Scott Swankie’s introduction of Craig warmed the crowd up for what was to be a very witty speech. Craig was Assistant Manager of Scotland for 8 years being brought into the set-up by Alex Ferguson then finally took over the reigns himself for 8 years.
As Scott, so eloquently put it. “As any Footballer would tell you there’s no substitute for playing, this is quite ironic as it was as an excellent substitute that Craig was during his proudest playing days with Dundee”.
Craig joined Dundee in 1960 from Rangers initially on loan, but that move was made permanent in time for him to play part in the Clubs most successful season. He was an integral part of the Dundee squad which won the title and stormed through Europe, making 9 first team appearances in the 61-62 season and still holds that side in very high regard and always talks fondly of his time at Dens and it was with those words that Scott introduced Craig to the Dundee fans who greeted him with a loud cheer.
Craig thanked Scott for the introduction and thanked everyone for the rousing reception, though I think the words Gentlemen was used lightly. Craig was going to come to the Dinner straight from the League Cup Final, but felt he’d have to go home and put on a better suit, as he realised he was going be in the company of some very affluent people, who’d been paid huge bonus’s whilst winning the Championship, this was answered from the guests table with the comment “Eh right!!!”.
This was to be the start of many humorous anecdotes from Craig’s time at Dens. How accurate they are doesn't really matter, it was the manner in which they were told that counted.
He certainly knew how to get the crowd right on his side from the off, when he proclaimed he was sitting in the toilet when the phone rang and was told it was Jim Mclean. Craig’s retort was “get him to phone back in ten minutes as I can only deal with one shite at a time” Now I’m sure Craig is very good friends with Wee Jum, but it certainly got the vociferous Dundee supports attention and backing.
Of course the minor mention of a certain friendship our Speaker had with a young lady came to light, to which Craig said the words we already knew, “Never believe a word you read in the Daily Record, as the Daily Record revealed exclusively that I was more than friendly with a lady aged 23.” “Gentlemen that was absolutely utter nonsense”, it was at that point one wag at the rear of the room cried out “Lucky B*****d”, to more cries of delight.
Craig was able to poke fun at his own ability to great affect as a Player, in fact he even mentioned that when he was 17 years old he signed for that well known non sectarian Team in Glasgow. Very quickly Craig became the 3rd choice left half at Ibrox, where the 1st choice was an amputee and the 2nd choice was a Catholic. Which spoke volumes for his ability.
Craig went onto praise the Dundee Teams record of winning the Championship, but stated that was only part of it, as the following year it was a fantastic run they had in the European Cup to get to the Semi –Final, if the big teams in Scotland now got anywhere near that they’d be lauded and praised for ever more. After all Craig had been in Europe with Rangers previously when in those days Rangers could get into Europe and stay in Europe, nowadays the average family spends more time in Europe.
In the old days when you went to play in Europe you had to rely on Schedule flights, things are different now where you can get a Charter flight to take you there and right back again straight after the game. In Craig’s experience as Scotland Manager that’s been brilliant because when you’ve got Andy Goram and McCoist abroad on a Wednesday night it’s a picnic as compared with dealing with Hammy abroad.
Craig emphasised that every club depends on the Manager for success or failure and he was full of nothing but praise for Bob Shankly. He reminded us of when Bob's more illustrious brother Bill brought his Liverpool side up to open the Floodlights at Dens, the Dundee side beat Liverpool, so it could well have been if Bob had been Liverpool’s Manager he too may well have gone on to have the great success Bill had, as both men were very similar.
Craig’s proud of the fact that he was the first player Bob signed and that Bob had tried to sign him for Third Lanark also. He was also proud of the fact that Bob pulled him into his office to mention that Falkirk were after him, they also wanted Bobby Seith and George Ryden. Naturally Bobby Seith was too good a player to go to Falkirk at that time and Geordy Ryden had a 'burd' in Dundee and Falkirk was too far to travel. So Shankly’s words to Craig were "I’m getting the F**k out of here and I’d advise you to do the same".
A couple of stories stuck in Craig’s mind more than others, one was when Bob used to arrange the Players for the Team photograph with all the super stars placed in the middle. Right in the middle would be Bobby Cox the Captain, then Shug Robertson, Alan Cousin right beside him, Alan Gilzean, Bobby Wishart and the poorer players were getting left and then he would look at Bobby Waddell “Sit on your arse over on the end there son” looks at Dougie Houston “You sit at the other end there son”, then he looked at me and he said “Broon right at the end of that chair you put your arse in that chair a pair of scissors will get rid of you.”
You knew when you were on the way out.
Craig used to get the odd game in the Team. Bob pulled Craig over and said
There were no Substitutes in those days so he said to me
It was good to hear what a great tactician Bob was in those days. :-)
Craig was given the task of marking Jimmy Johnstone since Bobby Cox was injured and Bob pulled him aside and said, “See this wee guy you’re playing against the day son, he tossed up with a sparrow for legs and the Sparrow won. You can give him a heavy slap”
“Just tell him he’s the mug he paid to get in”
So the next time the ball went out of play near the guy he decided to take Hammy’s advice which was always foolish. So he told the guy “by the way pal you’re the mug you paid to get in”
What Craig didn’t realise was the guy was a Prophet. :-)
Even in those days every Team had its disciplinary problems and Dundee were no different, so Bob Shankly brought all the players before him to read the riot act. A brief description of the offences were, Gillie was in a car crash and hurt his head, Waddell had stuck a tumbler in a guys face in the Ferry, and George Stewart had grabbed a doorman by the throat to let Stevie Murray into the Continental Ballroom. Not least Bob had received a letter from a Reverend from Newport – on – Tay, regarding his daughter who had been befriended by one of the players and she was missing the last Ferry.
Everybody, except the Manager, knew that Kenny Cameron was more than friendly with the reverends daughter.
So the Story went as follows as Bob Shankly walks in with a gruff voice. “This is some F*****g Club”, this was the Manager of the Club too saying this. “You Gillie playing heeders wee your interior mirror and all you can do is heeder a ba!”. “And you Deedle, hitting somebody over the mooth wee a glass.”
Then he got to George Stewart who’d jumped down six stairs to get to the Doorman to let Stevie Murray into the ballroom. “And you Geordy doing your Audey Murphy at the Continental”
He then finished off by saying “I don’t like letters from reverend gentlemen” he then pulled out a scrap of paper out of his top pocket and read the following. “Dear Mr Shankly, I’d like for you to identify the Player and ensure that my daughter doesn’t miss the last Ferry”.
Now Kenny Cameron used to borrow Craig’s car to take her home, but he started to get cocky and when she missed the Ferry she would just stay the night. Now this started to worry the Reverend gentleman more than somewhat.
So Shankly’s home spun philosophy was as follows, he asked “What ain oh yoos is detaining the Right Reverends daughter?”
Now we were all wondering if Kenny was going to own up as we all looked at each other. Eventually Kenny did say “It was me Boss”
“Well listen son, you can dae the same before 11 O’clock as you dae efter 11 o’clock, so for Christ sake get her on that Ferry”.
After Craig looked at the Players table he remembered another story regarding Bert Slater from their European excursions. One from Milan particularly stuck in his mind. The Chairman at the time James Gellatly had just bought himself a new scientific wonder, the Cine Camera so he could take films for posterity of Dundee’s achievement of reaching the European Cup Semi-Finals, basically he was filming anything that moved.
As Craig elaborated, “Bert saw this Scooter in the Courtyard of the hotel and he jumps onto the Scooter, Hammy’s hovering around about him, up to mischief as usual. Bert’s sitting on this Scooter and Hammy switches the thing on. Bert, whether accidentally or deliberately, puts it into motion and the Scooter goes and now as Bert will tell you, it was either a car, a tree, or the Chairman!” “Guess who got knocked over with their Camera?”
So the Chairman the next day at the match is saying to everyone as they’re going out, good luck Bobby, good luck Ian, good luck Alan and so on, then as Bert went past it was good luck Slater!!! Moral don’t knock over the Chairman.
As Craig reminisced back to the league winning season he remembered that the average attendance was 18,000, which is more than we can now get at a big game. So when you went to Raith Rovers and there were only 8,000 that was a disaster and Craig could remember Andy Penman not liking playing in Kirkcaldy much and saying.
“Oh jees Hammy this place looks like the arsehole of the world” and Hammy replied “Yes and you must just be passing through it pal”
Hammy also used to take a complimentary ticket out with him into the games in his shorts, in the small pocket for smelling salts.
If he was playing against John Hughes, or Davy Wilson, halfway through the first half he’d pull out this Comp. and say “hey here’s a ticket for you to get back into this game!” He was also known to go to the Ref Tom Wharton “Hey! Big man, you need a bike to keep up with this game”
The humour was always wonderful and Hammy would always appear to be involved in it all.
After Craig finished his speech he was greeted with a large applause and it was left to Bert Slater to give a reply to the Speakers on behalf of the players who were being honoured.
Bert was initially from Musselburgh and gave tribute to the Capital Dark Blues and what a wonderful Club they were, not to mention set of great guys in Promoting Dundee FC. A sentiment I can only totally agree with, being a so called outsider looking in.
Bert went onto giving tribute to the memories of the late departed Andy Penman and Alex Hamilton. He gave tribute also to Andy Penman’s son for turning up to the event in his fathers place. This was also greeted with sincere approval from all present.
There was then a short break for everyone to recharge their glasses before the evenings Comedian Bob Doolallay took the spotlight to entertain us all. I took this opportunity to mingle with as many of those Capital Dark Blues, plus past players present as possible and introduce myself as their Webmaster. After all this was their evening and I was there to primarily record the event for their Website and get as many photos of them all enjoying themselves as possible.
“Here son can you count”
“Yes Boss”, as the more times you said Boss the more chance you had of getting a game and I was a crawler “Yes boss I can count boss”
“One from eleven is what?”
“Ten Boss”
“Well get them reduced to Ten right away son, the guy your playing against has the heart the size of a Midgets tit. His names Iain McMillan take him from the knee doon, give him the six studs if you can get him around the family jewels that’ll dae us a bit of good as well.”
“Boss what if I get booked or worse get sent off”
“Don’t you worry about that, they’ll miss him more than we’ll miss you.”
“Hammy that’s a great line” said Craig
The quick reply was “Eh! But you’ll be paying in next Season”.
Lee Wilkie, Ian Ure, Bob Laird(Web Master) and Bert Slater