FATHER FIGURE
One Dundee United team-mate described Jim McLean as a ‘bampot’ but John Holt is quick to salute the influence of the legend who was his...
THIS is how it was to be a league champion, a double League Cup winner, a conqueror of Barcelona, a player in a European final. ‘I was coming back from training and I saw an adidas lorry sitting outside Tannadice unloading stuff,’ says John Holt, one of the side that took Dundee United to the UEFA Cup final of 1987.
‘I thought to myself: “Here’s an opportunity”. So I went to the boss and said: “Any chance of a new pair of boots?”
‘He said: “Let me see your old ones”. I brought my boots from the dressing room and there was a three-inch tear on the right-hand side. He said straight away: “Go up and see Mrs Lindsay (secretary), get £3 off her and go down to the cobbler’s at the bottom of the road. He will fix them”.’
Jim McLean, football genius and Tayside tyrant, had struck again. Holt, a personality bereft of bitterness and unburdened by regret, can smile three decades on, particularly because the story has a happy ending.
‘Four weeks on, the boots burst again and I finally got my pair,’ he says.
He also extracted from his time at Tannadice two League Cup winners’ medals, a title and that final against Gothenburg, which included victories over Barcelona and Borussia Monchengladbach.
The last provides a moment of genuine shock in Holt. McLean praised the player for his performance in front of the television cameras. This historic moment is revealed in Tannadice
87, which will be shown tonight. ‘I watched a preview of the documentary the other week and that was the first time I had heard that. He never did that in his life. But I didn’t have any problems with him. He fined me when he shouldn’t have, but he was consistent. He did that to all of us,’ says Holt.
Any discussion of United’s glory years must include a meditation on McLean: innovator, obsessive and ‘bampot’.
‘One of the guys always called him that, though never to his face,’ says Holt with a chuckle.
THE former full-back and midfield player gives a gloriously clear-eyed appraisal of his former boss. It reeks of old football, when managers ruled and Scottish players could operate at the highest level.
‘Jim McLean was decades ahead of his time,’ he says. ‘You look at the tactical formations now and we were using them in the 1970s, whether it was 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-1-1. He had everything structured. The training was set up so each day had a special focus. He had us working so hard that Ian Ferguson, when he joined, said he thought he had signed up for a running club.
‘But he knew how to improve players. He watched me in an Under-15 match and told me the next day that I was taking my first touch back towards the play. He set up a session where I repeatedly opened up my body with my first touch and played away from where the ball had come. I was 14. He was the first-team manager. Yet he took time to do that.’
McLean’s lieutenants were also astute. These included Walter Smith, later to be manager of Rangers.
‘When Wattie played centre-half, he would never give the ball until I made an angle. You soon learned what was expected of you,’ says Holt.
McLean, of course, knew what he had in a player he had signed as a kid. ‘I was living in the multis in Dundee and he came right up to the 19th floor to convince me to join United. My mum thought he was a lovely man,’ he says.
Holt, a product of a local boys’ club, was courted by Aston Villa, but United was his and his parents’ preference.
‘I suppose they wanted me near because I was only a boy, but I was keen to play there,’ he says. ‘I walked into a dressing room with Dougie and Wattie Smith, Andy Gray, Jackie Copland…’
He went on to play with such as Davie Narey, Paul Sturrock, Kevin Gallacher, Paul Hegarty, Maurice Malpas and others who remain monuments to when McLean’s self-styled ‘corner shop’ outperformed the major franchises such as Barcelona.
‘Beating them in the Camp Nou was the highlight,’ says Holt. ‘But the curious thing is that you did not feel strange in such a game as you felt you were just doing your job.’
McLean, who now suffers from ill health, could be tempestuous, even irrational. But his team were measured, focused and precisely calibrated.
‘Wee Jim knew the game, but his man-management was not the best,’ says Holt.
‘The best example is the Scottish Cup final against St Mirren. At the break just before extra time, you saw Alex Smith and Jimmy Bone go around all the St Mirren players patting them on the back. But Wee Jim was standing pointing his finger at us.’
This is a perceptive observation rather than a withering criticism. ‘We were all kind of lucky to be there at the same time. I was happy. It was a happy dressing room. We were very successful, regularly in Europe, winning cups and a league. I was at the club for 14 years. If I had my turn again, I would go the same route,’ he says.
HE adds: ‘The boys will be giving me stick for this, but you did look up to him as a father.’ This is how it is to be a legend. Holt moved into coaching and, in 2003, was down at the United training ground when he was summoned to the chairman’s office.
‘Alex Smith had been sacked earlier that season and Paul Hegarty had taken the job on an interim basis. Maurice [Malpas] moved up
to be No 2 and I was promoted from the youngsters,’ he recalls.
‘Maurice came back from seeing Eddie Thompson (chairman) and told me: “That’s me sacked. He wants to see you now”. I was told by the chairman: “We are sweeping the floor clean. Everyone is out”.
‘I thought: “Fair enough”. No arguments. No nothing. If you start crying you could cry all day. It was just filling a black bag and leaving.’
Holt, a married man with two children, was concerned about how he would earn a living. ‘That’s what gutted me,’ he says. ‘I suddenly found I had to find employment.’
He coached Celtic’s youths for a while, came back to United as a development coach and helped Hegarty at Montrose.
‘When I was assistant at Montrose, I thought I would be better getting myself a wee job,’ says Holt, now a tenant liaison officer with Dundee City Council. ‘I work with the construction side. When the council is putting in new kitchens or central heating, say, I will tell the tenants how and when it is going to happen. I go to see them afterwards to see if they have any complaints.’
Any echoes of McLean in the tenants’ responses. ‘No,’ he replies with a laugh. ‘They are good people. I have been in the job five years and I enjoy it.’
BUT he was a serious player, a participant in a European final. Does he not feel some angst at what players earn now, could he imagine Wayne Rooney, playing next week in a UEFA final, hearing tenants’ complaints 30 years from now?
‘You couldn’t see it, could you?’ he says. ‘You look at what players earn now and are amazed but you just get on with life. I am a grandad now and am very content. I had a good upbringing and all I wanted to do was play football. My dad passed only four weeks ago at 90 and my mum died 20 years ago, but they were proud of what I achieved and I am grateful for that.’
His plans? ‘I go to United matches and go round the lounges and enjoy that. In five years, I will get a wee pension off the council and I will be happy with that,’ he says.
‘Oh, on July 2, me and some of the boys — Dave Narey, Paul Hegarty. Maurice Malpas. Dave Bowman and others — are doing a cycle ride in aid of Maggie’s Centre around the Angus clubs. We did it a couple of years ago and we raised £8,500, so we hope to top that.’
He adds: ‘It will be a good laugh with good friends and it is always great to do something for others, gives you a wee boost.’
This is how it is to be John Holt.
Tannadice 87, produced by purpleTV, will air on BBC ALBA & BBC iPlayer, 9pm tonight.
“Wee Jim was decades ahead of his time. The modern systems you see now? He was using them back in the 1970s”