Davy Moyes and me (part 2)

My school bag wasn’t big enough. The contours of Adidas Samba were visible through the extra white plastic bag I carried and kept them dry, but my training sannies were well worn, banana curled at the toe and did stink a bit, but only if you put your nose near them. The perspex bus shelter outside the school kept the rain at bay, but not the wind and I clomped up and down to keep warm and to give myself something to do and kill time. My eyes strayed across the road to Our Holy Redeemer’s Church and the wee shop. My mind was opaque thinking about God, the best kind of two-penny ice-poles—with a preference towards raspberry flavour— ditching training and just going home. My Da, who walked everywhere, told me the Auchenshuggle would take me straight there. He’d have probably have just walked the seven or eight miles to Barrowfield. That would have been his training. I’d an extra 60p to get me up and back, which I kept jingle-jangling in my bomber jacket pocket, worried that I didn’t have enough money, or that the 64, when it did come, would suddenly veer off in a different direction, leaving me stranded. Da was a bit like an airline pilot when giving directions, a bus going straight there to him meant being within three or four miles of the place. It was the East End of Glasgow and I knew from going to the Celtic games that a stranger’s face meant trouble. I was relieved and disappointed when the 64 bus crept past Simeon’s chip shop, where we sometimes got our lunchtime rolls, picked up speed passing my school St Andrew’s and the double-decker drew up alongside the bus stop and jerked to a juddering stop. The driver turned his head to look at me to see if I was getting on.

Most of the downstairs seats were taken. I went upstairs to the smoker’s and sat in the seat directly above the driver with a panoramic view. An old woman, about thirty-five, with a long black coat wrapped tight around her thin shoulders sat smoking on the double seat opposite mine. She glanced up at me then looked out the side window. Three or four shopping bags sat like cats so taking up the seat beside her. Usually, I played cat and mouse with the conductor to avoid paying, but I desperately wanted to ask her if I was on the right bus and going in the right direction. The conductress came up the stairs behind me. Her ginger hair was a fright, sticking out of her head sideways like a cantilever bridge frozen in place by hairspray, but she smiled as she took the fare and handed me my ticket. With the stop-start roll of the bus in the traffic at Yoker, she briefly put her hand on my shoulder and reassured me she’d tell me when we got to Barrowfield and where to get off. It was a straight road from then on, but I clutched the metal grip bar on the bus that ran across the front window waiting for sudden swerves and turns. Daylight gradually faded when the bus got into the city centre. As the buildings became more spaced out and derelict my neck kept twisting backwards and I eventually plucked up the courage to ask the conductress if we were there yet. Her answer was as unwavering as her hair-- four more stops and that was us at London Road.

A man in dark oil-stained overalls that stunk of fag smoke got off the same stop and I asked him where Barrowfield was. He looked me over for a few seconds. I clutched at my plastic bag and stuck my pigeon-chest out an extra inch. ‘It’s over there,’ his limp wristed wave could have meant anywhere between heaven and the place across the road. Da was right, even I couldn’t really miss it and there were lots of boys my age hanging about. I spotted Benny Hagen’s curly head and that was me sorted.

Celtic Boys' Clubs under-fifteen’s trained with the under-sixteen’s, but on a different gravel park. The changing rooms were a concrete shell with benches and showers. Benny nodded me towards the under-fifteen's manager, a wee guy called Bobby Brown. The other boys all knew each other and joked around as they got changed. Mr Brown took me aside and I showed him the letter and I showed him the card and he went away and had a confab with a taller man, broad as a tracksuit wearing robot, with a squarish head, covered by thick dark hair. Frank Cairney was the under-sixteen’s manager. He gripped my hand tight in a handshake and when he let go, he punched me in the stomach. I bent over slightly winded but straightened up quickly, wondering if it was some kind of test. ‘Get changed and let’s have a look at you,’ Frank said.

Training outside was just the usual stuff of running fast and slow in circles round the football pitch, but because it was Celtic Boys' Club it was dressed up with dancing quick-step between cones and ball work. The coaches laid the ball off right of left and in two groups we shot into one of the two goals with the goalie trying to save it. I learned I wasn’t near as quick or as fit as some of the other boys, and that on the other park Charlie Nicholas was top goal scorer on an S-form and expected to shine. His finishing was slightly better than mine.

On our pitch it was dark when the bounce game at the end of training began. Mr Brown hurriedly picked teams and as we played I noticed a certain amount of deference was given by him to the under-fifteen’s captain. Davy (Shirley Temple) Moyes hair fell in natural red ringlet and he’d saucer eyes and played centre-half for the club. That was the position I told Mr Brown I played. Davy and I started as a loose partnership in defence, perhaps too loose. The coach quickly moved me into midfield. I was all humility. I listened to everything the coach shouted at me. I wanted to learn. I would learn, but by the time I was moved right wing there was nothing I could be taught. Benny Hagen and Bonnie were in the other team. Norrie McGlinchy was in my team. My team trooped off defeated and into the changing rooms, where the under-sixteen’s team were already getting showered.

As I passed Frank Cairney he jabbed at my stomach again and again I was slightly winded, but I still wasn’t sure if that was some kind of test and sneaked away to get showered. Before we left Mr Brown sit us in a loose circle whilst he told us where to meet on Saturday and who we were playing. He reminded us it was a Scottish cup tie and we were the holders and had won it the last four out of five years. His parting shot was about wearing the club blazer, shirts and ties. Many of the boys I could see already had official Celtic Boy’s Club holdall bags. I followed the Whitecrook boys with my Adidas bag and plastic bag to the bus stop and we all got the same bus home.

On Saturday I was nervous all morning and hated wearing a shirt and tie. It took me over an hour to get there by bus. I’d turned up early at the ground, but a few of the boys I’d met were kicking a ball around which made me feel better. The Whitecrook contingent came last of all. Mr McGlinchy, Norrie’s dad, gave them a lift in his Ford Escort. My football boots were in my bag. I’d a towel but didn’t bother with shin pads. We all took a seat on the wooden benches. The dressing room hush, familiar as the caustic smell of dubbing and Ralgex took hold, as Bobby Brown came in with the team sheets. He looked down at it and as he started reading some of the guys started changed even before their name were read out. When he got to number four I held my breath, but it was Bonnie playing sweeper behind Shirley, number five. I hoped beyond all expectation that I’d be playing in midfield, but when he got to eight, nine, ten, I knew that I’d be at best a sub. Mr Brown got to number twelve and thirteen. Boys were getting changed all around me. Benny and Norrie also had started the game in the team. I shuffled sideways. Bobby Brown the manager sat at the end of one of the benches leaning in, talking quietly to one of the other coaches. I nodded as I passed him and his eyebrows lifted like a cheap rug as he looked up at me and I knew, I just knew—sometime a manager finds it difficult to leave you out of his team and sometimes he doesn’t know who you are.

Postscript: I peaked too early in my football career at age nine and retired at under-sixteen level.

‘Bonnie’ McKeaver played professional football for Motherwell, then for a team in Germany, before returning to Clydebank.

Norrie McGlinchy played semi-pro in Australia before returning to Clydebank. His son plays professionally and for the Australian team (also at an earlier age, signed for Celtic and was touted as the next big thing).

Benny Hagen was murdered, chopped up by knifes and axes outside his front door.

Davy Moyes, played professionally for Celtic and won the championship with them. Took over from Walter Smith as manager of Everton. Currently, manager of a multimillion pound team that is loaded with hundreds of millions of debt and pays little or no tax to the Exchequer.

Charlie Nicholas Celtic legend, Arsenal, Aberdeen, Celtic and Clyde.

Frank Cairney, paedophile. Celtic Boy’s club scandal.