IT IS a sad fact of life, every winter there is a cull of our elderly and sick. Certainly last year, and again this year, Covid has increased this toll, but, in the past week – although as far as I know the pandemic was not an issue in either case – Scottish football lost two of its most-distinguished senior citizens, with the death of Bertie Auld and Doug Cowie.
DOUG COWIE, at the time of his death, aged 95, was Scotland's oldest living football internationalist. He was also a Dundee legend; he spent 16 seasons at Dens Park, playing 446 first-team games and scoring 24 goals. Some rate him as the Dee's Gretest Player; that, of course, is an opinion that will be debated. Certainly, however, he's on the short leet with his team mates from different Dundee sides, Billy Steel and Alan Gilzean.
Doug was an Aberdonian. Dee manager George Anderson spotted him playing for junior side Aberdeen St Clement's, while working as an apprentice riveter in the John Lewis shipyard in the Granite City and took the 19 year old to Dens in 1945, beating Aberdeen to his signing.
Back then he was a centre-half, making his Dundee debut against Stirling Albion, in the club's first League Cup tie, in February, 1946. It actually took him a couple of seasons to become a first-team regular, but, his timing in this respect was good, as the Dundee side he broke into would become one of the best in the club's history.
Steel was, of course, a superstar. A Scotland regular, who would command many millions in today's transfer market. Cowie was part of a stellar half-back line with Tommy Gallagher and Alfie Boyd, while later-on the likes of Bill Brown would come in to strengthen the team.
He helped Dundee win the League Cup in 1951, beating Rangers in the final, before defending it successfully against Kilmarnock in 1952. There were near-misses too, such as in the 1948-49 season, when, had Dundee not “frozen” on the final day at Falkirk, and drawn rather than lost, they would have denied Rangers that first Scottish treble.
There was further disappointment in the 1952 Scottish Cup Final, when in the first half, Dundee did everything but score, before Motherwell roared back to beat them in the second.
By this time, Cowie had switched to playing left-half, but, it was at centre-half that he won his only Scotland B cap, in a 2-2 Easter Road draw with England, in March, 1953. The Scotland B team that day was a star-studded one: Ronnie Simpson; Jock Aird, John Hewie (in his first trip to Scotland), Tommy Docherty, Doug Cowie, Hug Kelly, Jackie Henderson, Willie Moir, Jimmy Bonthrone, Ian McMillan and Albert Morrison. Every player, except Bonthrone and West Brom's Morrison, would win a full cap for Scotland.
Less than a month later, Doug won the first of an eventual 20 Scotland caps, when he lined-up at left-half in the bi-annual visit to Wembley. The match finished 2-2, courtesy of “Last-Minute Lawrie Reilly's famous late goal.
The Scotland team of the time was chosen by the SFA's Selection Committee. This meant a lot of horse-trading and occasionally change for change's sake. But, Cowie's 20 caps came in 39 internationals, which given the competition at the time, speaks volumes for his consistency of play.
Twenty caps was a lot for those days. Of his contemporaries in the Scotland shirt only the true greats: Tommy Younger, George Young, Sammy Cox, Tommy Docherty, Bobby Evans, Lawrie Reilly, Steel, Billy Liddell and later Eric Caldow and Bobby Collins, earned more caps. Cowie is right up there with some legends.
He is also in a club of two, with Celtic's Willie Fernie, in that he played for Scotland in two World Cup final tournaments, in Switzerland in 1954 and Sweden four years later. His final Scotland cap came in the 2-3 loss to Paraguay in Sweden, after which, he was replaced by another legend – Dave Mackay.
With Dundee he played under three managers, Anderson, who signed him, ex-Ragners' centre forward Willie Thornton and the great Bob Shankly. He was club captain under all three.
Steel had a reputation for having little time for less-talented team mates and a sharp tongue. He did however admit: “Big Doug can play a bit.”
Football is a cyclical business and in 1961, Shankly, feeling the 34-year-old Cowie was too old, released him, then annoyed Doug by almost immediately signing the 37-year-old Gordon Smith, a move which paved the way for Dundee's League win at the end of the 1961-62 season.
He moved on to play out his career with Morton, before having a short spell as Raith Rovers manager, before completing his time in football with spells coaching back at Morton and, down the road at Tannadice, from where he finally got out of football to live quietly in his adopted Dundee, in a house a long free-kick away from Dens Park.
But, Dundee remembered Doug Cowie. The club named one of their first hospitality lounges after him, it is now the Players' Lounge; and when the club inaugurated its Hall of Fame, he was inducted, as a legend, in 2009.
His death, in Ninewells Hospital, was announced shortly before Dundee met Motherwell on Saturday at Dens, and fittingly, The Scotsman's Alan Pattullo – a life-long Dee fan, was in the press box to wrap his match report around memories of Doug Cowie.
DOUGLAS COWIE – 5 May, 1926 – 26 November, 2021
BERTIE AULD's release from final years blighted by Dementia was a blessing to his family and friends. It also meant a further clearing of the ranks of the surviving Lisbon Lions. Only Jim Craig, John Clark, Willie Wallace and Bobby Lennox of the XI in Lisbon in 1967 now survive.
Auld was the creative heart of that illustrious team. What a central midfield core: Bobby Murdoch and Bertie Auld. Bertie described himself in his autobiography, which benefitted from the ghost-writing flair of big Alex Gordon, as: “A Bhoy from Maryhill.” Maybe so, but, as a boy he admitted to being a Jags' fan, before finding his way to Celtic Park, via Maryhill Harp, in 1955. He was loaned-out to Dumbarton to gain some experience, before making his first-team debut for Celtic in a Glasgow Merchants' Charity Cup loss to Rangers, in May, 1957.
The following season, he was in the team at the start of the season, but, he missed the 7-1 “Hampden in the sun” League Cup Final win over Rangers that autumn – he was not happy about this.
In those days he was a winger, and often the target for Scottish football's “hammer throwers.” The likes of Jimmy Johnstone would get up after being fouled and set about his revenge by embarrassing his assailant, not Bertie, if kicked, he kicked back, thus becoming familiar with the disciplinary committee room at the SFA's Park Gardens HQ.
But, there was no doubt, the bhoy could play and when Scotland embarked on an end-of-season mini-tour of Europe in May, 1959, Bertie was capped against The Netherlands, in Amsterdam, in a game which Scotland won 2-1. A second cap followed, against Portugal, in Lisbon, five days later. A third cap followed, against Wales, that November, but, as far as Scotland recognition was concerned, that was that for Bertie.
In 1961, unhappy by Celtic's failure to win things, and with Sir Robert Kelly increasingly upset by Bertie's disciplinary issues, when Birmingham City happened along and offered £15,000 for his services, Bertie was allowed to decamp to the Second City.
This was a mini-Golden Age for the Blues, who won the League Cup, qualified for the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, where, for the second successive they reached the final, but lost to Roma in a bad-tempered, two-legged final.
Disciplinary problems continued to haunt Bertie in Birmingham. He was sent off against Fulham for thumping England captain Johnny Haynes, then decking another Fulham player who ran to confront him. But, he was evolving from an out-and-out winger to a midfield playmaker and when, in January, 1965, Sean Fallon persuaded Kelly to give Bertie a second chance, he returned to Celtic Park, just in time to be back in the team when Jock Stein arrived.
He had matured, but, one suspects he knew what Stein might do if he stepped out of line too-often. The Scottish Cup win over Dunfermline in 1965 got the Stein era properly under way. Billy McNeill's headed winner is perhaps THE defining moment of that victory, but, his two goals were crucial in a Man-of-the-match performance which has had that final ever since, regarded as: “Bertie Auld's Match.”
The rest is history. The Murdoch-Auld midfield alliance was born, as was the legend of the Lisbon Lions. More than one of the team has said Bertie initiating a chorus of “The Celtic Song” in the tunnel pre-game, did much to upset the hitherto all-conquering Inter side, as did his control and range of passing from midfield during the actual 90 minutes.
Mind you, success did not entirely wash over Bertie's disciplinary issues. He was sent off during the famour Alfredo di Stefano Testimonial in Madrid and, famously, when a referee who hadn't so-much lost the plot as never had it in the first place, sent him off during the “Kicking Match” against Racing Club, in Montevideo in 1968, Bertie simply refused to leave the field.
Perhaps his last true hurrah was in the “Battle of Britain”European Cup semi-final against Leeds United in 1970. Celtic shocked the English champions by winning the first leg at Elland Road 1-0, Leeds squared the game early on in the second leg, in front of what is still a European record crowd of 136,000 at Hampden, before the Murdoch/Auld midfield axis got the better of the much-vaunted Leeds pairing of Billy Bremner and Johnny Giles, and Celtic won 2-1.
Sadly, there would be no second European Cup win as the under-rated Feyenoord side won 2-1.
A sixth straight league title win in 1971 saw the end of Auld's second term at Celtic. He moved to Hibs to play out his career, before turning to managership, with Partick Thistle and Hibs.
After football he was for a time a barman, along with old team mate Willie O'Neill in that well-known Celtic fans' howf, Baird's Bar. There was a spell as a taxi driver, both occupations which gave plenty of chances for Bertie's wise-cracking one-liners.
He was always welcome in the corporate seats at Celtic Park, or commenting on Celtic TV. The Celtic Family saw him as one of their own, who had had the talent and luck to play for the jersey.
His Dementia diagnosis was revealed in June, 2021 and just last week, his passing also. His funeral cortege paid a final visit to Celtic Park to allow the Celtic Family to say farewell to one of their legends.
ROBERT AULD – 23 March, 1938 – 14 November, 2021.
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