Tommy recalls sand, rolls and Jock’s big stick
Last Monday, Rangers returned from their summer break to begin their pre-season training ahead of the new campaign kicking off.
With the draw having taken place for the early rounds of the Europa League, the Light Blues have found themselves paired against either the Kosovans of FC Prishtina or St Joseph’s of Gibraltar.
The first leg of their first qualifying round tie will be played on July 11, so they will need to be back to their peak condition ahead of then. That means that Ibrox boss Steven Gerrard and his backroom team, along with the club’s sports science staff, will have a training schedule in place to ensure his men are in tip-top shape before taking to the European stage.
The advent of sports science seems jarring when you consider how legendary Gers boss Jock Wallace would put his troops through the mill every pre-season back in the 1970s. The very mention of Gullane Sands is enough to send shivers through even the hardest of hard men to have played in the light-blue jersey. One of those to have been there, seen and done it, was Tommy Mclean.
The wing legend, who won the European Cup-winners’ Cup, along with a pair of Trebles, during his 11 years as a Gers player, saw his fair share of “Murder Hill” on the East Lothian coast under Wallace’s leadership.
And those memories are as vivid today as they were following those stomach-churning training days by the sea. “Pre-season at Gullane was a nightmare – and not just being put through your paces up and down the dunes,” said the now 72-year-old Mclean.
“The journey there was done in stages. The boys from the west would get the bus through from Glasgow, while the lads from Edinburgh came from the other side.
“But there would also be a detour to Wallyford, as Big Jock would pop in to see his mother. He would leave us sitting on the bus, before getting back on 10 minutes later – complete with a big bacon roll!
“So he would be laying in to that as were all sitting there starving, knowing we were about to get hammered on those dunes. “Once there, we would change on the bus before hitting the dunes. However, once on Murder Hill we did do our best to try to cheat the system, if you like.
“Guys like Sandy Jardine and Alex Macdonald were the better runners in the group, so they would charge up the hill first, leaving their step marks. Then the rest of us would just run up in their footsteps.
“Unfortunately, Big Jock would get wise to it and wander down, filling in the holes.
“Then he would sit at the top of the hill, with a stopwatch and a big stick. If you didn’t make his allotted time, he would give you a quick rap with the stick.
“Can you imagine that now? You just wouldn’t get away with that these days.
“Then at the end, it would be into the freezing cold water before getting back on the bus to get changed before a meal. Then it would be a sleep on the way back down the road. “However, the psychology of it all was fantastic.
“Big Jock always used the word ‘character’, and said that by doing this nobody would outrun us, out-fight us or out-play us.
“And, to be fair, that paid off for us in Barcelona, when we beat Moscow Dynamo to win the Cup-winners’ Cup.
“Having been 3-0 up, the Russians pulled things back to 3-2 and in those last 10 minutes we were out on our feet. But it was our ‘character’ that took us to a famous victory.”
Despite going on to have a very successful management career himself, including winning the Scottish Cup with Motherwell, Tommy never felt inclined to return to Gullane.
Now retired, he keeps fit these days by playing golf three times a week.