Scooter accident scuppered Tom’s dream Down Under
THE Commonwealth Games has led to athletes from 71 different countries arriving in Glasgow.
Australia is one of only six countries to have attended every Games, and have been hosts five times, starting in 1938.
When it came to football, however, they were a little slower to get involved and the early years were controversial.
The Aussies were suspended from FIFA in 1960 for poaching players from overseas.
Tom Nolan discovered just how unregulated the game was when he went to Melbourne from Scotland in 1961.
Australia, however, provided him with a host of wonderful memories.
His spell Down Under might have been the springboard for a long and successful career, if not for a road accident on a scooter.
The Edinburgh- born striker’s senior career started in England despite being chased by a host of Scottish teams.
He recalled: “I just missed out on getting a chance at Hibs.
“A game I was due to play for Edinburgh Ashton had started before I arrived on the day that Eddie Turnbull came to see me.
“I then got a game for Aberdeen Reserves against Third Lanark. I thought they were going to take me but nothing materialised.
“A few weeks later I headed a few hundred miles south and signed for Brighton & Hove Albion.
“Suddenly I was playing professional football for their second team alongside Stan Crowther.
“He had won an FA Cup Final medal with Aston Villa in 1957 when they beat Manchester United.
“He was the only player to turn out for two different teams in the FA Cup during one season when he joined United just after the Munich Air Disaster.
“In the circumstances, the FA deemed he was not cup-tied.”
A free transfer from Brighton led to Tom responding positively after a letter arrived inviting him to play in Australia.
He went on: “I’d never been on an aeroplane in my life, and by the time I touched down in Australia, I said I never wanted to see one again!
“I joined Wi l h e l m i n a Melbourne and found I was the only British player in the side. “Apart from manager Ollie Norris, all the others were Dutchmen w h o ’d been poached from teams l ike Ajax and Feyenoord.
“They were great guys, who all spoke perfect English. I think they’d a bit of trouble with my Scottish accent.
“I recommended my mate Sid Steele to the team, and he’s still in Australia to this day.
“We played a team called Adamstown Rosebud and they tried to tap me.
“I refused at first, but when I found out we were only being paid if we won, I had a rethink.
“I went to New South Wales and negotiated a £ 100 signing- on fee and £10 a week wages.
“I was under strict instructions not to tell the others how much I was getting paid.
“The team didn’t have a great ground but they made a fortune from a clubhouse packed with one-armed bandits.”
When a new player-coach was given his club house, Tom decided to leave the unregulated Australia football and went home.
Hesaid:“IwontheScottishQualifying Cup with Hawick and had offerstogoandplayinplaceslikethe USA, South Africa and Hong Kong.
“But I was hit by a taxi on my scooter and needed a pin in my broken thigh bone. It’s still there nearly 50 years later.”
Tom, who worked for a brewery and at Edinburgh University, is now 73. ALLY McCOIST flew home from Germany after sustaining a calf injury during Rangers’ pre-season friendly with Kaiserslautern.
The striker faced a race against time to be fit for his side’s European Cup tie against AEK Athens.
Dundee United defender Maurice Malpas (below) suffered knee ligament damage in a 2-2 draw against the Australian Olympic XI.
Raith beat Bryan Robson’s Middlesbrough 1-0, thanks to a Colin Cameron strike. GORDON STRACHAN was forced to wait while FIFA decided if he would join Manchester United or Cologne for the new season.
The clubs were involved in a wrangle about the midfielder’s move from Aberdeen after claims he signed a pre-contract deal to join the Germans.
The Dons failed in an ambitious bid to land Polish international Zbigniew Boniek (right) from Juventus. HIBS manager Jock Stein announced the club had offered Real Madrid a fivefigure sum to play a game at Easter Road in the autumn.
He also revealed thatTommy Leishman would be his club captain for the season.
Alan Gilzean (below) was training with Dundee but not being paid because he wanted to leave the club.
The striker would stay at Dens Park before joining Spurs at the end of the year.