was his coaching of Fred Spiksley, widely considered to be the best English footballer of his time and, by some, thought the greatest player in the world.

When Spiksley signed for Trinity at the same time as Madden, he was considered, by the club’s directors, too slight of build to warrant a professional contract. Madden, however, took a special interest in his development, in particular working on his physical condition.

As Nicholson says in his biography of Spiksley Flying Over an Olive Grove: “Despite a formidable goalscoring record for the Jubilee Swifts in the Lincolnshire Junior Cup that year, where he scored 31 goals in 6 games, Spiksley’s light build meant that it took a little time for the Trinity committee to truly believe that the 17 year old was ready for the rigours of playing for the town’s premier club.

“With the help of Jack Madden, ... Fred Spiksley was able to prove his doubters wrong; scoring 31 goals in 29 games during his first season and creating many goals for his team-mates.”

Spiksley scored 131 goals in 126 games for Trinity and went on to play 293 times for Sheffield Wednesday, scoring 100 goals. (There is video footage on YouTube of an elderly Spiksley showing some training techniques, including the back-heel, attributed to Madden.)

Already one of the outstanding players of his day it is therefore no surprise that he should have been approached by Celtic for their inaugural match against Rangers Swifts. Presumably, his Irish Catholic background and the fact that the club was founded to assist people very much like his parents when they had first arrived in Scotland convinced Celtic that Madden’s sentiments would be sympathetic to the new club.

Though he did not score that day, Madden played centre-forward, quite literally at the vanguard of the first Celtic team. In 118 appearances for Celtic, he scored 49 goals and won three league titles between 1892 and 1896. He was also with the club when they won the Scottish Cup in 1892 but he never had the satisfaction of exorcising the ghost of that defeat by Hibs, as he did not play in the final.

One of the most frustrating things for those interested in Madden is the relative lack of newspaper reports about his life. A contemporary of the likes of Dan Doyle, Johnny Divers and Barney Battles, whose clashes with authority prompted newspaper comment, Madden seems to have done little to court attention to anything other than his on-field performances.

Yet, he was said to have been sufficiently strong-willed to have had a somewhat fractious relationship with Willie Maley and, according to his great-grand-nephew, Tom O’Neill, took it upon himself to speak up for players, notably having the ability to estimate crowds and the income generated from football matches. Certainly, his departure from Celtic came very soon after Maley was appointed Celtic’s first “secretary-manager”, with a benefit match against Rangers to send him on his way.

He had brief spells on the books of Dundee and Tottenham Hotspur (for whom he played six times) but then there is a gap in available facts about him until 1905, when he arrived as the coach of Slavia Prague.

One possible explanation – though by no means supported by evidence – is that he may have taken his skills as a Scottish shipyard-worker to other countries in Europe, as many others did.

He had previously played for Celtic in Prague and the club historian, Karel Zuska, believes that he was approached by Slavia when the club visited in 1904. Celtic did play in Vienna and Prague in that year, but there is no record of Madden having travelled with the party or whether his relationship with Maley was sufficiently cordial for that to have been likely.

Another – probably fanciful – story is that encouraged by his friend, John Tait Robertson,he may have cunningly taken the place of another Rangers player Finlay Speedie, who Slavia preferred. But while there is a postcard of Madden, describing him as a Rangers player, it seems likely that a simple printing error may have given birth to a legend. Both Celtic and Rangers were known in continental Europe due to their regular summer tours at the time.

Another possibility is that he may have been recommended to Slavia by a referee. In Inverting The Pyramid: The History of Soccer Tactics, Jonathan Wilson makes reference to referee James Howcroft, who alerted Jimmy Hogan to a vacancy at FC Dordrecht, which might provide a clue as to how someone like Madden came to up sticks and travel by steam ship and train to the heart of Europe.

Yet another theory is that a family member of his former Tottenham Hotspur team-mate, Ernest Payne, offered him a job in a relative's farm produce shop in Prague. While again possible, it seems unlikely that someone with Madden's background would emigrate to Central Europe on no more than the promise of a job in a shop, though a guaranteed income might have reassured him, if the coaching work fell short of expectations.

Tempting though it is to advance a preferred theory, it is a question that may never be answered.

What we do know is that Madden revolutionised Slavia and turned the club into the dominant football force in the region. (Although the Habsburgs still ruled over what would later become Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic, the Bohemian Football Association had been founded in 1901 and was completely independent of the Austrian and German leagues, admitting only Bohemian clubs.)

In addition to his individual and tactical coaching skills, and focus on players' nutrition and conditioning, he brought new training methods to the game in Bohemia, including two days per week without the ball (which was considered revolutionary) and was renowned as a masseur and physiotherapist, using high-powered jets of hot and cold water and mixing his own muscle rubs.

Such was his reputation for curing injuries that it was said that ballet dancers visited him for treatment long after his retirement.

Again, we can only speculate as to how Madden acquired such knowledge. We might assume that he would have been able to learn something about practical treatment of injuries from people on the shipyards, to whom lost days work would have come at a high price.

In the late-19th century, hydrotherapy was becoming popular in central Europe and the ideas had spread to Britain. There are numerous spa towns in central Europe and it may also be that Madden had the opportunity to visit some of these to cherry-pick ideas. Some of these use water jets, including a technique known as “Scotch Hose”, though the etymology of the term is uncertain.

Nonetheless, there is a very clear picture of a man who was able to accumulate knowledge from a variety of disciplines and and apply it to football, to great effect.

He was also a notorious disciplinarian, who disdained smoking and drinking alcohol amongst players and was given the nickname “Dědek” sometimes translated as “Granddad” but perhaps more accurately as “Old Stickler”.

But his methods quickly brought notable successes.

In May 1906 Slavia defeated Southampton, 4-0, at the old Letna stadium in Prague, the first time a Czech team had ever beaten English opposition.

Although they later lost 4-2 to Newcastle United, the club then played out a 3-3 draw with Maley's Celtic, who Madden described as "the best team in the world".

The following year Slavia lost twice to Arsenal (7-4 and 4-2) but then racked up some remarkable scores against foreign opposition, beating FC Torino 9-1, the Croatian national team 15-2 and 20-0 respectively, BAC Pest 19-1 and Young Boys Bern 8-0. Slavia also beat Sparta Prague, 9-1 in that same year, in what is still the biggest Czech derby win of all time.

In 1911, Slavia beat Aberdeen, 3-2, but there would be more notable glory to come.

A Bohemian team played in an invitation tournament in Roubaix, organised by Union Internationale Amateur de Football. Playing in Slavia jerseys, with Madden as the coach, Bohemia beat France, 4-1, and England, 2-1, to be declared European champions.

In 1913 Slavia won its first local Championship, though the tournament was contested mostly by Prague clubs. The club continued to tour, securing emphatic wins over several of Europe's elite clubs and in 1922 beat Celtic in Prague, 3:2 in what was, by then Czechoslovakia.

In 1925 Slavia became the Czechoslovakian champions and Madden would win a further three titles before retiring in 1930, having won every league match that season.

There is a common myth that Madden was a winning coach in the Mitropa Cup – a precursor of the European Cup, featuring mostly central European teams, his team's best result was losing in the final (5-1 and 2-2) to Ujpest FC, in 1929. But other notable achievements included four Charity Cup victories – then a prestigious tournament – in 1908, 1910, 1911, 1912 and a clutch of other local tournament wins.

In 169 championship matches Madden's Slavia won 134 games, drew 12 and lost only 23 times. In 429 international matches, Slavia won 304, drew 52 and lost and 73.

While football was eventually very good to Madden and his wife Frantiska – they enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle – his time in Prague was not without tragedy. His only son, Harry, (born with the name Jindrich, a Czech equivalent of Harry) had been a talented, if not exceptional footballer.

After being told by his sweetheart that her father would never approve of their relationship, Harry

The Madden family grave

drowned his sorrows before returning home. The story goes that Madden, so steadfastly against alcohol, was infuriated and refused to listen to his son's pleadings or attempts to explain, prompting Harry to run from the family home and then throw himself into the path of an oncoming tram.

Several myths and legends persist around Madden. Some say that he left a previous wife in Britain behind though there is no evidence to support this. There is a tale – again unsupported – that he shouted insults at the invading Nazi forces in 1938. And there are anecdotal reports that he may have spent some time in a prison camp.

Time, inaccurate record-keeping and regime changes have not helped with the establishment of facts.

What we can say for sure is that his was a remarkable life of self-made success against a backdrop of a world undergoing enormous upheaval.

In Prague, the Austro-Hungarian Empire that was defeated in the First World War gave way to the first Republic of Czechoslovakia in 1918. 20 years later, Hitler invaded and ten years after that, the same year that the Communists came to power, Madden died.

His coffin was carried to Olšanské Cemetery by players wearing Slavia colours and the club's red star is inscribed on his headstone.

If Johnny Madden was largely forgotten in Scotland, his memory has been better-honoured in Prague. Visitors to Eden will regularly see his photograph on the screens as part of half-time montages and the fans had a full-stand card display to mark the 150th anniversary of his birth on 11th June 1865, for which a Madden beer was even produced. And, previously, the club also issued “plaquettes” inscribed with with Madden's face, given to people who had made an exceptional contribution to Slavia.

Like much about the contribution early Scots made to the development of football, perhaps the national trait of preferring not to crow about success, can be to the detriment of the domestic game's prestige.

Perhaps we can be too ready to bemoan glorious failure and missed opportunities, when we should instead be celebrating those Scots who, like Madden, taught the world how to play football.

Maybe, one day, those countries can teach us something about how to win at football, in return.

More than a game

Gordon Strachan reckons his latest misconduct charge is about societal rather than football issues, and it's hard to disagree

By Bernard Thompson

Guardian

From bad boy to moral crusader; from discipline case to victim of injustice, Gordon Strachan's route to popular heroism has been unconventional, imaginative and, of course, very individualistic.

Just a few days ago, Celtic fans were still divided as to the merits of one of the finest managers of his generation, football officials were unsheathing their pencils and some sections of the media were expressing a mixture of impatience and disdain.

Such a short while ago, we would hardly have guessed that Strachan, a man with more fatal put-downs than a vet during a foot-and-mouth outbreak, secretly felt that "to be truthful, I like to be liked". If he had been in any way troubled about his popular standing, there was scant evidence of that in his adoption of a diplomatic approach that would make John Bolton look like Nicholas Parsons, employing the sort of pejorative language that would shame Simon Cowell.

Spitting contempt at one manifestation of phone-in culture, he was quoted in a Scottish newspaper saying: "What you should ask is who is posing the question? Not an intelligent person, that's for sure. It's someone who's sitting with his tracksuit on, his devil dug at his side and a can of Kestrel in his hand, maybe coked up to his eyeballs, shouting down the phone. I'm not answering to that. I'm not answering a question from Mr Ned."

Though he qualified his statement - by adding "thankfully that doesn't reflect on most Celtic fans ... when I meet people they're always pleasant" - and later reminded people that he once assisted Adrian Chiles with his phone-in programme on Five Live, he fully merited some of the criticism he received. It is one thing to caricature "unreasonable" football fans as boors but nobody is asked to undergo an IQ test before shelling out £50 on a club tracksuit top.

Besides, to suggest that the unintelligent, the uneducated or simply the underclass of Britain has a lesser right to express an opinion on the game they support through attendance and television subscriptions is simply offensive. But Strachan is on unassailable high ground when he points to the sheer hypocrisy of fans who believe that buying a ticket entitles them to exhibit the sort of behaviour that normally attracts ASBOs only to go crying to the police if there is even a slight response to their provocation.

"Fans should have a responsibility to behave themselves when kids are about. I find it horrific that they can shout all kinds of abuse and then look for the police to complain if somebody smiles back at them from the Celtic bench. It's a mad, mad world and I couldn't get my head round what was happening on Sunday ."

Strachan was referring to what appeared to be an absurd haranguing from an Aberdeen steward, a dressing-down to which he quite properly objected. But there's nothing like a whiff of persecution to rally the Celtic support and the fact that he was sent to the stand for a third time in his Celtic career for, he insists, defending his colleagues from an unreasonable attack has prompted a sudden burst of unconditional love. If his latest misconduct charge is causing him any anxiety, there is the unanticipated plus side that Strachan vs the Establishment is just the sort of battle Celtic fans love.

The manager himself is playing down any notion of a fractious relationship with the authorities, insisting that he expects the testimony of Sunday's referee and fourth official to be sympathetic. However, depending on the outcome of a separate pending appeal - after, in what looked to be an act of unpardonable pettiness, he was sent from the dug-out on the day his team was to be presented with the SPL trophy, apparently without explanation from referee Stuart Dougal - he could face an upcoming ban totalling 10 matches.

The two incidents combined now present the SFA with a headache. Dismissing both charges - and Strachan is adamant that he has done nothing wrong in either instance and Celtic are sure to defend him with their now customary robust legal counsel - could lead to the impression that he had been victimised by referees.

Strachan has often spoken out against "yob culture" and told the Celtic View: "It is not an argument with officials, the SFA, coaches, with players, the opposition. It is a moral argument that is outwith football." If more managers felt as strongly, fewer players might feel inclined to spend Saturday nights drinking and fighting.

If Strachan has learned anything from this experience, it will have been from the example of his assistant Tommy Burns who faced the media at the weekend with his boss reportedly too upset to speak. Burns, who as Celtic player, manager and coach has endured every type of insult that the most vindictive fan has in his arsenal, reliably faces the most sensitive situations with a quiet dignity that seems to enhance his personal stature but insisted: "The abuse that we've had to take in the last few games has been shocking."

In the past, some Celtic fans have been guilty of that type of behaviour, such as when some of them abused the memory of Davie Cooper in song, while the recent phenomenon of some Rangers fans trying to implicate Jock Stein in a child-abuse scandal is also beneath contempt.

Yet while the supporters of clubs outside the Old Firm often revel in a certain smugness that scrutiny seems to centre on only two clubs, perhaps football should wake up to the nature of some of the "banter" from other fans. Isn't time to kick yobbism out of football?

Don't expect the Bhoys to sink

Celtic will still be very much the team to beat when the SPL season kicks off tomorrow, argues Bernard Thompson
Guardian

Recently, the Scottish Football Association repeated its warning to all SPL clubs that sectarianism and racism will lead to them being docked points.

Fans of teams other than Rangers and Celtic are chilled about the whole thing, believing that new sanctions will only be used against the two most powerful clubs in the land. But smaller clubs with cheaper lawyers have been made examples of before, it may yet happen again.

Celtic will win the league, of course, because frankly to predict anything other than a victory for the best squad in Scotland by far would just be plain silly.

More to the point is whether the Bhoys can again progress beyond the Champions League group stages (and they will have to beat Spartak Moscow to even qualify) and even maybe win a game away from home on the way.

After a season that owed much to Artur Boruc and Shunsuke Nakamura, both of whom are attracting interest from other clubs, new arrival Scott Brown should set the standard for other precocious talents such as Aiden McGeady and Derek Riordan. Gordon Strachan would like also to think that his six strikers (plus maybe Steven Naismith) could muster a decent goal tally instead of waiting for midfielders and central defenders to show them how.

At Rangers, much is expected of a squad full of new signings, if not exactly obvious match-winning stars. Pick of the new arrivals looks to be Carlos Cuellar in defence while Barry Ferguson remains clearly the club's best player by a country mile and, barring mishap, Kris Boyd will again be Rangers' and Scotland's top scorer. Lee McCulloch, Alan Hutton and Charlie Adam will undoubtedly be effective at SPL level but the club looks ill-prepared for a Champions League qualifying campaign.

Neither Hearts, Hibernian nor Aberdeen look to be strong enough to threaten the established order but all three should cause some sleepless nights in Glasgow. Theirs is a tale of three managers.

At Hearts, Anatoly Korobochka starts the season as favourite for the sack purely because of Vladimir Romanov's record of dispensing with personnel. But what has frustrated the Jambos most is their team's ability to play any Scottish side off the park only for off-the-field disruption to ruin their ambitions. There is no reason to expect change.

Meanwhile at Easter Road, John Collins faces a fight to establish his credibility as a manager after Hibs' players undermined him last season. He could also use some of the £9m accrued from transfers since the turn of the year, funds which have largely gone to stabilising the club's finances and paying for a new training centre. Hibs' biggest challenge will be to maintain their record of developing talented players having lost their youth academy director John Park to Celtic last season.

At Aberdeen, Jimmy Calderwood is tasked with extending an enviable record: six continuous seasons of improvement (four of them with Dunfermline). But after a third place finish last year, the Dons look to have hit their ceiling as far as the league is concerned, and would settle for a modest Uefa Cup run. But, after watching Hearts and Hibs win cups over the previous two seasons, Aberdeen fans are entitled to feel it could be their turn. They must overcome the loss of Russell Anderson to Sunderland but the experience and versatility of Jackie MacNamara should provide significant options.

The unfurling of the first division flag in Gretna's first-ever SPL match will be bittersweet, given that the club's proudest moment will take place without Rowan Alexander in charge. Ill-health forced Alexander to resign from his position as manager during the summer, having led Gretna through the lower leagues and to a Scottish Cup final place in 2006. New coach Davie Irons can only hope for the sort of early-season momentum that ultimately saved St Mirren last season and might just keep Gretna one place above the Saints to survive another year.

Keeping up with the neighbours leaves Smith craving moonbeams and miracles

All Walter Smith is now asked to do with Rangers is deliver the success of 1997 with the finances of 2007. Bernard Thompson explains why that's easier said than done

By Bernard Thompson

Guardian

What a difference a decade makes. You gain experience but also age, some ambitions are realised

while other hopes are surrendered; you move onwards and upwards or decline. All are things for

Moonbeam-provider & miracle-worker: Murray and Smith

Walter Smith to ponder on Saturday.

On August 4 1997, Rangers unfurled another championship flag, kicking off what they hoped would be the club's 10th - and Smith's seventh - consecutive Scottish league title. Around £15m had been spent in the close season.

The chairman Sir David Murray insisted that for every £5 the impoverished Celtic spent, Rangers would splash out a tenner. They had just negotiated one Champions League qualifying round and seen off a string of helpless or hapless Celtic managers - Liam Brady, Lou Macari and Tommy Burns - with Wim Jansen barely threatening to disturb the peace in Smith's blue heaven.

He could scarcely have imagined then that, long before the end of that season, he would be redefined as yesterday's man. It must have been even more unthinkable that 10 years on he would be looked upon as the last hope for tomorrow. How did it come to this?

Like all well-balanced Scots, Rangers fans have nursed a chip on each shoulder. Matching Celtic's nine-in-a-row record of Scottish league titles salved the wound on one side. The problem persisted on the other - they had never seriously threatened to match their rivals' 1967 European Cup victory (a Cup Winners' Cup in 1972 hardly compensating).

It is only possible to begin to understand how Smith and Rangers came to be where they are now - trophyless for two seasons and with modest funds to remedy the problem - by appreciating the recklessness of their obsession with matching Celtic's achievement. As far back as 1989, the then newly-appointed chief executive Alan Montgomery had declared that "Rangers must win the European Cup". It was a typical example of defiance overriding realism.

But Smith's failure to make a major impact in Europe - the finest moment probably being the home-and-away defeat of Leeds United in 1992, later missing out on a Champions League final place by one point - led to the clamour for something new.

Like Dick Advocaat, for example.

"Believe me when I tell you that we are going for it this time - we want to be successful in Europe, and the money we are raising now will take us there," Murray boasted of a team that, by then, contained Arthur Numan, Giovanni van Bronckhorst and Michael Mols. "This is the last part of the jigsaw for me ..."

The puzzle was that lavish expenditure delivered two league titles and some exciting European performances, notably eliminating a formidable Parma from the Champions League in 1999, but little else to show for financial crisis.

The arrival of Martin O'Neill having prompted Rangers to move swiftly on, Alex McLeish was asked to keep pace with Celtic while replacing high earners with radically cheaper alternatives. His record - two cups within six months of his appointment, a domestic treble in his first full season, a second title in 2005 and reaching the last 16 of the Champions League - set the context for a rueful but masterfully understated parting comment: "I'm sure those people who look at the facts will say that during a period of downsizing, I was reasonably successful."

But it must also be said that his tenure also coincided with Rangers' worst-ever run of competitive results and a record string of Old Firm defeats. He was pushed out by popular demand.

Turning to Paul Le Guen was bold, imaginative and seemingly unrealistic but demonstrative of a degree of audacity that Murray has often matched with persuasiveness to great effect. Le Guen described Murray's overtures as having "such force, such charisma and enthusiasm, that it gave it an extra dimension ... He's the kind of guy who can't leave you indifferent." Even more typical of Murray was his display of hubris in heralding a "moonbeam of success".

One brief, unmitigated disaster later, Rangers were returning to the man who self-evidently could not win the trophy they most covet.

Why Smith should have taken on the job when his reputation was at its highest after a short but successful period as coach of Scotland could easily be said to defy understanding. For sure, he must have found it irksome to see the fate that befell Rangers after his talents were considered inadequate for a club with European issues. Could he have felt he had something to prove, given that no manager since the legendary Bill Struth had brought more league titles to Ibrox? Sometimes in football logic, self-interest and common sense count for little compared to the innate sense that a club is in the blood of some individuals.

These days Sir David Murray doesn't even try to pretend he could double Celtic's spending, having lost out on Derek Riordan, Paul Hartley, Scott MacDonald and Scott Brown in the past 18 months. Murray's recent insistence that the club could have afforded the £4.4m transfer fee that took Brown from Hibs, but not his salary and add-on fees, is an indication that Smith faces the managerial challenge of his career. Last Monday the club announced that its debt has risen to £16.5m.

In the past Rangers have invested their finances with the shrewdness of a gambler on tilt. But contrasting the money wasted over the years with the more prudent acquisitions provides a lesson and Smith's best hope: the price ticket isn't always the best guide to quality, even if it is fun to be flash in front of the neighbours.

Smith once squandered £4m on Sebastián Rozental but gave an unknown Rino Gattuso his first big chance. The £12m Advocaat spent on Tore André Flo was outshone by his nurturing the talent of Barry Ferguson. McLeish, with little money to waste, landed Kris Boyd: to the purist, hardly even a footballer; to the statistician, an outrageously prolific goalscorer.

Now, as they prepare for the second leg of a vital Champions League qualifier with FC Zeta - after a first leg that, despite the 2-0 win, ranks among the club's worst European performances - the bombast is muted and Murray's summation of the club's fortunes drably pragmatic: "If we are in the Champions League we make £5m, if not we lose £5m." He is also now talking publicly of selling up.

And all Smith is now asked to do is deliver the success of 1997 with the finances of 2007. So Roy Carroll, Carlos Cuellar, Lee McCulloch and Jean-Claude Darcheville will be tasked with emulating the achievements of Andy Goram, Richard Gough, Brian Laudrup and Mark Hately. In other words, Smith must deliver a miracle - or at least a moonbeam.

Strachan could prove better than O'Neill

Just as they were too quick to beatify Martin O'Neill, Celtic fans have been to slow to praise

By Bernard Thompson

Published in The Guardian


Consider this: Celtic have been Scottish champions for the past two seasons, are Scottish Cup

For better, for worse?: Martin O'Neill & Gordon Strachan

holders, were encouraged by a decent Champions League showing last season, are financially stable and are in a position to add to an already-solid squad. So it would be absurd to suggest manager Gordon Strachan is under pressure to deliver more, right?

Wrong. Because to say that is to fail to factor in the peculiar rationale that applies to Scottish football and Celtic supporters. Celtic fans are practised in castigating journalists for failing to adequately praise their team - while they themselves disdain the club's success on the most flimsy of excuses. This makes Strachan's position uncomfortable. Just as the media has been oddly reluctant to recognise his achievements in coasting to two league titles while radically rebuilding his squad, Celtic fans remain divided as to whether he is worthy of their favour.

Why? It would be dangerous to try too hard to understand such an unhealthy mindset. Certainly Strachan's cheeky-chappie remarks have rubbed some people up the wrong way, even if he has been more reserved than during his time in England. And fans will vociferously deny that the perception that he is "not Celtic-minded" (a euphemism for those not from the appropriate cultural background) has any relevance. But however hard he tries to please, whatever he delivers, there is one thing he can never be: Martin O'Neill.

O'Neill and fans gorged on trophies, rousing European nights and the reflected glory of Henrik Larsson's heroics. The manager became so revered that his replacement would almost inevitably be viewed as a usurper.

Few admit that such excitement led to the premature beatification of a man never deserving of an elevation to sainthood. The tangible legacy he left to Strachan was a squad that had feebly capitulated in the league and was saddled with the ruinous salaries offered to a small band of underperforming "established stars".

It was no surprise that only Neil Lennon remained as a key figure in Strachan's Celtic. It was equally predictable that those who left would find success elusive. Only Stephen Pearson, who rarely played under O'Neill, has gone on to excel away from Celtic Park.

Strachan's eminently sensible approach to signing players is in stark contrast to O'Neill's hair-tearingly frustrating last-minute method. The Irishman delivered Lennon, Chris Sutton and John Hartson but inflicted a torrid season on Juninho (a player O'Neill could afford but apparently find no use for) and the club remains burdened with Bobo Baldé on a contract that would put a Philadelphia lawyer to shame.

Strachan, on the other hand, has developed a squad based on scouting and research that is probably unsurpassed in British football (including a database of around 1500 names) and a simple but effective approach that allows the club to retain the upper hand in negotiations. To businessmen in any other industry, it's plain common sense to pursue multiple options before making any major financial outlay but too often in football, clubs zero in on one target to the point of obsession, and as a result wind up overpaying. By conducting simultaneous negotiations with several players before deciding on the best overall option for the club, Celtic under Strachan have managed to make genuine quality signings such as Artur Boruc, Shunsuke Nakamura, Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, Lee Naylor and Scott Brown without ever threatening hard-earned financial security.

In the case of Naylor, for example, Celtic were actively pursuing Sparta Prague's Michael Kadlec but still held talks with Quinton Fortune while Gary Naysmith and Ian Harte were also heavily touted options. When the Kadlec deal foundered due to Sparta allegedly attempting to re-evaluate the deal near the point of completion, and with Fortune, Naysmith and Harte falling off the radar, the swift signing of Naylor was a surprise move but one that secured Celtic's most consistent performer of last season.

And while "esteemed manager" O'Neill publicly challenged the money men at the club, Strachan apparently understands the value of getting on with the boss, recently praising his relationship with chief executive Peter Lawwell. In the past, that sort of cooperation with bureaucracy would have been seen as sacrilegious at Celtic but, having built a system around the manager, Lawwell has been a major contributor to the on-field advancement. In turn, Strachan, rarely a man to hold back with criticism, clearly trusts Lawwell enough to allow him to change the focus on deals, apparently without friction.

Critics inevitably point to the poor displays of Mo Camara and Adam Virgo, both of whom were signed within days of Strachan taking the Celtic job. Then again even Martin O'Neill had his Steve Guppy and Momo Sylla moments. Equally, Thomas Gravesen and Jiri Jarosik made only lukewarm contributions to last season's success but, unlike the latter years of Baldé and Alan Thompson, both remain viable options as players whether at Celtic Park or elsewhere.

Thompson and Gravesen's differing fortunes also illustrate a disparity in emphasis on the balance between tactical cohesion and favoured personnel. Irrespective of form, Thompson seemed to be guaranteed a starting place under O'Neill, most farcically filling a central midfield role while Stiliyan Petrov was banished to the right to make room. It should have been no surprise that such decisions contributed to a final season of collapse.

Gravesen, on the other hand, has been told publicly that he won't play if he can't follow instructions on positioning. Still, the Dane insists he wants to fight for a first team place while Thompson struggles for a first team. Of course it should be remembered that the ever-generous O'Neill indulged Paul Lambert with a final lucrative contract and time off mid-season to pursue German coaching qualifications while Celtic struggled in the league.

Given his remarkable performance so far, Strachan really ought to be allowed to at least borrow the Teflon halo that O'Neill took to the midlands with him. Instead, the only way he's likely to escape being branded a flop is to overclock his team with a dazzling domestic treble and/or a triumphant march to the quarter-finals of the Champions League, or further.

Infamously, while playing for Aberdeen, Strachan was once assaulted by a fan in the very ground where he now makes his living. He could be forgiven if, just sometimes, he felt as if the kicking had never stopped.

You'll never dive alone

By Bernard Thompson

Published in the irish Times new media edition

A-a-ah, the little soul! There he was in his bestest footy gear, ready to watch his favourite team in their first ever Champions League match. He looked just like an athletic pixie. All excited he was. But his disappointment was heartbreaking when a dodgy penalty spoiled it. He stamped his feet and clenched his little fists but it was no good. Celtic had lost. Yes, it was a tough week for Martin O'Neill.

What a rotter that Nicola Amoruso was! He Fosberry flopped to get Juventus the three points. He cheated, Ref, he cheated! He's admitted as much himself. Chris Sutton has never done anything like that. His penalty collapse was clearly just.

Celtic players never cheat or play dirty - no, no, no. Celtic players know nothing of gymnastic floor exercises. Celtic players are hard but fair like "rugged" Neil Lennon and "clumsy tackler", Alan Thompson, who have tattooed players all over Scotland, with their stud marks. They're just professional and Calimero was right: "eet's an eenjustees eet ees".

In truth, moans aside, Celtic did perform outstandingly well in Turin and the League form continued to hold up with a 2-0 win over Aberdeen. Now, though, they start from scratch against Porto. O'Neill's animated protests in Turin earned him a one-match touchline ban, to be served on Tuesday. Barring him from the dressing room, though, makes sense only in the minds of UEFA officials. I pray never to understand such logic. Celtic's away showings in Turin and Amsterdam suggest that a draw would not be disastrous but defeat would make their prospects look pretty gloomy.

At Ibrox, on the other hand, there are unconfirmed sightings of smiles. They caned Dundee Utd, 6-1, on Saturday and looked almost stylish in doing so. UEFA have just about seen sense and moved the tie with Anzhi Makhachkala, to a neutral venue, (albeit in a single-leg match) and if they get through the next week unbeaten, things might finally take a turn for the better.

Playing in midfield, rather than defence, Bert Konterman looks like a football player rather than a comedian. Fernando Ricksen has yet to have an emotional incident, this season. And the unfairly criticised Tore Andre Flo will have taken more confidence from his three goals at the weekend. All this with Barry Ferguson's return and the presence of Craig Moore gives Rangers a real chance of taking something from the first Old Firm game on Sunday.

As for our other European representatives, Hibs indulged in second-half panic against an AEK Athens side that they were coming to grips with to make my backing of them look rather silly. Unabashed, and a frustrated Russian Roulette player, I am still going to stake everything on them somehow overcoming AEK, who have better players. Kilmarnock's 1-1 home draw with Viking Stavangar doesn't make them look like great bets to go through, either, but I will also stick with them to overcome. My motivation in this is to delay admitting that I was wrong until I have thought of a decent excuse for my poor judgement.

Even these disappointments pale next to the fate of Billy Davies. The first Scottish manager of the season to be mutually consented can curse his bad luck. Respected by his peers and admired by his subordinates, he had produced decent results before the wholesale selling of his squad. His team were also fitting standard-bearers for the town of Motherwell: dull, depressing and often absolutely filthy. On the bright side, it is claimed that Marius Lacatus and Walter Zenga are among 40 serious candidates to have expressed an interest the job. Others include Harvey, Sasquatch and Howling Jake from my local boozer.

Finally, sincere thanks to those big lumps in the international rugby scene. I had considered panning Martin O'Neill for losing his head in Turin but nothing makes me appreciate association football as well as rugby union's contemptible game. My upper lip is snarled, not stiff. I want to hear songs slandering referees, not "Bye Bye Blackbird". And in my book, tunnels are for pushing and shoving opponents - not applauding them.

For all the current whines about cheating, it is in football that players can say, "I took a dive - get over it." It is in the game of soccer that managers blow fuses while apoplectic fans vent spleen at the pitch or throw tellies out of windows. There is a passion, a spontaneity and, damn it, an honesty that the jolly good show of 15-man rugby will never elicit. So keep chopping them down, Neil. Splutter your words of anger, Martin. And you Chris, as long as you play for Celtic, dive on. And you'll never dive alone.

Would the Old Firm just sod aff?

By Bernard Thompson

Published in the Irish Times new media edition

Hurrah! The football’s back and Scotland is echoing to the sound of sated men burping in contentment. We have had the first European action already and, if that fact was an indictment on recent performances, it still allows us to boast that our teams can handle anything that Slovenia can throw at us. Happy days.

But these times are happier for some than for others. Dermot Desmond’s assertion that the Old Firm will inevitably move to the Premiership has sparked the usual mixture of salivation and spluttering anger. For once, Celtic seem to be leading while Rangers officials are nodding in agreement.

David Murray, who has always insisted that Rangers are fully committed to Scotland, is now "coming round to the idea". According to Murray, he is starting to suspect that the rest of Scotland’s clubs would be better off without the Old Firm.

That suggestion is nonsense, of course. Rangers and Celtic have always propped up the smaller Scottish clubs and Murray was being more realistic when he predicted that eight to ten of them could go bust, even with the help of the big two. However, there is much talking to be done, although Celtic’s chairman, Brian Quinn, insists that everyone, to whom he has spoken, views the idea favourably.

One factor that must be overcome is the barring, from UEFA competitions, of any club that does not play in its own country’s primary league. It has emerged that the Welsh clubs, Swansea City, Cardiff City and Wrexham are currently banned because they play in England. Presumably, this would also apply to the proposed Atlantic League, which is still being discussed.

On the field, the start to the season was unusually good with at least three goals scored in every match. Dick Advocaat is already planning for the contest with Fenerbahce, after Rangers' 3-0 away win over NK Maribor.

The Gers also beat Aberdeen by the same score, at Pittodrie, in a match that, for once, failed to explode into a blood-letting. The Rangers goals came from each of their new signings, Christian Nerlinger, Russell Latapy and Claudio Caniggia and there is room for hope at Ibrox. If they can steer clear of unrest or misfortune, for a few weeks, they look certain to challenge very strongly for the title, this year.

Celtic’s own 3-0 win, over St Johnstone, was unspectacular but efficient. The result was less talked about than the speculation about whether the club or certain players would be moving. Stephane Mahe seems to be bound for Hearts as may be either Jonathan Gould or Stewart Kerr. The latter two are redundant at Celtic and Hearts, who are set to sell Anti Niemi, need a replacement urgently.

But who is coming in? Matt Elliott is touted as a stick-on certainty to sign this week while O’Neill’s admiration for the Battler of Wounded Knee, John Hartson, endures. Unfortunately, with a Champions League transfer deadline looming, Coventry seem to be trying to turn the screw by demanding "seven million of your Scottish pounds". Also mooted are moves for Fiorentina’s Moreno Torricelli and Tomas Repka as well as Magnus Hedman.

Now, all of this Old Firm stuff is pretty much par for the course in the Scottish Premier League. However, it would be remiss to fail to highlight two far rarer events. Firstly, Livingston played their first ever top division game and won it, beating Hearts by two goals to one. Livingston look like providing a model for success with a small club, much of it based on stadium development, and they have a real chance of sustaining SPL status.

But the first leaders of the SPL are Dunfermline. The Pars, who are managed by the talented Jimmy Calderwood, beat probable relegation candidates, Motherwell, by five goals to two. It will probably be the only time, this season, that neither Celtic nor Rangers are top dogs so the fans in the Kingdom of Fife are entitled to live royally for a few days. However, I wonder if this brief success might prompt greater hedonistic dreams: "We could be Scottish Champions if the Old Firm would just sod aff!"