After 40 years away, Gilzean made an emotional return to Tottenham Hotspur and a hero’s welcome home

Alan Gilzean, who has died just weeks after being diagnosed with a brain tumour, has rightly been remembered as one of the greatest strikers in what we now recognise as a golden post-war age of Scottish football. This might amuse him, after all, during a near 40-years exclusion from the game, which followed his retirement in 1974, his excuse for not being around the game was: “Who wants to be bothered with an old guy like me?”

He got his answer when he was finally persuaded to make the trip from his retirement home in Weston-supermare to Tottenham Hotspur’s White Hart Lane. On that first trip back, introduced at halftime, he heard himself, once again, hailed as “The King of White Hart Lane”, by Spurs fans who had never seen him rise to seemingly hover at the back post, before heading home one of the 133 goals he scored in over 400 games for the club.

It was all a long way from rural Perthshire, where he was born and grew up in Coupar Angus. It was here, in the Scout Hut, he practised, rising to head an old boxing glove hung on a string, as he honed the skill which would, in April, 1964, see him soar above the great Gordon Banks and soon to be teammate Maurice Norman and head home the only goal of that year’s Scotland v England game – the goal which gave the Scots their first, and only run of three successive wins over the Auld Enemy in the 20th century.

Gilzean’s career progressed via Coupar Angus Juveniles, to junior Dundee Violet, before, aged 17, he signed for Dundee. He learned his trade, did his National Service in the Army and, by 1962 he was one half of a deadly striking partnership with Alan Cousin, as Dundee held off Rangers to win the club’s first and to-date only League Championship. That Dundee team; Pat Liney; Alex Hamilton, Bobby Cox; Bobby Seith, Ian Ure, Bobby Wishart; Gordon Smith, Andy Penman, Alan Cousin, Alan Gilzean and Hugh Robertson contained three all-time greats: Hamilton, Smith and Gilzean, but the rest were very good players too, all are Dundee legends.

He scored over 20 goals that season, including a marvellous four goals in a 5-1 Ibrox win over Rangers, in November, 1961 – a match which established Dundee as genuine title contenders, and Gilzean as a rising star.

The following season he contributed nine goals as the ‘Dee made it to the semi-finals of the European Cup, in fact that season he scored over 50 goals in all games – a Dundee record, but, still could not get past the likes of Ian St John and Denis Law and into the national side.

But talent will out, and in November 1963, he won the first of an eventual 22 caps when chosen against Norway in a 6-1 Hampden win. That first Scotland goal had to wait until his third cap, the aforementioned 1964 Hampden game. A month later, in his fourth international, he scored both goals as Scotland drew 2-2 with West Germany in Hanover. In all, he scored 12 goals in his 22 internationals, which means his strike rate is exactly the same for his country as Law’s.

There was a Scottish Cup runners-up medal in season 1963-64 as well, but he was restless and ambitious; his ambition was to play at Wembley. This became more realistic in season 1964-65. He asked for a transfer, Dundee refused, so, he went on strike and had to sign on the dole for three months before peace was restored and he signed a shortterm deal, during which, he scored two goals for “A Scotland XI” against Tottenham at White Hart Lane. Bill Nicholson, the Tottenham boss, had seen enough. He paid £72,500 and, after 190 games and 169 goals, still a club record, Gilzean left Dundee for north London.

There, over the next decade, he formed two highly effective scoring partnerships – the first his “G-men pairing” with the goal-scoring genius Jimmy Greaves, then, after Greaves was sold, with Martin Chivers. At Tottenham he won one FA Cup winner’s medal in 1967, thereby achieving his playing at Wembley dream, two League Cup winner’s medals and a UEFA Cup winner’s medal.

Greaves rated him his bestever partner: “I did Alan’s running, he did my heading,” he would explain, but, for all his aerial brilliance, he could play a bit on the ground. His boyhood friends back in Coupar Angus called him “Peenie”, because they said he could land a pass on a peen (pin)head.

Aged 33, he left Tottenham,