The Road to Lisbon (20 page)

“Say that again,” I request, “the last bit.”

“And the light shines on in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out.”

Everyone walks over to the car, oblivious to the tears rolling down my cheeks.

“That’s two rounds we have had in the European Cup and the challenges are different, Sean. We’re no getting the same space to create as we
do in Scotland. Teams are fitter, stronger, better at denying space. Don’t get me wrong, we have enough threat to overcome it, but it’s only going to get more difficult from now on.
Those bloody defensive Tallies are influencing other teams, too. Teams are happier to sit behind the ball, try to hit you on the counter. You saw that at times against Zurich and Nantes. Bloody
catenaccio. It’ll be taking over the world, soon, but no if I have my way.”

“So what’s your thoughts, Jock? How do we cope with these bloody defences?”

“I can’t stop thinking about the full-backs, Sean. Defensive teams want you to attack the way teams have always attacked; play right into their hands. They want to
smother the strikers and shadow the runs from midfield areas. They’re good at stopping those sort of attacks. But what if we get our full-backs right up there, too? That’ll blow their
bastard minds. Big Gemmell has a shot like a cannonball. Look at that thunderbolt against Zurich in the first round at Celtic Park! Let’s free him up to get more shots in. And what if we
switch him wings, so he plays on the left . . . that way, he can cut inside onto that right foot of his and get shots on target.”

“I like it, Jock. Their heads will be spinning. But who will play on the right if you switch Tommy to the left? You thinkin’ about switching Willie O’Neill, too,
or bringing in Ian Young?”

“I’m thinking about Jim Craig. He slotted in well when we moved Tommy into centre-half for the St Mirren game in early November. He’s an athlete, loves getting up
and down that line. Loves hitting the byeline and getting crosses in; he could give us another dimension in Europe. I’m thinking of bedding him in the New Year and taking it from
there.”

I sit at my desk and listen to the rain lash persistently against the frosted window pane. A stormy night in the east end of Glasgow. The calm before the real storm. Tomorrow night
we face Vojvodina in the quarter-final of the European Cup. 1-0 down from the first leg. Problems not hard to find.

It has been a difficult few months. The 3-2 loss to Dundee United on New Year’s Eve was our first of the season and represented a setback, if not a fatal one. A run of six
straight league victories restored momentum but the state of the pitches caused us to lose some fluency. The Saturday before the first leg we could only manage a 1-1 with Stirling Albion –
hardly the most confidence-inspiring result to take into the first leg.

The first leg against Vojvodina in Yugoslavia showed their quality. We had to defend for much of the match and conceded after a mishit back-pass by Tommy Gemmell saw us breached
midway through the second half. The result was a fair reflection of the match.

Have we met our match? Twice in previous years we have lost first-leg matches and twice been eliminated. Why should it change now against this quality of opposition? Why should we
succeed against a strong, powerful team with great technique? Vojvodina are the champions of Yugoslavia, winning the league ahead of Partizan Belgrade, who lost the European Cup final narrowly to
Real Madrid last year.

I glance at the newspapers on the desk. Their tone is downbeat.

The Yugoslavs are many people’s outsiders to win the tournament and Celtic Park will hold no fears for Vujadin Boskov’s impressive side.

The Press think we will lose. I heard it in the tone of their questions today.

‘Tough task ahead,’ they said, arching their eyebrows. Bastards. Fuckin’ doubting, snidey bastards.

“It is only half-time in the tie,” I told them. “With 70,000 fans behind us at Celtic Park, we will have the opportunity to express ourselves.”

But, beneath the measured comments, nagging doubts remain. They were compounded by the blow of losing Joe McBride a few days ago. It all started back in November, when he came back
from a Scotland trip with a stiff knee. He struggled on, while continuing to score goals, but all was not well. Against Aberdeen on Christmas Eve, his knee finally gave way. The specialists had
their say. A flaking bone behind the kneecap was the verdict. An operation loomed but I was desperate to get our 35-goal striker back in the frame for tomorrow night’s second leg. We stepped
up his training ahead of Saturday’s game with St Mirren but my heart sank when he crumpled to the turf on the eve of the game. He remains defiant, desperate to get back fit in time for the
final. I had a quiet word with the consultant.

“Any chance of Joe being fit for late May?”

He laughed quietly and shook his head.

I have reinforcements. Willie Wallace’s arrival in December now looks increasingly important. He took McBride’s place against St Mirren and scored twice in our 5-0 win.
But it was bittersweet as he is ineligible for tomorrow night. Stevie Chalmers will have to play instead but he is not fully fit. Plus, they have key men returning. Pusibric and Trivic have served
their suspensions and will come back into the side. We are facing a team who know their own quality. Before the first leg, Boskov said as much. “I think we will win by at least two
goals,” he stated.

Stanic’s solitary goal failed to fulfil Boskov’s pre-match prediction. They were worth their win but I took heart from the fact that they had very few chances and their
goal came from a mistake.

Boskov stated after the first leg that he hadn’t been too impressed with us and he was confident they would get the job done in Glasgow.

The Yugoslav Press had the scent of a story when they confronted me after, informing me of Mr Boskov’s rather ungracious words about us.

“Vojvodina are a very good team but we are better and we will win in Glasgow,” I told them.

I head for the car. As I pass Barrowfield, I slow down to crawling pace and look over at our illustrious visitors training. Earlier in the day I refused them permission to train at
Celtic Park.

“The pitch is too soft,” I told Boskov. “There’s been too much rain and I can’t take the chance of it cutting up ahead of tomorrow night.”

I thought he was going to spontaneously combust.

“I’ll take this up with your chairman,” he shouted.

“That’s up to you, Mr Boskov. But my main concern is this pitch and your boys are not putting a foot on it tonight. You’re welcome to use Barrowfield, five minutes
down the road. I’ll make sure the floodlights are switched on for you. Hell, I’ll even drive you there myself!”

“Let’s see how they react walking out there for the first time tomorrow night,” I said to Sean. A psychological blow? We will see. I move through the gears and
carry on down London Road. Out there, in the stormy Glasgow night, fears linger. Have we met our match?

Half-time and the signs are not good. Pusibric should have scored after five minutes but missed from six yards. They are holding firm. The previous month I
had arranged a friendly against Yugoslav side Dinamo Zagreb. We took the game to them in our usual manner. I wanted to see how Yugoslav teams cope with our all-out attack. Very well, was the
answer. We failed to score. It suggested to me that we would need to be prepared to adapt, change the focus and momentum, when the real test came.

This match was going the same way. Vojvodina were comfortable to play it out. I had witnessed them see out victory in their third play-off match against Atletico Madrid in the last
round. They had character. We have to change the flow of the match, break their composure.

“Tommy, Bobby and Cairney, I want you further up the park. Let’s force them onto the back foot more, drive them out of their comfort zones. Jimmy and John Hughes, I want
you to switch wings. Let’s confuse them a bit.”

After the interval, the balance begins to swing in our favour. We start to break their rhythm and the aggregate equaliser comes when Gemmell’s cross is forced home by
Chalmers.

But the pressure is intense, the crowd’s anxiety almost overwhelming.

I hear everything. Every expectant murmur from the watching thousands. Every barbed comment, every fuckin’ damning verdict tossed like a sharpened spear from the heaving
terraces. Sometimes I look around and take in the gargoyled faces, twisted with rage. They hate me. They fuckin’ hate me and they love me. All in the space of 90 minutes. I feel their beery
breath on the back of my neck. I feel the burden. Any manager who says otherwise is lying. People look and judge. They see the confidence, the self-assured marshalling of troops from the sidelines,
the calmness in the eye of the storm. But they do not fully comprehend the responsibility on my shoulders. The heaving weight of expectation that sometimes brings me close to buckling under the
strain. It is a form of torture.

The flip-side is the joy, the excitement, the ability of 11 men under my charge to make people’s lives better. It resonates through me, straightening my back when the pressure
feels like it will cripple me. My burden is also my lifeblood. Ultimately, it is not about me. I am a representative of the people, a custodian of their hopes and dreams. The Keir Hardie of the
dugout.

Managers are often the first to take credit for success, but it is about the players, always the players . . . their ability to absorb information and then to use it amid the
cauldron of match-day, when all around they are being willed, urged and abused. The presence of mind to occupy the moment, and then to seize it, that is what makes a good player great.

There are just moments left now. A replay seems a certainty.

“Looks like Rotterdam,” says Sean. Then we win a corner. “It’s not over yet,” I say. “Get a fuckin’ move on,” I gesture to Billy
McNeill, who quickens his pace as he crosses the halfway line. One last, mighty effort . . . the forwards do their job, dragging their markers away from the goalmouth, leaving the way clear.
Charlie Gallagher swings it into the middle and then time seems to stand still. The ball hangs in the air. There is a momentary vacuum of sound as Celtic Park holds its breath. I feel Sean gripping
my shoulder. Then, he arrives. Big Billy. Like a steam train crashing through the bollards at the end of the track. As the ball leaves his forehead, my arms are in the air. As it arcs into the net,
I am already hugging Sean. The ball nestles in the net. We are through. We have come from behind, survived even more pressure on our home ground and have found a way to win. We are through!
Somehow.

“There is something happening here,” says Sean as we walk up the tunnel. I nod. “This could be a season to remember.”

The street ends in obscurity; a pool of water and a glade of salt grass. In the rapidly diminishing light we dig a little pit in the sand and gather driftwood that has been
bleached and dried by the sun. Mark gets a fine blaze going which envelopes us in a bubble of light and warmth amid a darkness that creeps around us like silence. The
White Horse
bottle is
passed from person to person like a peace pipe, sealing the bond that has been set between us today.

“What a day,” says a downcast Iggy.

“That poor, poor man,” says Delphine.

“So young. It’s awful. Just awful,” says Eddie.

“Certainly puts things into perspective,” says Rocky.

Delphine begins to sob. Iggy comforts her.

“What do you say, Mark?” I ask.

“Yous m-m-maybe don’t want to know.”

“Go on. Nobody will judge you.”

He looks around the assembled fire-lit faces.

“I think it was his t-t-t-t-t-time.”

“Away!” exclaims Rocky.

“He was our age for Christ’s sake, younger even!” protests Iggy.

“I know, I know. Maybe I haven’t expressed myself r-r-right. It’s just that . . . I believe certain things happen for a r-r-reason. Even t-terrible things sometimes. Ach, I
haven’t even worked it out properly in my heid so maybe I shouldn’t be b-b-blethering like this, but I do believe that the ways of G-G-G-God are m-mysterious. There’s more to life
than m-meets the eye. It’s no all random bad l-l-luck. And even if today was only that – just a random, tragic event, I believe we can still take m-meaning from things, ’cause at
the end of the day good will triumph. That boy – he was p-p-p-peaceful at the end. Naw, more than that, he was full of j-j-j-j-joy.”

“Never!” says Iggy.

“Aye!” insists Mark. “You saw it T-Tim. He was j-j-j-j-joyful at the end, was he n-no?”

“Well . . .” I begin.

Suddenly I feel self-conscious with five pairs of eyes on me.

“Aye, he was,” I say.

Delphine rises and walks towards the road. After a moment I get up and follow her.

She is standing at the edge of the continent, gazing inland. I place my jersey over her shoulders. She turns and smiles at me.

“Debbie is the love of your life, and you aren’t over her. That’s why you won’t commit to London, isn’t it?”

“It’s just too sudden . . . my head’s all mixed up.”

She gazes into the distance again.

“What are you thinking of?”

“What to do now; this is as far as I go. I might stay here, by the ocean. Or I might visit my father. He stays up that road somewhere. About 100 kilometres or so.”

“You said you don’t get along . . .”

“He is a difficult man, but today . . . that poor man in the car . . . it has got me to thinking. And I don’t blame father entirely. He could never come to terms with mother. He
moved here, to the south, after she . . . died. He couldn’t bear to return to Carnac. Did I tell you that my mother had red hair, like me?”

“She took her own life, didn’t she?”

She continues to gaze up the road, into France, her homeland. Then, barely perceptible, a nod.

I sit alone with my thoughts. The wife and kids are in bed. The television flickers in the corner. A reporter, standing in front of a fountain in a square in
Lisbon, is speaking in posh BBC.