There are books that come with a particular atmosphere. Celtic Confidential strolls in through a fog of cigarette smoke, carrying the slightly sour smell of recently consumed alcohol.
It tells the tales of transfers made, targets missed and stories lost and found. It is a love letter to newspapers past and pays proper tribute by telling great story after great story. It reeks of the reality of the sports desk when newspapers were the only show in town. And what a show.
Gazza and Peter Bearsdley to Parkhead? Robert Maxwell, the subsequently disgraced tycoon, bidding for Celtic? How the Henrik Larrson deal nearly failed. The true story behind Mo Johnston to Rangers, the night Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor showed their Celtic colours.
Oh, and the identification of the source of many a Celtic tip-off. He went by the name of George Taylor but may be better known as Jock Stein. These are the distilled drops of Celtic Confidential.
There is much, much more and it deserves to be written in banner headlines but is told in witty, self-deprecating style by Alex Gordon. He knows, in football terms, where the bodies are buried. After all, he was wielding the spade most of the time.
A Castlemilk lad, he joined newspapers at just 15. Now 73, he has never left them in terms of the fascination they continue to hold. He joined an advertising department in newspapers but salvation quicky came with a transfer to the editorial floor. He subsequently became chief sub-editor on the sports desk at the Daily Record, sports editor at the Sunday Mail and then the driving force behind a highly successful sports news agency.
Celtic manager Jock Stein and striker Kenny Dalglish revel in another victory
Hollywood royalty Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton partied the night away with Celtic fans
Walter Smith and Graeme Souness were a formidable partnership both on and off the park
His credentials are further enhanced by his books. This is his 16th on Celtic and he ghosted the biographies of legends such as Bertie Auld, John Hughes, Billy McNeill, Davie Hay and Tommy Gemmell.
‘Tommy was my first interview when I was just 17,’ he says. ‘I phoned him and asked for five minutes. He must have sensed I was very nervous by the way I was blubbering on. He said: “Take your time, son, I have more than five minutes”. It was the start of a conversation that went on for 50 years.’
His friendship with the major players in Scottish football extended to others such as Graeme Souness, who came into town with a mission to revitalise Rangers. ‘I met him with Walter Smith in a restaurant in Glasgow in my role as sports editor of the Sunday Mail. He had obviously been briefed on me and said: “So, you are the Celtic supporter”.
‘I replied: “I think you will find there is more than one”. He ended up giving me a series of exclusives. He would phone the sports desk on a Saturday night and ask what was on my back page. Without waiting for an answer, he would drop a bomb.’
This is an indicator of how powerful the written press was back in the days before the internet. Newspapers were the direct link to fans before dedicated satellite channels, club media, podcasts and social media. It is difficult for the modern generation to grasp that it wasn’t news until it was in a paper. This is especially true of sports stories, particularly transfer speculations, that were largely ignored by broadcasters.
‘I feel sorry for the kids in the business now,’ says Gordon. ‘It was a time of great excitement, intense rivalry with opposition papers and the adrenalin was running constantly.’
Sir Alex Ferguson and Stein were both contacts of Gordon, with Stein an invaluable ‘source’
One of his first duties as a lad was to field calls when the older heads were in deep group think tanks, otherwise known as a session in the Garrick just up the road from the Record. This is how he became acquainted with a legendary source.
‘A guy called, giving his name as George Taylor,’ explains Gordon. ‘He told me Celtic were going to play in a friendly, giving the opposition and date etc. He asked me to read it back to him. He was satisfied when I did and told me to put it into the paper.
‘I ran up to the Garrick and when I told the staff it was from George Taylor I was instructed to write it up for that night’s edition. I subsequently found out that George Taylor was Jock Stein.’
Stein was a pioneer of driving the media agenda in favour of Celtic. If he knew Rangers were about to announce a signing, he would formulate a plan to produce a story that vied for space with the news from Ibrox.
‘You have to remember what a world it was then,’ says Gordon. ‘For example, when Jock was Scotland manager he would phone asking how Souness had got on in that afternoon’s match for Sampdoria. We would pick up the copy from Reuters and Associated Press and tell him their verdict. It was not like now when the games are on satellite television or clips can be viewed on YouTube.’
The role of agents was much reduced in those days. Journalists regularly played the role of ‘fixer’ and the doyen was Jim Rodger. His contacts book was more valuable than the Dead Sea Scroll and substantially more interesting. He was close to Stein, Bill Shankly, Matt Busby, Alex Ferguson and all the other big beasts in the football jungle. Incidentally, his political contacts were impeccable too, with Harold Wilson, the Labour prime minister, taking his calls.
Graeme Souness with Gianluca Vialli at Sampdoria… but did Reuters give him a good write-up?
Gordon says: ‘Jolly, as he was predictably known, became a friend of mine. Somehow he took a shine to me as we travelled to the odd game together on the train. He told marvellous stories. But his status was assured by the information he received. He would the phone the sports desk and relay who was going where and for what price. We would write it up knowing it was bang on.’
Gordon spent much of his nightly life fielding those calls, making some of his own and producing back pages that were eagerly grasped as soon as they hit streets or newsagents. The story of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor carousing with Celtic fans in 1972 in Budapest after a European tie is a spectacular example.
A Celtic fan phoned the Record desk to inform them that the Hollywood royalty were drinking with supporters in a hotel and had put £5,000 behind the bar. A freelance photographer was traced and recorded the scenes to wonderful effect.
Gordon also recalls vividly the transfer of Kenny Dalglish to Liverpool. ‘I remember Chiefy (Daily Record legend Alex Cameron) telling me to hang on after my normal finishing time. He said: “Dalglish is leaving. Tell no one”.’ It was a seismic moment, signalling that Celtic could not retain their top talent. The Lisbon Lions, after all, had all played their best football for Celtic but their successors, such as Dalglish, Lou Macari and Davie Hay, all played in England at their peak.
Newspaper offices were a hive of activity in the golden days of the Seventies and Eighties
The frenzy of a concentrated transfer window is now the norm but in past days deals could be conducted at any time. The antenna were always tuned for any potential news.
‘I was lucky in that my pals looked out for me. I never paid a penny for a story but I used to take a contact to a fancy restaurant and it cost me a fortune because I couldn’t get it through expenses,’ he says.
‘I look back on it all with a great sense of joy. My mate who lived up the next close in Castlemilk became a mathematician. When we met up, I would ask him: “What are you up to?” He would reply that it was the same old, same old.
‘I might be heading in for the backshift and he would ask me what I would be doing that night. I had to tell him honestly: “I haven’t a clue”. You had plans, of course, but you never knew what was going to change.’
The sporting world could pivot on a phone call. Gordon heard most of it and saw it all. It’s in Celtic Confidential. Read all about it.
Celtic Confidential by Alex Gordon is published by CQN Books.
