I remember the hug most of all. It happened only five minutes after the final whistle on the rain-sodden Gothenburg pitch itself.
The man I knew simply as Fergie then, advanced towards me with the kind of beaming gladiatorial smile that denoted a lion had been slain. Real Madrid had been taken care of. Indeed, their white shirts that normally exuded iconic supremacy looked at the end merely like items that were tarnished beyond repair not just by the muddy pitch but by Aberdeen’s unbreakable self-belief that had been generated by the most exciting managerial talent of that generation.
Fergie’s joy unbounded, we embraced on the field to such an extent I found myself lifting him off his feet in a celebration that is as irreparably embedded in my memory as much as our spectacular fall-out some years later. I was lucky to be there. I regretted that ITV had exclusive rights to the commentary but rather than being left out in the cold, BBC Breakfast Time collared me to travel to the Final to report as widely as I could and above all to nab Fergie for interview if they were to win.
Which meant away from the commentary platform I could view the game from just behind the Aberdeen bench watching Fergie’s balletic performance reflecting somersaulting emotions – ranging from a corkscrew-like spin in the air when Eric Black opened the scoring in only seven minutes, to a dismissive shrug of the shoulders at the Juanito penalty
equaliser seven minutes later.
And ultimately in extra-time a Nureyev vault into the air at John Hewitt’s diving, swooping winning header. Thereafter came my pitch invasion and the hug.
I had commentated on all Aberdeen’s European games from their famous 3-2 victory over Bayern at Pittodrie in the quarter-finals onwards, with the growing realisation they could actually go far. Even so my relationship with him pre-dated that considerably. And curiously it was the presence of another man that night that reminded me of precisely that.
For among the after-match throng in and around the innards of the stadium I saw a man quietly drinking a cup of tea in a quiet corner as if he was a curator at a museum. It was Jock Stein. He was there actually on Fergie’s personal invitation.
You might say that it was a matter of courtesy to have invited the first British winner of the European Cup to be there and whose presence might have increased the idea that beating the great Real was no less valid a possibility than the notion of beating an Inter side whose defensive catenaccio system in 1967 seemed insuperable.
But that is too simplistic. They were not carbon copies of one another but for me they had so many features in common they are an indissoluble pair in my recollections. I think their genuine mutual admiration for each other suggested they recognised that themselves.
This was demonstrated in front of my very eyes, initially by Fergie in Milan in 1970 when he took the trouble to travel to watch Celtic play Feyenoord in the European Cup Final and sat among the throngs of green and white in the airport, taking some banter as a well-known bluenose and with his career at a low point after his release from Rangers.
Stein’s aura had pulled him there. He certainly saw strength and purpose in Willie Waddell’s guiding of Rangers to the Cup Winners triumph in Barcelona in 1972 but there is little doubt in my mind that he saw in Stein something of himself and a restlessness that spurred them both on. I recall the early days after his installation as Aberdeen manager and the countless number of times thereafter I sat with Fergie in the bootroom at Pittodrie analysing every aspect of the Scottish game and the personalities involved.
He simply loved a gossip and we swapped stories in the mutual understanding that only the serried ranks of boots would be privy to them. And it’s not that he talked in detail about Stein but I recognised in his banter, which sometimes turned into lurid invective, some of the characteristics of the Stein who first burst on the scene as Celtic manager with his political antennae sensitised to Rangers as the establishment club who influenced everything in the game.
That had to be opposed. With Fergie it was the west of Scotland press who were the butt of much of his ire, for keeping Aberdeen off their radar too often. These were two men who in different generations saw the need
to drum home to their players the imbalances that endured in Scottish football. It was the source of much of their motivation. And in both of their capacities they were capable of being adept politicians .
I recall Fergie revealing to me the unofficial overtures made to him by his old club to go back as manager and of how, almost with distaste, he boasted that he could never return to Govan while they retained their mediaeval signing policy. In short, both men were iconoclasts, wanting to break up the status quo for the betterment of the Scottish game.
There was of course a historical reason why Stein’s presence in Gothenburg had a relevance. It was something that Stein himself revealed to me. We literally travelled the world together during which he would make some startling revelations.
One such took place on our trip to New Zealand prior to the 1982 World Cup in Spain. After Stein left Celtic he was frequently consulted by various managers and chairmen for advice on a variety of issues. One day he took a call from Dick Donald, the Aberdeen chairmen and greatly successful entertainments entrepreneur in the granite city, who was widely respected in the Scottish game. He was seeking Stein’s view on the next Aberdeen manager.
Donald told him he was considering appointing Bertie Auld who was enjoying a colourful career in charge of Partick Thistle and would he endorse such an initiative? The former Celtic manager certainly valued the Lisbon Lion as a player but even though Stein was a renowned gambler there was also caution in his make-up. He said: “I told Dick that Bertie would not be the best choice for that particular club. I suggested he should go to Paisley and that Fergie would be the better bet.”
Donald did so and the rest is in the history books. “I don’t think Bertie ever forgave me when he found out!” Stein wistfully admitted to me. Upon such a brief telephone conversation greatness was created.
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