Golden Years

WE TURN BACK TIME AND TAKE A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE

1962

Jimmy Johnstone was picked out as a bright spark when he signed for Celtic.

He had left school aged 15, and had worked in a meat market and clothing factory before turning full-time with the Hoops.

And before being called up, Jinky enrolled in a welding course at a Hamilton college, and might have made a career putting pieces of metal together rather than tearing defences apart.

Eighteen domestic medals in 13 years, plus being an integral part of the Lisbon Lions, proved he, and Celtic, made the right choice.

But maybe he did learn something that followed him throughout his playing career? Jinky hated flying.

1971

In less than a fortnight, the new Scottish League season will be rolled out when the League Cup kicks-off.

For these lads back in 1971, rolls of carpet became the last thing any of them wished to see again!

(From left) Joe Morgan, Brian Laing, Jim Jefferies (all Hearts), Dennis Nelson (Hibs) and Billy Brown (Motherwell) were spending their closeseason break working at Patrick Thomson’s.

The department store, on Edinburgh’s North Bridge, contained just about everything anyone could want.

So these aspiring footballers supplemented their summer wage as storemen – and got in some weight training – taking goods wherever they had to be.

Just over 25 years later, Jefferies and Brown paraded close by after the management duo guided Hearts to the 1998 Scottish Cup win over Rangers.

1962 & 1968

Goalkeepers aside, players are taught from an early age not to use their hands.

It was different in the close season, so Dennis Gillespie and Johnny Briggs had no problem helping out when the stand at Tannadice had been demolished to make way for a new one.

The result of their graft is still standing today, as is the house that Jim Mclean built.

In 1968, he was still a Dundee player, soon to move to Kilmarnock, and his halcyon days across the road with United were still a few years away.

But he made good use of his summer with the building of a new family home in the Lanarkshire village of Ashgill.

Mclean had learned his trade as a joiner, so maybe it should have come as no surprise he forged a reputation for hammering players, nailing bigger clubs’ reputations to the floor and turning a corner shop into a supermarket on a tight budget.