Authors: Paul Harrison
Less than a decade later and the prophecy of Billy Bremner was coming true. Some players receive far more recognition than the respective clubs they represent. Lower down the league chain more clubs are feeling the financial strain of supporting the superstars’ wage demands. One needs to look no further than Leeds United for a good example of how such issues can negatively impact upon an entire community. With the best of intentions, the club took a financial gamble and spent money they did not have, in order to compete and remain amongst a handful of elite clubs who are able to win major trophies and bring in greater revenue to feed the debt. Despite all the mega and wasteful spending, success didn't happen and Leeds United spiralled out of control. Some of the so-called ‘loyal’ players, now that the cash cow had dried up, abandoned the club, seeking personal wealth and fortune elsewhere, before matters were finally stabilised with the team in League One [the old Division Three].
As I left the Belle Vue ground for the last time, I asked staff members what they felt about the appointment of Billy Bremner as manager. I was informed that since the announcement of his appointment, season ticket sales had doubled and club merchandise sales trebled. There had also been a marked interest
in commercial support and ground advertising. The Doncaster board of directors received dozens of letters of appreciation from supporters and businesses for making what they believe was an outstanding appointment in bringing Billy Bremner back as team manager. The Billy Bremner brand remains to this very day, a respected one.
Unfortunately, Billy's reign at Doncaster lasted just twenty-nine months. Despite making a profit in excess of £400,000 for the club, mainly from transfer fees, he resigned from his position on the evening of Friday, 1 November 1991, with Rovers sitting bottom of Division Four. The Doncaster fans, despite the club's league position, maintained wholehearted support for the manager and never once protested against him or stopped believing in him. In fact the opposite occurred. When news of his resignation broke and spread through the town, many made their way to the Belle Vue ground and expressed their disdain towards the board for allowing him to leave. In response to this, Bremner expressed his own disappointment at being forced into making such a decision:
‘My main regret is that I could not do something for the fans, to give them a team they could be proud of. The fans of Doncaster Rovers have been bloody marvellous to me and the club. I wish each and every one of them good luck for the future.’
That he was no longer professionally involved in the game of football seemed almost criminal. He had so much to offer the sport: experience, desire and down-to-earth humility and common sense. He was a capable manager, who was unfortunate to take up the trade during a time when boards of directors demanded instant success and interfered in team matters. Money was more influential to them than supporters’ passion. Outside the top half of the first division, financial support was not readily available, and to be honest, neither Leeds United nor Doncaster Rovers were clubs in a healthy financial position. Bremner was constantly juggling club finances in order to meet demands, selling valuable commodities like players, even stadiums, in the vain hope that it would satisfy the directors’ demands.
His managerial career over, Billy Bremner continued to spread the football gospel to the people who he knew cared, the supporters. A good career in after-dinner speaking was a natural progression for someone who had so much to say, and had thousands of anecdotes to tell. Having attended many such events, I can confirm that he maintained his charisma and was an undoubted success. At Spalding in 1994 he signed autographs for well over an hour, he answered every question thrown at him from the audience in his usual honest and open manner. He visited every table in the room and spoke to everyone, making sure that each and every person had enjoyed themselves and had a good memory to take away from the evening. He told me:
‘I still get a buzz out of this. Footballers earn a living the same as everyone else, so I think it's a great honour to be able to recount some of the great and not so great times, and the anecdotes that accompany being part of the game. As for being a manager again, well perhaps if the right offer came along I would consider it, but it would have to be the right club with the right people in charge. People I trusted and the fans trusted. If the Football Association of Scotland were to ask me to manage the national team, I would gladly walk to Glasgow to accept the position, but that isn't going to happen. I have too many opinions for them to see me as a likely candidate. It's time that football clubs, and the people who own football clubs, realised that the fans are the real life blood of the game and without them there would be no football.’
When I was told in 1997 that Billy Bremner had passed away, I was speaking at a public conference in Scotland. I received the telephone call informing me of the sad news during a break. When the conference delegates reconvened in the main hall, I returned to the podium but I couldn't hide my sadness as tears ran down my cheeks. I made an impromptu announcement:
‘Ladies and gentleman, I have just been told that my childhood idol and perhaps the greatest footballer to walk this planet, Billy
Bremner of Leeds United and Scotland has passed away. Can we please have one minute's silence as a mark of respect.’
Over 300 people rose as one to their feet, bowed their heads and displayed the dignity and respect I had hoped they would. As the minute ended, a chant spread from the back of the hall, passing right through the crowd, until everyone was singing. For fully three minutes, the professional audience voluntarily chanted his name: ‘Billy Bremner, Billy Bremner’. It was one of the most moving moments I have had in my entire life. Billy Bremner may be gone, but he will never ever be forgotten.
I was in Edlington on Thursday, 11 December 1997, stood alongside hundreds of other football supporters, mainly of Leeds United, at the funeral of my idol, Billy Bremner. It was a truly incredible turnout, as dozens of football legends and respected guests attended the ceremony at St Mary's Church. Alex Ferguson made a special journey from Europe, flying out immediately after a European Cup tie against Juventus. The funeral was like a ‘who's who’ of Scotland and Leeds United. The Mass was conducted by Father Gerry Harney, and as he and others delivered personal eulogies, there wasn't a dry eye in the gathered crowds that lined the village. The magic of Billy Bremner truly touched many different people across football and beyond.
I felt privileged and honoured to have known him and to be there paying my respects, yet deep inside there was a feeling of emptiness, a void that could never be filled. A man who I had admired since I was but a child, a footballer as loyal as they come, was gone. I knew deep inside that it was the end of an era, not only in my life, but in football also. No one could ever replace Billy Bremner.
18
ENGLAND v SCOTLAND
Home International Championship
Saturday, 15 April 1967
Wembley Stadium
Games between these two countries are always passionate encounters, not only to the fans but also to the players. This classic took on even greater importance to the Scotland side, as the previous year England had been crowned World champions, winning a dramatic Wembley final 4-2 against West Germany. The home nation had achieved an unbeaten run of nineteen games prior to taking on Scotland, making the task facing Billy Bremner and his troops an enormous one.
A packed Wembley stadium, filled with 100,000 passionate and vocal supporters, covered every piece of the terracing, the majority anticipating a comfortable England victory. Both sets of support were well behaved with much good-natured patriotic banter taking place. Inside the Wembley tunnel the tension was much more obvious, and as both sides lined up alongside each other the anxiety could be cut with a knife. The Scottish midfield, consisting of Jim Baxter, Willie Wallace and Billy Bremner appeared to be unfazed by the occasion. Bremner and Baxter utilised the time to wind up their opponents by making comical quips to them:
‘I loved wearing that jersey, playing for Scotland meant everything to me, I always wore it with pride and passion.
We were well up for the fight and the game. Some of the England boys were full of themselves, believing in their own hype about being the best World champions of all time, and all that kind of thing. Jim Baxter reminded them that two of their goals should not have been allowed – the ball never crossed the line on one, and the Germany players thought the final whistle had gone for another, and had therefore stopped playing. It was all part of the wind-up and nothing nasty or serious, well not too much anyway.
‘The next thing, some of the England players began throwing personal insults at us, so we reciprocated. I kept calling Alan Ball a puff and a softie. He hated it and told me to f—— off out of his sight before he hurt me. I laughed at such a preposterous thought so he began to call me Brillo pad hair! So I laughed even more. He was almost in tears. The tension before we walked out onto the pitch was there for all to sense and I was loving it.’
With their opponents rattled before a ball was kicked, it could be said that Scotland had won the first battle. When the game kicked off, the England players seemed nervous on the ball, not fully controlling it, and kicking it away as though it was a hot potato burning their feet. Scotland settled far quicker, with Bremner and Baxter dominating the midfield and managing the game with relative ease. The World champions were unnerved and lacking in composure. On the terraces, it was the Scotland fans who sang louder and longer as they sensed the confidence brimming through their team.
‘I never really thought a great deal about it at the time, but as I am a passionate Scotsman, I could never accept that as a nation we were inferior to anyone else at anything, let alone football. Each time I went close to an English player I was making comments like “Call yourself World champions – lucky bastards more like, you'll never rule over Scotland.” There was an element of grudge between the players – no one in our dressing room wanted to consider losing to the “auld enemy”.’
On twenty-eight minutes, Scotland forward Denis Law broke the deadlock with a shot which caught out the usually reliable
Gordon Banks in the England goal to give Scotland a 1-0 lead, a lead they held up to half time:
‘We went mad when Denis scored, you could see the English hearts sink. We knew that if we could take it to half time and still be leading, then the England crowd would turn on their players, putting even more pressure on them. We were cock-a-hoop at half time in the dressing room and I couldn't wait to get out and at them again in the second half.’
When the game resumed, it was Bremner who orchestrated much of the football in midfield, stroking the ball in every direction and finding a fellow Scot with every pass. His influence on the flow of the game was incredible. To exacerbate matters even further, when he was on the ball, every so often he would stop, place his foot on it, drag it back a few inches, and look around for a blue-shirted colleague before laying off a pin-point pass. He made it all look very easy. England were getting more wound up by his arrogance on the ball but could do little to stop him. As the game drifted on, and with some England fans streaming out of the stadium, it looked as though the solitary Denis Law goal was to be sufficient to win the game. Then in the eightieth minute, the game again burst into life when Bobby Lennox scored a dramatic second goal for the visitors, latching onto a clever Tommy Gemmell lob, and firing past the helpless Banks.
The second goal forced England to push forward and attack and in the eighty-fifth minute, Jack Charlton managed to prod home from close range. Incredibly, more goals were to come, but any hope of a dramatic England come-back was destroyed as International debutant Jim McCalliog comfortably slotted home Scotland's third goal of the game. The Tartan Army's celebratory chants echoed around a fast emptying Wembley and the partying began. A late headed goal courtesy of Geoff Hurst couldn't silence the dancing Scots on the terraces. They knew, as did each and every Scottish player on the pitch, that they had done more than enough to win the game.
As the final whistle sounded, the Scots celebrated their famous
victory with conquering hugs and smiles broad enough to span the Firth of Forth. Bremner did not hesitate to remind the English players that Scotland had beaten the World champions, which therefore made them World champions:
‘It wasn't the fact that we had beaten them, but we had done it on their own territory and in such an emphatic fashion. Some people have tried to justify the result by claiming that Jack Charlton and Jimmy Greaves were both carrying knocks, but I will have none of that – we won the game fair and square. We beat the World champions in their own backyard. If it wasn't that important a result then why is it so often recalled by writers and football supporters alike? The final score that will be forever shown in the history books was England 2, Scotland 3. It still makes me smile and feel very proud all these years later.’
LEEDS UNITED v CHELSEA
Division One
Saturday, 7 October 1967
Elland Road
In their previous game, Leeds had held West Ham in an uninspiring 0-0 draw at Upton Park. Much of the newspaper talk prior to the Chelsea fixture surrounded the Leeds captain Billy Bremner, who was about to play his last game for Leeds before starting a twenty-eight day suspension imposed for a sending-off at a league game with Fulham on 2 September 1967:
‘I was made a scapegoat for the incidents at Fulham. The whole game had been bad tempered and I was telling the referee to sort it out and to stop hiding from it. He lost his rag with me and told me to stop interfering and to get on with my own game and not his. A couple of challenges, more like desperate lunges, on our players went without so much as a warning for Fulham. I could feel myself losing it, not only with the Fulham players but with the f—— useless referee.