Wallace monumental
WHEN Rangers head to Fir Park today it will bring back fond memories for ex-Motherwell winger John Gahagan.
Back in 1982 the clubs clashed on the opening day of the season with Jock Wallace, who won trebles at Ibrox in 1976 and ’78, having just arrived from Leicester to replace Davie Hay as Motherwell boss.
Big Jock ruled his clubs with an iron fist but Gahagan loved working under the man who had fought in the jungles of Malaya for the King’s Own Scottish Borderers in the 1950s and took no prisoners anywhere else.
Wallace was a dyed-in-the-wool bluenose – and that point was memorably hammered home in his first league game as Gahagan’s gaffer with the Steelmen.
Gahagan said: “It was at home to Rangers and there was a crowd of nearly 20,000.
“Jock came out of the tunnel before the game and ran straight to the Rangers fans with his arms raised!
“After the match – which was a 2-2 draw – he did a TV interview saying how great the Gers fans had been. Then almost as an afterthought he added how good the Motherwell supporters had been as well.
“The day he took over he gathered all the players together and told us he wasn’t using the Motherwell job as a stepping stone to get back to Ibrox – and then left us as quickly as he could when they asked him back just over a year later.”
Wallace wasn’t a man to cross as Gahagan – now arguably the best speaker on Scotland’s afterdinner circuit – soon found out.
He said: “I read something recently by Gary Lineker where he said he’d scored both goals in a reserve game to put Leicester 2-0 up – and big Jock threw him against the dressing-room wall at half-time because he hadn’t been doing enough.
“Then on the Monday morning Lineker was called into Jock’s office to be told he was magnificent.
“He did something similar with Brian McClair when Choccy spoke back to him after grabbing a hat-trick in Motherwell’s 3-1 League Cup win over Clyde.
“Jock grabbed him by the throat and said, ‘Do you think you’re Roy of the f****** Rovers, son?’ and pinned him against the wall.
“Linker said he was terrified of him but I liked Jock and he never bullied me – probably because he knew I’d crumble if he had done.
“I was lucky because he was always kind to me.
“The first couple of months after he arrived at Fir Park were torture though while he weeded out the players he didn’t want. He was an angry man for a while at Motherwell until he got things the way he wanted.
“I remember Alfie Conn, who’d been part of Rangers’ European Cup Winners’ Cup winning team, telling us he’d calmed down a lot and that his training wasn’t as intense as it used to be.
“And I couldn’t imagine just what he must have been like before!
“During pre-season training we would work hard for two hours then be sent up and down Murder Hill at Gullane Sands.
“I was really fit so I didn’t throw up but we also had some lovely footballers like Brian McLaughlin who weren’t exactly athletes and it wasn’t nice for them to know they wouldn’t be leaving until they’d fed the seagulls.
“I liked Jock though and could see why, with the right players around him, he would be a success. He was the sort of man I always wanted to please.
“He used to call me Ian because he thought I was Ian Clinging, which was a compliment because Ian was a better player than me.
“I also liked Jock because he recognised my limitations and didn’t expect me to be Davie Cooper whereas Tommy McLean used to expect me to play like, well, Tommy McLean.”
It was Gers legend Cooper who effectively ended Gahagan’s Motherwell career after 11 years with the Lanarkshire club but he has no complaints.
He said: “It wasn’t until Coop joined Motherwell at the age of 33 that I realised just how great he was.
“I’d watch him at training and think, ‘This guy’s supposed to be finished?’ He was sensational.
“He was also a great guy to have around the place. Like Bobby Russell, who had arrived from Rangers a couple of years previously, he had that winning mentality and that rubbed off on everyone else.
“Tommy McLean used Tom Boyd as the iron lung on the left flank and he became Davie’s legs, which was another nail in my coffin at Motherwell.
“I could accept that though because he was a special player. In fact, although 19 of my 28 appearances were off the bench that season, it was still nice to have been part of The Davie Cooper Story.”
Lineker was terrified of Jock but I liked him and he never bullied me JOHN GAHAGAN