Freddie Glidden, captained Hearts to cup success in 1956

Published on Sunday 13 May 2012 01:30

iT WAS a time when footballers were paid more in memories then cash and, in such currency, Freddie Glidden is very rich. The man who captained Hearts to their first Scottish Cup triumph in half a century did so as a part-time player, his average wage from the club just £8 a week. And when he lifted the famous trophy in front of more than 132,000 people at Hampden in April 1956, he knew he would have to curtail his celebrations as he had to be back to work as a water engineer bright and early on the Monday morning.

But, while he may not have earned the monetary rewards available in the modern game, the 84-year-old has a scrapbook which belies any notion that there wasn’t some form of payback. The album is a good four inches thick and packed full of newspaper cuttings and photographs, all the mementoes from a season which gave him his “sweetest” moment in the game. There is even a good luck telegram from a Hibs supporter! “I don’t expect that would happen now,” he says. Like all fans of the capital teams, this season’s final is rarely far from the forefront of his mind.

Alongside the medals from that Scottish Cup final are the medals and plaques from the triumphant league and League Cup campaigns at the Tynecastle club, he has also hung on to the shirt he wore at Hampden. His wife, Rosa, says she has been too scared to wash it in case it disintegrated in the machine, but he insists she must have because “I’ve never come off a football pitch with my strip that clean!”.

Glidden’s job was a dirty one. But, as he saw it, somebody had to do it. In a team with the likes of Willie Bauld, Alfie Conn and Jimmy Wardhaugh dazzling and grabbing the goals and the headlines, others had to provide the backbone. That was Glidden’s job. “We just went out to stop the other team, win the headers and the tackles and then get the ball to them. They did the rest. They could score goals anywhere. I was actually very fortunate to play with the players in that team. I was the captain but we were really a team.”

When people talk about Hibs’ Scottish Cup hoodoo now, Glidden can relate to that. After all, he played against some of the Hibernian greats and remains amazed that the current team have the chance to do something which those gifted players of yesteryear could not. But he also got a taste of some of the pressure the Easter Road sides must labour under in that competition.

“The Hearts hadn’t won it in 50 years before we beat Celtic and to be part of that, part of the club’s history, was a great thing. That’s not as long as it has been for Hibs but there was still a lot of pressure. I think if any team goes to a cup final and doesn’t feel pressure, though, there’s something wrong. But back then people were very keyed up because a generation had grown up without seeing the club winning a trophy.

“But we were very confident, to be quite honest. We believed we could beat anybody. You looked around that dressing room and you knew that there were players who could beat anybody else in the country. Celtic were favourites but nobody worried us in those days. It might sound daft or big-headed but I don’t think we ever doubted ourselves. We had won the League Cup the year before and, for quite a spell of time, we had gone without being defeated and the boys in the team were quite confident we could win another cup.”

The secret to that Hearts side, he says, was the fact it was rarely switched about, they all knew each other’s game inside out and most of all everyone had a role and fitted together to make a formidable team. “It was just sheer luck you were included in that, really. We all had different skills. Alex Young and Willie Bauld were great with a ball at their feet. At my end we were just doing our damnedest to stop the other team scoring. There was no such thing as a prima donna at that time. We had all come from different backgrounds.”

While many were full-time, Glidden worked for the water board, often doing the Friday nightshift to free him up for the Saturday afternoon. At other times, like the majority of working men at that time, he would finish work at noon on a Saturday and then have to get a bus or train straight to the game. While others made their way to the terracings, he headed into the dressing room to get stripped, his week’s work far from over.

“To me, playing football wasn’t work. I did it because I loved it and I was fortunate that I was good enough to play for a team like the Hearts. I trained every Tuesday and Thursday night and then met up with the boys again for the games on the Saturday. I can’t remember if I worked the night before the Scottish Cup final but I may well have done but I would have got the bus through with the Hearts from Tynecastle that day.”

In an era where no subs could come on to help out when the legs began to tire, it was the crowd that played a major part, he says. “We were quite well aware of the noise from the crowd and it was part of the game. We loved the atmosphere. You can’t know what it is like until you are in that situation. For the weeks leading up to a cup final you are slowly getting keyed up and then you run out and see and hear the supporters and it gives you even more of a lift. At Hampden the terracing stretched all the way past where you could see and it was just a sea of faces and you just heard the constant buzz.”

That day 132,840 crammed into the national stadium as Hearts took the lead and never squandered it. “I remember it was a big crowd that day and I think that helps, even if you were a wee bitty tired, the crowd helped keep you going.

“At the time when the final whistle went we all just seemed to relax. I think we all just thought ‘thank goodness’ but after that you see the supporters and it lets you see how much it means to the Edinburgh folk.

“It was lovely going up to get the cup and lifting it up but it could have been any of our boys, I was just the one who was at the front. To be honest, I think I was only made captain because I was the centre-half! We had great players in our team at that time. It was an amazing feeling but at the time you are so hyped up for that one game and having won it you don’t really think of it as history, it’s only when you look back on it.”

The rewards were rich. In their wage packet the following week, there was more than the usual £2 win bonus. “We got 66 pound, three and fourpence. That’s what I got for winning the cup.” That and the groundswell of love and hero worship which welcomed the team back in Edinburgh. Having switched from the regular team transport to an open-top bus at the Maybury, they crawled back to Gorgie. The photos in the album capture the magnitude of the gathering, and render the crowds which took over Edinburgh in 1998 and 2006, almost paltry.

“In those days, Hibs supporters would have been out as well. Edinburgh folk just wanted to see one of the teams winning. I can’t see that happening next weekend.”

There was always tension in the capital head-to-heads. “You played as hard as you could for your own team, not dirty, just committed. In those days I was usually up against Lawrie Reilly and boys like that. I sometimes see some of them at functions and we are still friendly. But we never played in a cup final. That will be tense.

“Would I like to play in a game like that? I don’t know. But I would like to see it.”

Glidden and most of the capital, as well as interested neutrals. Hampden can’t hold 132,000 these days but, if it could, there’s every chance this final could still have been a sell-out.

Taken from the Scotsman