ONE OF A KIND
Colourful character Lambie will forever be fondly remembered as a Thistle legend
He was the best manager I worked for. He deserved more credit
IT’S difficult to imagine that it’s only 15 years since John Lambie was managing full-time in Scottish football’s top flight.
Lambie, who died at the age of 77 yesterday following a long illness, seemed like a throwback from a dim and distant era when managers ran football clubs with an iron fist and directors of football did not exist because there was no need to invent them.
Results in recent months have been hard enough for Partick Thistle fans to bear, but the sad news about one of the club’s greatest bosses will only add to the gloom at Firhill.
Lambie retired at the end of the 2002-03 season, having kept the Jags in the SPL after winning successive promotions to lead them there.
Apart from a brief return as caretaker the following year, his retirement was final, although Thistle did appoint him as their honorary vice-president in 2006.
A tough-tackling full-back, Lambie kicked off his playing career with Falkirk but enjoyed his best years under Willie Ormond at St Johnstone, where he played in Europe and reached a League Cup final before entering management with Hamilton Accies.
Lambie will be remembered as an eccentric, an oddball with a sharp retort or a wisecrack for every occasion. But, above all, he was a football man, albeit one who would have had difficulty applying his unique approach to management in the current climate.
Gerry Collins, who played under his stewardship at Hamilton and Thistle before becoming his assistant, admits that even he did not always know what Lambie would come up with next.
‘He used to come in at half-time and just lambast the players,’ recalled Collins. ‘Then one day he said to me that they were sick of listening to him and that they needed to hear a different voice.
‘So he went to the toilet and told me to go in and rant and rave at the team. A couple of minutes later he reappeared and told me to be quiet. Then he started telling the lads to ignore me because he was the manager.
‘He then told half of them that I hadn’t wanted to pick them in the first place, but that he insisted — because he believed in them and knew they were good enough. I had no idea he was planning to do that but it worked.’
Lambie’s disciplinary code is also unlikely to be replicated in too many modern-day dressing rooms.
‘He got away with things that he couldn’t have done today,’ said Collins. ‘Any time we went away on a trip — whether it was to Blackpool or abroad — John laid down a set of rules which the players had to follow regarding curfews and the like.
‘Then, when he found out that some of the players had broken them, he would fine them 500 smackers — that was his stock phrase. If anyone complained — and bear in mind our guys weren’t earning that much in a week — then he’d just say: “Fine, I’ll call your wife and tell her why you’re being fined.” To which they’d reply: “Can I pay it in instalments?”
‘He loved racing pigeons and the first time he took us to Blackpool was because there was a convention on there — and he spent £2,000 on a prize bird.’
There was also the time he pulled a pigeon out of his pocket and wrung its neck in front of errant winger Paul Kinnaird, before throwing it in his general direction and claiming: ‘He’s about as much use as you!’ Lambie later explained that the bird had been ill and needed to be put out of its misery, but the point had been made.
‘Try that nowadays and they’d have the PFA on to you,’ said Collins.
‘But he was the best manager I ever worked for, even though he didn’t get a lot of credit for his football knowledge.
‘His man-management was unbelievable. He would sign guys that other managers couldn’t handle and get the best out of them because he knew which buttons to push.
‘I remember the late Clydebank chairman Jack Steedman telling us that he used to buy the Evening
Times on a Saturday night to see where all the nutters were playing these days, but that he no longer bothered because John had taken them all to Firhill.’
One such outcast was Chic Charnley, the maverick midfielder with a penchant for red cards and late nights. He went on to play until he was 40 and remained in touch with Lambie until the end.
‘I visited him in hospital last Friday,’ said Charnley. ‘He was talking about football and talking sense as well. He was still looking after me, asking if there was anything I needed.
‘I loved him as a person and I just hope that people realise there was more to him than the public image. He knew his stuff.
‘One year he was shortlisted with Walter Smith and Martin O’Neill for the Manager of the Year award and I’d like to have seen if those two could have done any better with the resources that the gaffer worked under.
‘He used to say that some managers didn’t know a ball from a banana but he could pick a player all right. It’s hard for me to talk about him because I’m absolutely gutted by this news.’ Lambie, who stood unsuccessfully for election to be on the West Lothian Council as an SNP candidate in 1999, will be missed in Maryhill and beyond. ‘Partick Thistle Football Club is deeply saddened to learn that former manager, hall of fame inductee and Thistle legend John Lambie has today passed away,’ said a club statement. ‘The thoughts of everyone associated with Partick Thistle Football Club are with John’s family and friends at this difficult time.’
Hamilton, whom Lambie led to promotions as well as the famous 1987 Scottish Cup win over Rangers, paid their own tribute.
‘The club are deeply saddened to learn of the death this morning of former manager John Lambie,’ it read.
‘John came to us in 1983, became manager in January 1984, left for Partick Thistle in November 1988, returning to us a year later for another seven-month spell.
‘John was certainly a unique character as manager; he twice took us up to the Premier League and our thoughts are with his family and friends at this time.’