Team-mates and fans say goodbye to a Hibs legend

Published on Friday 13 August 2004 13:59

FOOTBALL legends and ordinary fans today joined hundreds of mourners to say farewell to the "Prince of wingers" Gordon Smith.

They were joined by many ordinary football fans at a packed St Andrew Blackadder Church, in North Berwick, for the funeral of the former Hibs and Hearts star.

Smith, widely acclaimed as one of the outstanding footballers of his generation, died last Friday aged 80.

Former team-mates in Hibs’ celebrated Famous Five forward line, Lawrie Reilly and Eddie Turnbull, were among hundreds who today gathered to celebrate the life of the "quiet man" who thrilled generations of fans.

Proclaimers’ singer Charlie Reid, a lifelong Hibs fan, also joined football stars of today and yesterday, including Gordon Strachan, Tam Preston, Pat Stanton, Jimmy O’Rourke.

Willie McFarlane, the former player and manager of the Easter Road club, was also in attendance, along with former Hearts players Jimmy Murray and goalkeeper Gordon Marshall Snr, representing the Tynecastle club.

North Berwick High Street was brought to a standstill by scores of fans who lined the streets to pay their respects to the football legend before the funeral got underway.

Mourners heard Smith described as "the Prince of wingers" and a supremely talented sportsman and entertainer.

The church also rang to the sounds of a popular terraces chant of the 1940s and 1950s, when Evening News columnist John Gibson gave a eulogy for Smith. "A Gordon For Me, A Gordon For Me, If You’re No A Gordon, Yer Nae Good Tae Me, The Jambos Are Braw, Dundee and Aw, But The Brilliant Gay Gordon’s The Pride O’ Them Aw," he sang.

Author and broadcaster Bob Crampsey also paid tribute in front of the hushed mourners.

Mr Gibson told those inside the packed church that Smith had been one of the greatest.

"Gordon was never just the supreme footballer, a legend in my own lifetime, he was above all, the great entertainer. You’d find him waiting on the wings, primed to take centre stage," he said.

"They’ve said down the years that there’s nobody in today’s game who could lace his boots. True. Anybody alive who can claim even just to have polished his boots is a rich man indeed.

"And to think Willie McCartney clinched him for Hibs for a tenner - the bargain of the century surely."

Mr Gibson, a devoted Hibee and long-time friend of Smith, added: "I was privileged to watch Gordon in action home and away at the Famous Five’s peak, possibly not fully appreciating that I was witnessing a maestro, poetry in motion, as they kept saying. I was, after all, a boys’ gate spectator, cashing in on the best Saturday sevenpenceworth in the land.

"The Gay Gordon was well accustomed to playing to crowds of thirty, forty, fifty thousand and it was entirely predictable that he would pull a capacity crowd here today."

He added: "The Prince of Wingers famously was a man of few words. His feet did the talking."

Former Hibs chairman Tom O’Malley said the attendance of many of the games’ greats at the funeral was a fitting tribute to the "Gay Gordon".

Mr O’Malley said: "He was very reserved.He was a class act in every way, as a player and a human being."

Smith is regarded by many of the older generation of Hibs supporters as the best to have graced the green and white of Hibs. He played right-wing for Hibs between 1941 and 1959, and was the team’s top scorer in every season but one during his first decade at the club, helping secure the Scottish championship on three occasions.

In 1959 Hibs let the winger go on a free transfer to Hearts where he helped the team to win the Scottish League in 1959-60.

In 1961, he moved to Dundee, who also carried off the title in his first year with them.

Smith made his debut for Scotland in October 1944, winning 18 full international caps during his 23-year career on the pitch.

Born in Edinburgh and brought up in Montrose, Smith was signed by Hibs manager Willie McCartney in 1941. He worked in the Leith shipyards during the war.

Smith was due to be laid to rest alongside his beloved wife Joan, described as both his "wife and best pal", after today’s funeral service.

Taken from the Scotsman