THE SCOTSMAN SPORT

He was the kind of footballer who dear old Archie Macpherson would wax lyrical about, with the former schoolteacher never missing a chance to remark on his “educated” left foot. The line-up for this weekend’s cup clashes chimes loudly for this fellow, these fixtures having once provided both his sensational entrance and his greatest day. But for the last five years Steve Fulton has been earning his living as a labourer.

Happy doing it, too. “I was working at Rosyth Naval Yard, helping the electricians looking after the aircraft carriers,” he explains. “Quite often guys would ask: ‘What are you doing here?’ I always replied: ‘Exactly the same as you – I need a wage.’ When I hung up my boots, although I coached for a bit, I never fancied doing that full-time. It would have been too high-profile for me.

“I wanted to work and I had to work, so that the wife and I could take the boys on wee holidays. It hasn’t bothered me that it’s been labouring. For me, that’s a job just like playing football was a job, except that the football paid a bit better and each day you were finished by 12. I’ve given up at Rosyth now but hopefully I’ll get something else similar. I have to.”

It didn’t look like “work” when Fulton, just 18, flighted those killing crosses for Celtic against this evening’s Betfred Cup opponents, Hibernian, but he’d laugh if you were to call it “art”. Thirty years ago, the competition was the Scottish Cup but the contest was over before half an hour, thanks largely to man-of-the-match Fulton.

Nine years later, again in the Scottish and this time the final, he won the first-minute penalty which sent Hearts on their way to victory against Rangers, the Jambos’ opponents tomorrow. Now 49, he’ll miss both the latest semis as he takes wife Angella on one of those wee holidays – to Spain – but in any case will be more interested in the progress of another tie. He helps coach Eastfield from Cumbernauld, where he lives, who’re playing in the Scottish Amateur Cup against another new town team, East Kilbride’s EKRR, and hopes that, with sons Dale and Tyler in the line-up, they can progress today without his touchline promptings.

Fulton posted the classiest performances of his career while wearing the Gorgie maroon but says: “I’m afraid I wouldn’t cross the road to watch Hearts now. That’s not my kind of football they play.” The current side don’t have anyone who passes the ball like Fulton did and haven’t had for a while. A few minutes later, though, he thinks he might have been a bit harsh with that assessment. Clearly Fulton has no designs on outspoken punditry either, and he proves a shy and retiring fellow during our chat.

I catch up with him in South Wales where he’s on grandad duty, looking after the daughter of his other son, Jay, who plays for Swansea City, riding high in England’s Championship. So what it’s been like for the Fulton boys to follow in a famous father’s footsteps? Not dissimilar to Steve coming after his old man, in fact.

Norrie Fulton was a legend of the Juniors scene,abarrel-chested,barnstormingcentre-forward who scored a barrowload of goals – 350-plus – for Petershill and Pollok, including the Hampden winner for the latter when they lifted the Junior Cup in 1981.

Says Fulton: “I don’t think me having a career daunted my boys. In fact I think it helped them because they all wanted to play football and at four and five years old they would come to training, kick a ball about and interact with players. That was me at their age and I went to Dad’s games, home and away. Well, not all of the aways. The games could be mental down Ayrshire way and places like that. One time, when word got round I was Norrie Fulton’s laddie, my back was covered in spittle by the end of the match.” Then, seamlessly, he adds: “The Juniors were great as well. Loads of cracking teams and cracking players.”

Now he’s laughing because few were more notable in that realm than his father with even guest-starring world greats of football having to play second fiddle. “I remember Dad was playing in a charity match. The posters for it had him top of the bill. Down the bottom, in smaller print, there was: ‘… Also featuring George Best.’ Dad loved that. But on the day George didn’t turn up. It was when he was at Hibs and a bit unreliable. I’d like to think he went ‘Norrie Fulton’s playing? Norrie Fulton? I’m staying in bed …’!”

What was his influence on young Steve? “You know, he could be harsh. Playing youth football, if my game wasn’t up to scratch, I’d hear about it the whole car journey home. But the times he praised me I knew I’d earned it. I liked that. I was ‘Norrie Fulton’s boy’ for long enough, even after I got to Celtic. [Manager] Billy Mcneill knew me as that at first. It was a while before anyone referred to me as ‘Steve Fulton’.”

They surely did after that blazing semifinal in 1989. Not quite the Greenock youngster’s debut in Hoops; definitely though the game which announced him.

Glenn Gibbons reported that Fulton looked like “a teenager of real promise” and raved about his “wicked” left foot. He wasn’t nervous before the match and, he hopes, didn’t get too carried away after it. “Being a footballer – on the park, I mean – there were times when you had to be arrogant. But down the street I never thought I was better than anybody else. I just wanted to be treated as a normal guy. I wouldn’t have appreciated folk fawning over me because I was a footballer. I wouldn’t have wanted to talk to anyone who did that.”

Inevitably for a youngster who dazzles for the Old Firm, there was hullabaloo and hype. “I didn’t appreciate there would be and I didn’t really like it. One minute I was a reserve player, the next I was on telly. One minute no one knew me, then everyone did. I hated doing interviews; I was too selfconscious. Nowadays, young players have media training. They’re confident enough to get out there and talk about depression and stuff. I wasn’t.”

The buzz about young Fulton included a semi-notorious comparison with Roberto Baggio. Not a direct one, but it came from Mcneill who, at the time the Italian World Cup star was going stratospheric, wondered what his hot prospect might be worth one day. Fulton always likes to point out the artistic licence of journalists who took the remark literally. “Did it bother me? No, not really. Anyone who actually thought I was as good as Baggio would have needed their head examined. But folk still call me Baggio. It happened at Rosyth; it happens most days. And let’s be honest, footballers get called short while later, Fult

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