Andy ensured Blue Brazil werealwaysinwithashout
Scotland’s lower-league teams have been given the go-ahead to complete their season.
The format of the finish is still being debated, but there’s relief that clubs don’t have to give up on their dreams of winning promotion.
It’s 50 years since Cowdenbeath were playing out the last few games of their only top- flight campaign since the 1930s.
They had hoped to hold a reunion of the team that won promotion in 1970 last year, but the coronavirus pandemic put the celebration on hold.
Although the Blue Brazil finished bottom of the First Division, they didn’t go down without a fight.
Their inspirational skipper, Andy Kinnell, wouldn’t have missed the experience for anything else in football.
He said: “To get Cowdenbeath up and have them playing against the big boys like Celtic and Rangers meant a huge amount to me.
“My mother, who was the tea lady at the club, used to take a group of eight to 10 bairns along to games at Central Park.
“I was sitting in the stand when I was just threeyears-old. We were all Cowdenbeath supporters.
“When I was a teenager, Dunfermline were really keen to sign me.
“My dad encouraged me to go because it was full-time football, but I wasn’t having it.
“My main question was: ‘ Will I get a game?’ I wanted to play for Cowdenbeath, and I was sure I’d get picked up by someone else if I was good enough.
“I wouldn’t swap that time for anything else. Yes, the big money would have been nice, but I doubt there would be the team spirit we enjoyed.
“We did everything together. We ate together – probably the wrong stuff – went for a pint together and looked out for one another.
“When we won promotion, the club took us to Ca’n Pastilla in Majorca for two weeks.
“Some lads went through the spending money a bit quickly, but the directors were happy to dish out some more.
“I probably got laryngitis three times a season from shouting at my team-mates.
“You had to know which ones to bark at, and others that needed performances coaxed out.”
Cowdenbeath put up a real fight in their only post-war top-flight campaign.
Andy, whose brother George played for Aberdeen, Stoke and Sunderland, went on:
“There were a lot of games where we only lost by one goal.
“We also got to the League Cup semi- final against Rangers. Our one big defeat was 7-0 at Aberdeen – and I scored two of their goals!
“We were going for three wins-in-a-row when we played Celtic at Central Park in March.
“We took an early lead, but they equalised while we were down to 10 men.
“I had just been carried off with a knee injury and we went on to lose 5-1.
“I was very seldom injured, but I had to get a cartilage operation and missed two weeks.
“The referee gave me a lift home because the knee was locked and I couldn’t get on the bus.
“I thought we might have stayed up in the First Division if we’d signed two or three experienced midfield players.
“I recommended Gordon Cramond of Montrose and maybe Hearts’ Jim Townsend, but the club didn’t have the money.
“We had a great goalie in Jim Mcarthur, who went on to do really well for Hibs.
“But I remember giving him a right rollicking when we were 2-1 up at Arbroath and he rolled the ball straight to Eric Sellars for an equaliser.
“He hadn’t seen the dark maroon shirt and we hadn’t seen what he’d done because we were walking up the pitch.”
Andy went full- time in 1972 when Willie Ormond bought him for St Johnstone.
He said: “I loved my time at Saints, and became skipper at Muirton Park.
“I’d been working as a driller at an open-cast mine and doubled my money. I was being paid for something I’d have done for nothing.”
Now 74, Andy isn’t ready to put his feet up and works part-time delivering items for the NHS.