Me and Big Jock Stein
by Jack O'Donnell
Genre: Humour
Swearwords: Some strong ones.
Description: A meeting of ba' heids.
_____________________________________________________________________
Mum asked me to baby sit granddad. He was going a bit doo wally. I didn't really think it was fair. It was her dad. Not mine. But I knew one thing that got him going, more than a half and half pint, was talking about fitba.
“Aye, Jock Stein won the European Cup in 1967,” said Granda and that was him off.
“Everybody was always going on about how great it was that a team made up of players from twelve square miles of Glasgow had won the European Cup. But the truth is, even the Huns got to a European final that year.”
Granda gave me a minute to digest this. I looked out the window, wondering when I could escape to the green grass and dog shit outside, whilst arranging my face to be suitably amazed.
“And they were Protestants.”
“Really,” I said. “The Huns, were Protestants!”
“Yes,” said Granda searching my face for signs of dissent, but I wasn't arguing, not today.
“Yes,” Granda said, “Protestants and you know that not one Protestant would ever have got near the Celtic team, but that team that one the European Cup weren't even as good as the team from the View.”
“Twelve square miles,” said Granda, more and more spittle spraying out with each word. He was getting worked up again. “The team from the View. Two square miles. That was a team. That was a team that would have won the European Cup.”
Granda handed me the framed photo of him and Jimmy Johnstone again. Jimmy has his arm around Granda's shoulder and they are both posing for the camera, in the almost mandatory bare legged half kneeling, half sitting stance. Both of them are almost identical, with their cropped curly hair. They are in training kit with a ball at their feet and smiles so broad to suggest that the sun would never stop shining.
“Jock Stein. Jock Stein. He'd won the Scottish Cup with Dunfermline and he'd been captain of Celtic. People said he was a miner. But he wasnae a miner. He was a bastard and worse than that he was a Protestant. Everyone knows that Protestants can't play football.
“Jock Stein couldn't play fitba. He was a statue. An Eastern Island statue. And he was just about as fast as an Eastern Island statue. He only ever watched training sessions. We used to do this thing. You'd run underneath the railing around the ground, with a ball at your feet, ducking and diving, under one stanchion and onto the next. Some of the big diddys like John Clarke, they couldn't even get their fat bodies between one stanchion and the other. Jock. Big Jock. He'd let him sit it out. He'd let him sit it out because he was a Protestant.
“We were playing East Fife. Big fat John Clarke got injured. There were no subs in those days, no trainers running on to tell the player to stay down like a dud boxer and protect their contract, or offer more money to get up and save the team. The strategy was always the same. If a player couldn't play on you moved him up front. If you couldn't kick with your left leg, you kicked with your right. And if you couldn't kick with your right leg you kicked with your left. And if you couldn't kick with either foot you got moved up front so that you could use your big ba John Clarke heid. Even if you had to lie on the park at least you were taking up a bit of space. The one thing you never, never did, was come off, because there was no one else to go on and you'd be letting your teammates down. Big John Clarke he took a little knock and you know what happened?”
“Yes,” I said like a pantomime villain, “he went off.”
“That's right,” said Granda, “the fat useless bastard went off.
“Statues don't usually talk. But I thought Big Jock might have finally said something. But he said nothing. I moved back to wing back and then back further to help big Billy at the back. We were doing quite well, but then we were hit with a flurry of goals right at the end of the game. So we were fucked, but we were still top of the league.
“Big Jock didn't say anything, but he was in early that Monday at Barrowfield. We had put out a few tentative feelers to see how big Jock was feeling. A few braver ones, like Big Billy, even tried addressing him directly. But it was a no goer. Big Jock positioned himself on the training ground and was determined to show us where we had gone wrong on Saturday. Barrowfield was gravel parks. That was the astro turf of our day. Luckily it was gravel because Big Jock didn't sink in too much. He was going to show us, but with every creek and turn he made I knocked the ball through his legs. We didn't have nutmegs in those days. But that was as close as it came. It wasn't really fair. It was like playing against traffic cones. Big Jock missed the ball every time. I tried not to laugh too much. But there was one time he didn't miss. He toed me right up the ass hole. That's was probably his best ever volley. But I didn't feel that at the time.
“I was the aggrieved party. I was the one that had to fall back in defence because of that balloon Clarke, but was I thanked for that? No I wasn't. Big Jock blamed me for the defeat.”
‘You were shite,’ said big Jock, breaking with the Eastern Island traditions and actually talking. ‘Shite. You cost us three goals.'
“I didn't want to argue with him, especially since I'd never spoken to him before, but I was clutching my cakehole and lost it.
“Boss, boss,” I said, “the three goals were lost by headers. Headers.”
‘What of it?’ said a loquacious Big Jock.
“But you call me the leprechaun, boss!
“Big Jock went back to his not talking. It would have been better if it stayed that way. Then, just when I thought he was finished talking for that era, he said, with a face of stone:
‘Aye, but leprechauns are good in the air.’
“That was my last ever game for Celtic.”
Swearwords: Some strong ones.
Description: A meeting of ba' heids.
_____________________________________________________________________
Mum asked me to baby sit granddad. He was going a bit doo wally. I didn't really think it was fair. It was her dad. Not mine. But I knew one thing that got him going, more than a half and half pint, was talking about fitba.
“Aye, Jock Stein won the European Cup in 1967,” said Granda and that was him off.
“Everybody was always going on about how great it was that a team made up of players from twelve square miles of Glasgow had won the European Cup. But the truth is, even the Huns got to a European final that year.”
Granda gave me a minute to digest this. I looked out the window, wondering when I could escape to the green grass and dog shit outside, whilst arranging my face to be suitably amazed.
“And they were Protestants.”
“Really,” I said. “The Huns, were Protestants!”
“Yes,” said Granda searching my face for signs of dissent, but I wasn't arguing, not today.
“Yes,” Granda said, “Protestants and you know that not one Protestant would ever have got near the Celtic team, but that team that one the European Cup weren't even as good as the team from the View.”
“Twelve square miles,” said Granda, more and more spittle spraying out with each word. He was getting worked up again. “The team from the View. Two square miles. That was a team. That was a team that would have won the European Cup.”
Granda handed me the framed photo of him and Jimmy Johnstone again. Jimmy has his arm around Granda's shoulder and they are both posing for the camera, in the almost mandatory bare legged half kneeling, half sitting stance. Both of them are almost identical, with their cropped curly hair. They are in training kit with a ball at their feet and smiles so broad to suggest that the sun would never stop shining.
“Jock Stein. Jock Stein. He'd won the Scottish Cup with Dunfermline and he'd been captain of Celtic. People said he was a miner. But he wasnae a miner. He was a bastard and worse than that he was a Protestant. Everyone knows that Protestants can't play football.
“Jock Stein couldn't play fitba. He was a statue. An Eastern Island statue. And he was just about as fast as an Eastern Island statue. He only ever watched training sessions. We used to do this thing. You'd run underneath the railing around the ground, with a ball at your feet, ducking and diving, under one stanchion and onto the next. Some of the big diddys like John Clarke, they couldn't even get their fat bodies between one stanchion and the other. Jock. Big Jock. He'd let him sit it out. He'd let him sit it out because he was a Protestant.
“We were playing East Fife. Big fat John Clarke got injured. There were no subs in those days, no trainers running on to tell the player to stay down like a dud boxer and protect their contract, or offer more money to get up and save the team. The strategy was always the same. If a player couldn't play on you moved him up front. If you couldn't kick with your left leg, you kicked with your right. And if you couldn't kick with your right leg you kicked with your left. And if you couldn't kick with either foot you got moved up front so that you could use your big ba John Clarke heid. Even if you had to lie on the park at least you were taking up a bit of space. The one thing you never, never did, was come off, because there was no one else to go on and you'd be letting your teammates down. Big John Clarke he took a little knock and you know what happened?”
“Yes,” I said like a pantomime villain, “he went off.”
“That's right,” said Granda, “the fat useless bastard went off.
“Statues don't usually talk. But I thought Big Jock might have finally said something. But he said nothing. I moved back to wing back and then back further to help big Billy at the back. We were doing quite well, but then we were hit with a flurry of goals right at the end of the game. So we were fucked, but we were still top of the league.
“Big Jock didn't say anything, but he was in early that Monday at Barrowfield. We had put out a few tentative feelers to see how big Jock was feeling. A few braver ones, like Big Billy, even tried addressing him directly. But it was a no goer. Big Jock positioned himself on the training ground and was determined to show us where we had gone wrong on Saturday. Barrowfield was gravel parks. That was the astro turf of our day. Luckily it was gravel because Big Jock didn't sink in too much. He was going to show us, but with every creek and turn he made I knocked the ball through his legs. We didn't have nutmegs in those days. But that was as close as it came. It wasn't really fair. It was like playing against traffic cones. Big Jock missed the ball every time. I tried not to laugh too much. But there was one time he didn't miss. He toed me right up the ass hole. That's was probably his best ever volley. But I didn't feel that at the time.
“I was the aggrieved party. I was the one that had to fall back in defence because of that balloon Clarke, but was I thanked for that? No I wasn't. Big Jock blamed me for the defeat.”
‘You were shite,’ said big Jock, breaking with the Eastern Island traditions and actually talking. ‘Shite. You cost us three goals.'
“I didn't want to argue with him, especially since I'd never spoken to him before, but I was clutching my cakehole and lost it.
“Boss, boss,” I said, “the three goals were lost by headers. Headers.”
‘What of it?’ said a loquacious Big Jock.
“But you call me the leprechaun, boss!
“Big Jock went back to his not talking. It would have been better if it stayed that way. Then, just when I thought he was finished talking for that era, he said, with a face of stone:
‘Aye, but leprechauns are good in the air.’
“That was my last ever game for Celtic.”
About the Author
Jack O'Donnell was born in Helensburgh and now lives in Clydebank with his partner, Mary. He claims to be fat, balding and middle-aged.
Jack writes for fun and has a blog at http://www.abctales.com/blog/celticman, which he also claims no-one ever reads.
Jack writes for fun and has a blog at http://www.abctales.com/blog/celticman, which he also claims no-one ever reads.