Farewell to a legend...
DAVE MACKAY — 1934-2015
SIR Alex Ferguson and Denis Law were among the football legends who joined hundreds of supporters and mourners in Edinburgh yesterday to pay their final respects to former Hearts, Tottenham and Scotland captain Dave Mackay, who died earlier this month aged 80. They came from near and far to remember the midfield dynamo, including Frank McLintock, Ian St John and former Spurs stars Pat Jennings, Alan Gilzean, Terry Medwin, Steve Perryman, Mike England and Cliff Jones. Sir Alex spoke fondly of his fellow Scot during the service, saying: ‘He was a fantastic guy. I think we’ve seen the passing of a true, great legend.’
WRITER and broadcaster ARCHIE MACPHERSON says farewell to Dave Mackay on the day football’s legends joined the Tynecastle faithful in paying their respects to the former Hearts, Tottenham and Derby County superstar.
HISTORY is suffused with irony. It will be noted by posterity that on a day when j ubilation should have been coursing through the veins of every lover of Tynecastle, they were in fact muting the trumpets and draping the halls with black rather than maroon.
They came to honour a man who hadn’t lived long enough to savour the triumphant emergence of his beloved club from near destitution.
But the claiming of their new divisional title will now be a permanent r eminder of t he resilience that Dave Mackay bequeathed his club when he strode the turf with a broad- chested i mperiousness t hat was t he formidable bridgehead for Hearts’ triumphs in the 1950s.
As they laid him to rest yesterday, you couldn’t help but think that nature had played a cruel trick in ending his life only several weeks before the confirmation of the end of the struggle for credibility and self-esteem that his first club had been engaged in for so long.
Mackay must, though, have had an inkling of the course of events which was leading inevitably to that apotheosis. The crowds who thronged the streets as the cortege made its way from Tynecastle i t self f or a remembrance service at Mansfield Traquair, and who threw their scarves at the procession as if to add sustenance to his l ast journey, must have believed that even in the later stages of his life he will have been mentally kicking every ball for his former club, such was his lasting affection for the Gorgie Road.
I was a student when I first saw the triumphant Hearts side of 1957-58 which he captained, when they not only won the title but created a British goal-scoring record of 132 scored and only 29 against. I don’t know particularly why but I do instantly recall a game they played against Clyde at the old Shawfield where you could be very close to the pitch and, to this day, I will always associate Mackay with ‘glaur’.
For there he was yomping his way through the mud like a primeval predator whilst, through his prompting, Hearts were playing the kind of slick football that, as a Glasgow boy, I thought was simply the preserve of the Old Firm.
And I cannot eliminate the image of his sliding into a tackle that took both Mackay and the Clyde man off the pitch and almost into the dog-track fence which surrounded the playing area. He wasn’t censured because the ball was what he was after and got.
Nor was he ever sent off in any game he ever played in from schools football through to the highest senior level, although his reputation for toughness did frankly make some opponents quiver when they saw his name posted on the team-sheet, as Sir Alex Ferguson alluded to in paying his respects yesterday.
‘I was playing for Queen’s Park reserves against Hearts reserves at Tynecastle and the great Mackay was playing because he was coming back from a broken toe,’ said Sir Alex. ‘He tackled me and I thought: “Christ!” but in those days you had to get up no matter what. So I got up and had a look at that big barrel chest of his and he just said: “Are you all right, son?” That was a great memory — the only time I played against Dave Mackay and I’ll never forget it.’
Nor, when he had gone south to English football, will any of us ever forget the iconic photograph of Mackay lifting Billy Bremner off his feet with a clenched fist, like a boy he had caught picking his pocket. We look at it now with affection. I never saw malice in it. Mackay hated the image, as he thought it showed him as a bully. To me, it was like portraying rough-andready fatherly instinct.
They muted the trumpets, draped the halls with black, not maroon I remember him yomping in the mud like a primeval predator
His game never changed with Spurs when, with the likes of the great ‘White Ghost’ John White and Alan Gilzean, he helped establish a regime at White Hart Lane with a proud Scottish accent which made that ground a fortress and a team feared throughout Europe.
In that setting, it was no surprise that they won the ‘Double’ in 1960-61, the FA Cup in succeeding years and the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1963.
They loved his commitment, his ability to help pull his team back from occasional adversity.
That is why so many notables from the English game travelled to Edinburgh yesterday to pay tribute alongside the Hearts faithful.
His former Spurs colleagues were there. Pat Jennings, Terry Medwin, Steve Perryman, Gilzean, Mike England, Clive Allen and Cliff Jones, who told the congregation: ‘Whenever I hear the bagpipes playing Flower of Scotland, I think of Dave — a proud Scotsman who never forgot his roots.’
Gilzean added: ‘The legacy he leaves is unbelievable for three clubs — Hearts, Tottenham and Derby County. He was a fantastic, inspirational guy. No mountain was too high for Dave to climb.’
Yesterday’s cross-border representation reflected the fact that they recognised him as one of the best-ever Scottish exports to the English game. For some reason, we did not see the best of him in a Scottish jersey and he did not talk much about being in the side which was devastated 9-3 by England at Wembley in 1961.
Within Sir Alex’s comments, though, there was also an element of regret about Mackay’s record in t he s ense t hat he was under- appreciated i n certain quarters, pointing to the paucity of caps he earned. ‘Only 22 caps for a player as good as that?’ he lamented. ‘Scotland was picked by a committee with its head in the sand. If Matt Busby had been manager, he’d have 50-odd caps.
‘Everyone talks about his courage and his bravery, but he was a fantastic footballer. He was skilful, he could play anywhere and he proved that. I think we’ve seen the passing of a great legend.’
From the master, there can be no more fitting epitaph.