Down White Hearts Lane: Old memories stir for Joe Jordan on Gorgie return

Published Date: 17 August 2011
By Alan Pattullo
But the former Hearts manager insists his past has no relevance to Europa League tie
JAMES Lawton, his excellent and erudite ghostwriter, once wrote that Joe Jordan "didn't quite know the most appropriate place to bury his football heart". However, it is fair to say the legendary former Scotland striker knew of somewhere where he was sure he did not wish to leave the best of himself, nor felt that he had.

This somewhere is Tynecastle Park, the stadium where he returns tomorrow night as first-team coach of Tottenham Hotspur. It's 18 years since he left Hearts as an unsatisfied and also slightly wounded figure following a near-three year spell in charge. This tenure ended days after a 6-0 defeat to Falkirk at a cemetery of hope known as Brockville.

It was a chastening experience for someone who once flourished in the splendour of the San Siro, helping lead AC Milan back to Serie A, who had, on often memorable occasion, returned to feel the adoration of his own people at Hampden Park, where once, as a boy, he had willed on Celtic in another battle of Britain, against Leeds United in a European Cup semi-final in 1970. Weeks later the boy became a man. "There was 130,000 there that night," he recalled yesterday. "I joined Leeds a couple of months later, funnily enough. I was there supporting Celtic that night and a couple of months afterwards I was supporting Leeds United."

Elland Road, when he spearheaded a Leeds United attack at the height of the club's powers, is another ground where he might agree is a sacred place as far as his own career is concerned. And then there's Old Trafford, where defenders would visibly flinch on hearing that Joe Jordan would be occupying the Manchester United No 9 shirt that afternoon.

The denizens of Tynecastle Park will welcome Jordan tomorrow night, of course. But will they salute the man who, in December, turns 60? And will Jordan feel the tug of affection that he would at dear old Cappielow, the ground where he began his storied career in the blue and white of Greenock Morton. He is looking forward to experiencing Tynecastle, re-built on three sides since he roared encouragement to the likes of Ian Baird and Ally Mauchlen from the touchline. Yet it is possible to detect some coolness. It was mentioned to him that a packed Tynecastle is now probably regarded as being the most thrilling arena to watch football in Scotland, something that Spurs players might be advised to take on board.

"It's a big ask to say that, because European nights at Ibrox and Parkhead take a bit of beating as well," Jordan countered. But he recalled one evening when Tynecastle shook as European opponents were sent packing, eventually. "I remember Glynn Snodin scoring a scorcher in more or less the last minute against Slavia Prague, that sticks in my memory," he replied, when asked for a specific memory.

"White Hart Lane is not as big as Old Trafford, Tynecastle is not as big as Celtic Park," he added. "But in their own way they can provide a very intense evening."

Jordan, the hero of a thousand headers, returned to earth in many ways at Tynecastle, although, as ever, it is not as simple as that. He also split the Old Firm in his first season, something which would see him carried shoulder-high down Gorgie Road road today. Hearts also, in the same season, only missed out on a Scottish Cup final by dint of a devastating penalty shoot-out defeat against Airdrie.

When four reporters from Scotland have journeyed down to London, at the kind invitation of Spurs, to elicit Jordan's thoughts on tomorrow night's clash, what they don't want to hear is the man himself dismiss his own part in the narrative. "It really doesn't come into it," he said, prompting a combined drooping of spirits.

But Jordan doesn't always have the bite the nickname 'Jaws' suggests that he should, or at least he didn't yesterday (Gennaro Gattuso might, however, have a different take on the subject of the Scot's bonhomie). Jordan did warm up on the subject of Hearts.

"I went up there with a young family and it was a big step for me," he recalled, of the move north from Bristol City. In his autobiography, Behind the Dream, he revealed that he had been on Doug Ellis' radar at Aston Villa, but he opted to sign on with Hearts' equally colourful chairman Wallace Mercer instead. Asked about the late Mercer yesterday, the drawbridge came back down. "He was my chairman but I don't think it has relevance to anything going on between now and the second leg," replied Jordan. "He's a chairman I worked with and you learn from people you work with. I certainly learnt from him as I have from other people in my career. What is in front of us has no bearing on my period at Hearts. It's a long, long time ago."

Yet he acknowledged the part Hearts played in his graduation from player to manager, since it was only at Tynecastle that he began to focus solely on management. He was in his late thirties, and thoughts of extending his on-field career further had to be abandoned. "It doesn't matter where you've been, you have to have eyes and ears open to take it all in and learn," he said. "I did. I was very fortunate I had good people around me, like Frank Connor. He knew about the levels of football (about] which I wasn't as knowledgeable as I would have liked.

"I had a chief scout in John Calderwood who as well as bringing in players necessary for first-team level, also had a major part in getting the young boys into Hearts, which was a necessity. For that period we competed very well against Celtic and Rangers to get the boys in.

"Gary Locke is still there, and there was also Kevin Thomas. It was a good batch. I was delighted that they eventually had a career for themselves and part of their career was with Hearts."

It is worth remembering that Hearts won the Youth Cup under Jordan, as well as the reserve league title. Scotland is not producing players like in his day, and possibly not even on the scale apparent in the early Nineties.

Upon taking his seat at Fir Park for the league match between Motherwell and Hearts earlier this month he felt the sadness we all do when observing a ground that is less than half-full, for one of Scotland's more attractive fixtures.

"I was a wee bit surprised," he admitted, when faced with the banks of empty seats. It was a far cry from a 130,000 at Hampden, put it that way.

"I don't really know what the answer is," he added. "The game is all about football players. The supporters want to come and be entertained. So you have to do that. They are the most important thing.

"You have to give them the football players they admire and see. I went up the stairs at Motherwell and saw pictures of Ian St John. And, in my era, (there was] Davie Cooper and players like that. You are looking to have players like that to draw in the crowds.

"But it ain't easy."

Jordan freely credits the part Hearts played in his own development as a serious football operator, but the stay in Edinburgh ensured that an even more profound process occurred. The man who it is felt fiercely embodies Scottish heart and spirit had feared that his family was becoming too rooted to the land where he now, once again, makes a living.

"I set up my home there," he said of Edinburgh. "When I actually got the bullet from Hearts I actually stayed there and continued to live there, and eventually came back down south. I was in no hurry to leave Edinburgh.

"The education of my kids continued there. It was difficult for us because of the ages they were at.

"One of them finished their education there and another went to university in Stirling. Edinburgh was more than three years for them. It was where they became Scottish, to be perfectly honest."

Taken from the Scotsman