Welcome to a new episode of the My Sporting Hero podcast, part of Nutmeg FC. The home of brilliant football stories — made in Scotland.
In June, Nutmeg FC subscribers will enjoy a feast of exclusive content, including:
Daniel Gray’s Slow Match Report from the Shelbourne v Shamrock Rovers League of Ireland clash.
Our tactics guy Adam Clery breaking down Scotland’s double header with Iceland and Lichtenstein.
The latest three-part investigation from Stephen McGowan.
Another Sporting Intelligence data dive.
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This time on My Sporting Hero, our guest is Gordon Strachan.
Edinburgh-born Gordon was the midfield dynamo in Sir Alex Ferguson’s mighty Aberdeen side of the early 1980s, winning two league titles, three Scottish Cups and, of course, the 1983 European Cup Winners’ Cup. He won the FA Cup with Manchester United before being reunited at Old Trafford with Ferguson, then captained Howard Wilkinson’s Leeds United to the 1992 league title. Gordon won a half century of Scotland caps, and graced the dark blue at the 1982 and 1986 World Cups.
As well as managing Scotland — for five years — and three English clubs, Gordon led Celtic to six domestic trophies and deep into European competition. He has been a media analyst and has worked tirelessly for the good of the game of football, notably assisting hometown outfit Spartans FC.
Gordon is currently technical director at the club he started out at, Dundee.
Gordon’s sporting hero is the great Pat Stanton, Hibernian’s humble hero and the original midfield Mr Cool, Calm and Collected.
I remember Pat mostly from Hibs European games. He would be up against top players, but he never looked out of place — in fact he was probably the star man. Children would get a lift over the turnstiles in those days — it meant you could keep your thruppence for a bag of chips, and I could attend in midweek whereas at the weekends I’d often be playing. It was great — I used to love those nights, and I especially remember a game against Leeds United. I also remember big games against Celtic.
My dad was a passionate Hibernian supporter. I was actually named “Gordon” after Gordon Smith, one of Hibs’ Famous Five forward line. Smith won the title with Hibs, Hearts and Dundee, which is beyond belief. My dad would have called me “Gordon Smith Strachan”, but my mother wasn’t having it! I was therefore named Gordon David Strachan, because my mum’s brother was called David.
Pat Stanton could do anything. He could turn into a sweeper, then go into midfield, defend, then take off and smash balls in from all angles. There was a kind of slowness to his long passing, as though it was in slow-motion. In Scotland we are frantic about everything: we talk quickly, we run quickly, we eat quickly, we do everything quickly. But when I saw this fellow playing when I was a kid, there was something completely different about him. No matter what the game was like, there was a calmness about the pitch when he got the ball, a calmness he gave to his team, a calmness that descended on the whole of Easter Road. It was like, “Pat’s got it —now we can take a breather.”
When I was a kid, I think all my mates wanted to be a bit like Pat, myself in particular, because I knew what a real football player was, even at that age. We all tried to emulate him, and when I played schoolboy football or whatever, you would pretend to be whoever you wanted: Jimmy Johnstone or Colin Stein or Peter Marinello, but you just couldn’t impersonate Pat Stanton. I was absolutely nothing like him. I would run about like a maniac, bumping into people and dribbling. I didn’t have the skill or strength to slow a game the way he did. But he was my hero — and still is. Heroes remain your heroes unless you meet them and they disappoint you, but when I met Pat, he was even better than I’d imagined. I’m usually quite happy in my own skin, but he’s one of those guys who makes you think: “I’d like to be like him.”
I know that he played with great players such as Alex Cropley, Peter Marinello, Jimmy O’Rourke and Peter Cormack, but they wouldn’t have been as good without Pat because he was elegant, and he was as tough as nails as well. In those days you had to be tough. It’s funny, when I speak with older players, especially from that era, they talk about tackling and smacking into people and sorting folk out, but he’s never once mentioned anything about tackling to me. That’s because he’s still got that humility that he had when he was a player, and it’s a wonderful attribute and something else that makes me admire him as a person. If you called him a winner, he wouldn’t like that. He would call himself a competitor — which means he gave everything he had, and it would embarrass him if you called him a winner.
I was a reasonably shy kid and I remember I would go to Easter Road early to try and be a ballboy — sometimes it happened, usually it didn’t. Anyway, one time I was waiting outside for the team after a match, and Pat was the one who saw me and came over and gave me his autograph. It’s amazing that you can give somebody that moment of your time that lasts for a lifetime. There’s an old Shoot magazine that I have, with a photograph of Pat Stanton playing on the front page — and I’m in the background! My wee face is sticking over a wall, and you can see me looking at Pat. I must have been about 14 at the time.
He was different from us — he had a tan for starters! And his hair was always immaculate, no matter what was going on. And he never got flustered. When I worked under him at Aberdeen (Pat was initially Sir Alex Ferguson’s assistant), I was going through a really tough time and I just felt he was somebody who I could talk to, and he didn’t make a big thing of me playing badly. So from that point in time when Pat and Sir Alex moved in, my career changed completely. I didn’t dislike (previous manager) Billy McNeill — far from it, but I just felt I was letting him down. Then Pat and Alex come along and everything changed for me. When Alex went off on a rant, Pat would quietly wander round to you and explain things more gently — when Archie Knox came in as assistant, he had a totally different approach and would finish off any shred of self-respect you had left!
When my son Gavin was born, it was just before Christmas, and my team-mates were all busy, so Pat and Alex took me out for a drink, to wet the baby’s head. Also, I was the only player from Edinburgh at Aberdeen — most of the other boys were from Glasgow — so it was great for me to have Pat to connect with, and we’d talk about Hibs and things.
I’ve met Pat at loads of events. At one point, I was doing ‘An Audience with Gordon Strachan’ in theatres, and I met up with Pat before a show for a cup of tea. Pat then sat in the audience to watch the show. I told the audience: “By the way, my hero is here” and Pat stood up and the place just erupted. He sat with me on the stage and we just chatted. It was great and we had a good night. It’s just the way he speaks; it’s like a Dean Martin sort of delivery. Funny enough, Dean Martin is one of my heroes as well. I just think he’s fantastic. I try to sing like him, but I can sing like Dean as convincingly as I can impersonate Pat as a footballer!
When you meet older players, they are always negative about the modern game and current footballers, but Pat only ever has good things to say. If he does feel that a guy’s not a good player or whatever he never mentions it. He’s always got good things to say about the Hibs players. For somebody like Pat Stanton, who had been at the one club for so long to get a big move (to Celtic in 1976) — it was wonderful. I can’t remember any Hibs person saying: “That’s terrible”; everyone just said, “Well done.” Nowadays, it would be a case of, “Let’s kill him on social media”, “He’s a traitor” and all that kind of nonsense. Do me a favour!
Pat and my father got on very well, they got to know each other. I think that was my dad’s highlight of having me as his son — getting to know Pat Stanton! The fact that he got to link up with Pat was just terrific for him, because he was a huge Hibs fan. My dad took me to my first Hibs game — it was against Aberdeen. And I took him to his last game, which was four weeks before he died, against Hearts. So we did the whole thing together, and we even attended Gordon Smith’s funeral together in North Berwick. The paparazzi guys took a photograph of me and my dad together at that last game and my mum’s still got it up in the house. So yeah, the Hibs thing — it’s special.
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