Hail Gordon, full of grace

Published on Sunday 8 August 2004 02:45

THERE can have been few players in Scottish football who have been genuinely loved in the way that Gordon Smith was loved. His career was not particularly strewn with medals and yet he had perhaps the greatest distinction that any player could achieve. He held the highest award, the league championship medal, and moreover he held it with three different clubs: Hibernian, Heart of Midlothian and Dundee. Three medals, three different clubs and not a member of the Old Firm in sight.

Gordon Smith was an aristocrat to his fingertips, sometimes giving the impression of standing back a little. He had come from a Montrose junior club, Roselea; from a part of Scotland not especially noted for producing footballers and he was extremely lucky in his early mentors. Arthur Milne taught him the rudiments of inside-forward play and the young winger flourished under the tutelage of those fine wing-halfs Matt Busby and Bob Hardisty, the wonderful English amateur player.

With the return of the Services footballers in 1945 the Easter Road side took on the shape which would distinguish it over the next ten years. The forward line, which read Smith, Johnstone, Reilly, Turnbull and Ormond and which has gone down to history as The Famous Five, might with a trifle more justice have been called The Famous Six. Bobby Combe was the original inside-right and when Bobby Johnstone came Combe voluntarily dropped back to the right-half position.

Gordon Smith was the epitome of gracefulness, fleet of foot, masterly in ball control and with an eye for the chance which enabled him to score five goals from the wing against Third Lanark. Yet this paragon of the footballing virtues only attracted 18 caps. This comparatively modest total had much to do with the fierce competition at this time for the outside-right berth in the Scotland side. This took the shapes of Willie Waddell of Rangers and Jimmy Delaney of Celtic and later of Manchester United.

Waddell shrewdly summed up the strengths of his rivals - he would remain on friendly terms with Smith after their playing days were over. "Of the three of us Gordon was by far the best footballer and Jimmy was probably the bravest. My own chief recommendation was that being naturally left-footed I could score goals with my inside foot when cutting in from the right.

Various ploys were tried to avail the selectors of the services of both men. Smith was tried at outside-left and on one occasion at inside-right but neither device worked particularly well. It would be stretching it to say there was an anti-eastern bias in the SFA but certainly the players from the capital clubs were seldom put forward with the fervour out west.

Despite this it was the heyday of club football and Hibs won the championship three times in five years although the Scottish Cup continued to elude them. Eventually Smith reached the total of 18 seasons with Hibs only to release the astonishing news that he was going on a journey but one which would merely take him across the city. He’d arrive at Tynecastle if not quite at the height of his powers then at least as someone perfectly capable of playing at the top level.

In those civilised days of the early 1960s such a transfer could take place without the likelihood of civil strife. Smith blossomed again with such good players as Willie Bauld and Alec Young. With Hearts he won a title and a League Cup. Surely by now it was time to call it a day. Not a bit of it.

I remember saying to Gordon when the news broke that he had signed for Dundee that I was a little surprised that he had not thought that travelling for training would have ruled Dundee out as it had with Kilmarnock. His response was considered, thoughtful. "Bob Shankly said I had always been a good trainer and if I came into Dens twice a week I could train at home the rest of the time.

"When I said that this seemed a sensible solution he shook his head. It was a flattering offer but it perhaps should not have been made. It’s the old business you see. In the team, but not of it."

Nevertheless as part of the Dundee title-winning side of 1961-62, some of the football he played was as good as anything in the course of his long career.

He always felt that some of his Dundee colleagues didn’t get enough praise for giving him the ball in the open space. He had Bobby Seith, Bobby Wishart and Andy Penman in mind.

In all, Smith scored more than 300 goals but those figures convey nothing of his elegance. He was incapable of an ungraceful movement and he lives in the hearts of all Hibs fans. He would have liked the function at Easter Road on Friday night held to assemble and finance a pictorial history of Hibernian.

He was not a clubable man particularly but in the football sense he was a club man. To get the news of his impending death from those other two legends, Turnbull and Reilly, imparted to the occasion a sense of sadness certainly but the consolation was that we were privileged to have been around when these Flowers of Edinburgh burst into bloom.

LIFE OF A LEGEND

1924: Born in Edinburgh.

1941: Hat-trick on Hibs debut against Hearts.

1944: Scotland debut in 6-2 defeat by England.

1947: Scores five goals in a game with Third Lanark.

1950: Hibs’ top scorer for seventh season out of eight.

1952: Hibs beat Man Utd 7-3 in Smith’s testimonial.

1955: Named new Scotland captain in mid-30s.

1959: Freed by Hibs but goes on to win league with Hearts and Dundee.

1964: Retires after 23-year career.

2004: Dies on August 7.

Taken from the Scotsman