Joe Jordan on joining the enemy
He’s a Scotland hero who could have been helping the Auld Enemy. And Joe Jordan is still not ruling it out, hears Graeme Macpherson
IT is June 10, 2017. The new England manager, Harry Redknapp, leads out his team at a raucous and expectant Hampden for the vital World Cup qualifier against Scotland. Alongside him, bedecked in England tracksuit, three lions on his chest, stands his assistant. It is Joe Jordan, hitherto Tartan Army cult hero, the man who in 1973 scored the goal that ended Scotland’s 16-year World Cup drought and then went on to score in three successive finals. He couldn’t, could he?
Precedent says it’s not beyond the realms of possibility. John Gorman was Glenn Hoddle’s England assistant although Gorman was never capped for Scotland. Terry Butcher went the other way, swapping England for Scotland when he joined George Burley’s backroom team. Jordan has been Redknapp’s assistant at his last three clubs, and if Redknapp had been given the nod for the England job in the summer ahead of Sam Allardyce then that might have given this 52-times capped Scot a personal dilemma to wrangle with. The issue could arise again should new interim England manager Gareth Southgate’s stint not be extended beyond his initial four-game remit. So would he have? And could he yet?
Sitting in the café of a Bristol hotel, the city that has been his family’s home for the past two decades, a brief, enigmatic smile crosses Jordan’s face. “That would have been funny but I wasn’t tested,” he says. “So we’ll never know. Next summer? I can’t imagine that’s going to happen. If Gareth does well in those four games I wouldn’t be surprised if they let him have a run at it.”
Jordan still thinks England missed a trick not giving the job to Redknapp. “I think Harry would have been a good choice a few years ago and I thought he was going to get it. He deserved it and I think he would have been very good for the England dressing room and the progress of English football. His enthusiasm has not waned in any way. He loves his football. I spoke to him a few weeks ago, he’s busy with a lot on, but I don’t think he would ever turn down that opportunity, regardless of when it came. He’s the right age for it. He’s also the right nationality, as I think, where possible, a Scot should manage Scotland and an Englishman should do the same for his country.”
Jordan and Redknapp seem a curious pair – he the laconic, quietly-spoken Scot, Harry the garrulous Londoner – but theirs is a relationship that has staying power. From a union that began at Portsmouth in 2004, Redknapp gave his assistant the chance to join him when he subsequently left for Spurs and again when Queens Park Rangers came calling. On each occasion, Jordan accepted.
“I still talk to Harry although I wouldn’t say we were really close,” he says. “But I was with him at three different clubs over a spell of time and really enjoyed it. He’s a real football man. He had a way of treating the players like men and gave them that responsibility of conducting themselves in that fashion. And I think he got a return from them. Those were good days. He’s a little bit old school and that ain’t bad. I’m a little bit old school myself.”
Now 64 but still looking as taut and lithe as he did in his playing days, Jordan is enjoying a rare break from football having left QPR in February 2015. There is a dog that needs walking every day, while his two sons live nearby with their own burgeoning families. One daughter has followed in his footsteps by settling in Milan, while another, on the day we meet, was due to give birth in London.
Jordan is content with his lot. If Redknapp returns to another post and asks him to join him, the Scot will give it due consideration. But he does not give the impression of a man desperate to get back to work.
“I’m not sitting there waiting for the phone to ring,” he says. “I never have done. If a position comes up as a manager or coaching with someone then I would look at it but I’ve never been one to network. I keep in contact with Harry and a few other people in the game but not that many. Maybe ones I used to play with or worked with but not much beyond that. I’ve been very lucky that, since joining Morton aged 16, I’ve only been out of the game twice – once for a year and another time for just over a year. And I’m in my 60s now. So I’ve been fortunate.”
IN a parallel universe, he and Redknapp could have been facing each other at Wembley and Hampden over the next eight months. Jordan was among those linked with the Scotland vacancy when Craig Levein stepped aside in 2012 and had his candidacy endorsed by, among others, Graeme Souness, with whom he will share a Glasgow stage next month.
Jordan, though, is not a man big on regrets or for hypothesising on what might have been,” he says. “I never got a knock on my door for that. There was a wee bit of publicity as there always is when someone loses their position, but it was the same for two or three others. It’s not something I look back on and wish it had turned out differently as it wasn’t something I could have done anything about. When you’re a player and you’re not selected – and there was a time when I wasn’t picked for Scotland – then you have a way of fixing that. You have to come up with the goods and I did that.”
And how. As Scotland prepare to take on Slovakia in a World Cup qualifier on Tuesday night, the parallels with 1973 and Jordan’s pivotal goal against the country from which it emerged – Czechoslovakia – are obvious. Like then, there is an ever-growing sense of longing among Scotland management, players and fans to bring to an end an absence from major tournaments that has gone on for far too long.
“In 1974 we qualified after a 16-year wait and had a squad with players like Denis Law, Billy Bremner and Jimmy Johnstone,” Jordan says. “They were three world-class players, in my opinion. And they hadn’t played in a World Cup. I was only 21 but I sensed the vibes coming from them going into the Czechoslovakia game, winning it and seeing what it meant to them. Billy had been England’s player of the year, Denis had been European footballer of the year, and Jimmy had won the European Cup. They had done it all apart from playing at a World Cup for their country. You looked at them and you knew what it meant.”
Jordan is frustrated by the current state of affairs but remains hopeful Scotland’s 20-year exile from the World Cup finals could soon come to an end. “I’m disappointed the squad didn’t make it to the Euros. I think once you reach one tournament you then have a much better chance of pushing on and reaching the next one.
“At the moment it’s become very difficult just to reach one. But you look at the group we’re in just now and it’s not bad. And in any Scotland versus England game, if you’re on your game you can do it. So with that in mind they must have a chance. I’ll maybe go to Wembley. That match takes a bit of beating.” And there will be no question of divided loyalties on that night.
Joe Jordan is speaking alongside Graeme Souness at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on November 3 as part of the legends of Scottish and world football series. Tickets from £25 are available from www.glasgowconcerthalls.com