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James Morgan: In Search Of Alan Gilzean (Backpage Press)
Harry Reid Share
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4 Oct 2010
The legacy of the one-time Dundee and Tottenham Hotspur star is worth remembering.
Towards the end of this fine book there is a description of one of Alan Gilzean’s party pieces, which he would perform after a few drinks. He’d catch a florin coin on his forehead, roll it down his face, let it fall and trap it on his foot. Then he would flick it back up into his top pocket.
That points to Gilzean’s perfect balance, his sheer poise. For those who don’t know (and too many don’t, that is partly the point of Morgan’s book) Gilzean was an exceptionally talented Scottish footballer who in his early career dazzled as a prolific goalscorer for Dundee FC. He had been brought up in the nearby country town of Coupar Angus.
Then he was sold to Tottenham Hotspur and, from the mid 1960s to the early 1970s, he made himself a legend in North London and beyond. He scored many goals but it was his consistently classy, creative play that made him so special. There have been few more graceful and delicate headers of a football. He did not only score goals with headers; he was also able to pass the ball with his head.
Gilzean’s bad luck was that he played in an era when very skilful Scottish players were ubiquitous. In the early 1960s he won the Scottish League with Dundee, and in the next season helped them to the semi-final of the European Cup. With Spurs he won four trophies and earned a special place in the club’s folk memories, playing alongside Jimmy Greaves in an outstanding team. He was capped sporadically for Scotland; nowadays he’d probably get 100 caps and more. In persona, he was modest and elusive.
Morgan too is modest. He is something of a philosopher. At one point he notes that in satisfying our hunger for truth, we stifle our imagination. But his book is a quest, a search for truth that never offends the imagination but stimulates it.
Having, for family reasons that he never fully explains, been a long-distance Spurs fan, he was both distressed and intrigued to hear rumours that his hero Gilzean was down on his luck in Weston-super-Mare, of all unlikely places. He determined to find Gilzean, and at the same time try to revive his reputation and restore him to a fitting place in Scotland’s football pantheon.
Gilzean was evasive, but Morgan was assiduous as he tracked down his old team-mates in the Dundee title-winning team, spoke to people who’d known him as a boy, and talked with journalists and some of Gilzean’s Spurs contemporaries. He went on many journeys, and if this book has a fault, it is that he goes into too much detail about the tedious annoyances and irritating encounters on some of these trips. But the tension and the intrigue build steadily. The dénouement, when it comes, is almost inevitably something of an anti-climax, although a pleasant one.
Anyway, Morgan writes with such unaffected honesty that the lack of a dramatic ending doesn’t really matter. So many football books are laddish, flashy and in your face; this one is gracious and subtle, and in many ways its modest tone reflects its subject. Gilzean was a sublime player, but a quiet man.
The book struck many personal chords for me. When I was a young Aberdeen fan in the early 1960s, Gilzean was an obsessive nemesis for me. I hated him and respected him at the same time. He always seemed to score against Aberdeen, and what made it worse for me and my mates was that many of his goals were minor masterpieces.
The only time in that grim period that I saw Aberdeen really excel, in the New Year’s Day game at Dens Park in 1964, when a Charlie Cooke-inspired Dons ran riot against Dundee and beat them by four goals to one, Gilzean for once looked forlorn. But even then he managed his usual goal against us.
Morgan is so concerned about his hero’s lost reputation that I confess to looking up the index of a little book on Scottish football I wrote a few years ago. I could not remember if Gilzean featured at all.
Fortunately, there were two mentions of him. I now realise that there should have been many, many more.
Harry Reid Share
0 comments 4 Oct 2010
The legacy of the one-time Dundee and Tottenham Hotspur star is worth remembering.
Towards the end of this fine book there is a description of one of Alan Gilzean’s party pieces, which he would perform after a few drinks. He’d catch a florin coin on his forehead, roll it down his face, let it fall and trap it on his foot. Then he would flick it back up into his top pocket.
That points to Gilzean’s perfect balance, his sheer poise. For those who don’t know (and too many don’t, that is partly the point of Morgan’s book) Gilzean was an exceptionally talented Scottish footballer who in his early career dazzled as a prolific goalscorer for Dundee FC. He had been brought up in the nearby country town of Coupar Angus.
Then he was sold to Tottenham Hotspur and, from the mid 1960s to the early 1970s, he made himself a legend in North London and beyond. He scored many goals but it was his consistently classy, creative play that made him so special. There have been few more graceful and delicate headers of a football. He did not only score goals with headers; he was also able to pass the ball with his head.
Gilzean’s bad luck was that he played in an era when very skilful Scottish players were ubiquitous. In the early 1960s he won the Scottish League with Dundee, and in the next season helped them to the semi-final of the European Cup. With Spurs he won four trophies and earned a special place in the club’s folk memories, playing alongside Jimmy Greaves in an outstanding team. He was capped sporadically for Scotland; nowadays he’d probably get 100 caps and more. In persona, he was modest and elusive.
Morgan too is modest. He is something of a philosopher. At one point he notes that in satisfying our hunger for truth, we stifle our imagination. But his book is a quest, a search for truth that never offends the imagination but stimulates it.
Having, for family reasons that he never fully explains, been a long-distance Spurs fan, he was both distressed and intrigued to hear rumours that his hero Gilzean was down on his luck in Weston-super-Mare, of all unlikely places. He determined to find Gilzean, and at the same time try to revive his reputation and restore him to a fitting place in Scotland’s football pantheon.
Gilzean was evasive, but Morgan was assiduous as he tracked down his old team-mates in the Dundee title-winning team, spoke to people who’d known him as a boy, and talked with journalists and some of Gilzean’s Spurs contemporaries. He went on many journeys, and if this book has a fault, it is that he goes into too much detail about the tedious annoyances and irritating encounters on some of these trips. But the tension and the intrigue build steadily. The dénouement, when it comes, is almost inevitably something of an anti-climax, although a pleasant one.
Anyway, Morgan writes with such unaffected honesty that the lack of a dramatic ending doesn’t really matter. So many football books are laddish, flashy and in your face; this one is gracious and subtle, and in many ways its modest tone reflects its subject. Gilzean was a sublime player, but a quiet man.
The book struck many personal chords for me. When I was a young Aberdeen fan in the early 1960s, Gilzean was an obsessive nemesis for me. I hated him and respected him at the same time. He always seemed to score against Aberdeen, and what made it worse for me and my mates was that many of his goals were minor masterpieces.
The only time in that grim period that I saw Aberdeen really excel, in the New Year’s Day game at Dens Park in 1964, when a Charlie Cooke-inspired Dons ran riot against Dundee and beat them by four goals to one, Gilzean for once looked forlorn. But even then he managed his usual goal against us.
Morgan is so concerned about his hero’s lost reputation that I confess to looking up the index of a little book on Scottish football I wrote a few years ago. I could not remember if Gilzean featured at all.
Fortunately, there were two mentions of him. I now realise that there should have been many, many more.
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