Stanton in The Scotsman

[Borders Hibby]

Great article and picture of Pat in The Scotsman today. Even he knows we are a bit soft but seems to have confidence in Hughes long term.

[Golden Bear]

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Great article and picture of Pat in The Scotsman today. Even he knows we are a bit soft but seems to have confidence in Hughes long term.

Yep - a very good read. He'll need to have a serious word with his laddie though.




http://sport.scotsman.com/football/S...ind.6201863.jp

[Borders Hibby]

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Yep - a very good read. He'll need to have a serious word with his laddie though.




http://sport.scotsman.com/football/S...ind.6201863.jp

At least he got it sorted with the grandchildren.

[Wull]

Great read, the guys in a different league, always has been, ma hero

[Hiber-nation]

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Great read, the guys in a different league, always has been, ma hero

Great stuff from Paddy as ever.

[Stantons Angel]

A fine article and well spoken Pat.

He will always be a class act where Hibs are concerned and should never have been treated the way he was by Turnbull!

A player with passion for the club and the jersey he wore, who's standards the present day players should look to aspire too.

If they had his heart and commitment to his club then us supporters would never have been put through the humiliations of the last few games!!!

My Hib's HERO!

[Jonnyboy]

A truly wonderful man and footballer. He was our Beckenbauer and no mistake.

Loved the wee reference to big John McNamee, one of my earliest Hibs heroes.

[The Harp]

Sorry, just noticed this thread (I'm slowing down - it's an age thing!)
Liked this quote from the great man: "Some folk have credit cards; my two most important pieces of plastic are my bus pass and my ticket for Easter Road."
A great read, written with reverence by Aidan Smith.

[Hibbyradge]

Niddrie nous behind Stanton's silver service to Hibs and Celtic



PAT Stanton, the Hibs legend, is thinking of how best to illustrate the
benefits of the late-career upgrade he enjoyed when he moved to Celtic.
Bigger wages? Yes, Jock Stein sorted that. More medals? The Double, no less.
But in the end he plumps for the in-house football boot store.

"At the Hibs when you needed new boots you had to fetch them yourself," he
says. "You'd get given a line, a chitty, to take up the town to Thornton's
(the Edinburgh sports emporium] - proof, if you like, that you were a
professional footballer. And if there were some schoolboys buying kit you'd
have to queue up behind them.

"I expected the same at Celtic but, first time, the old trainer Bob Rooney
leads me to this big room within Parkhead that was full of boots. 'Help
yourself,' he says. I'm like: 'And you're leaving me here on my own? Me,
from Niddrie? I'm acquainted with one or two guys who could get hold of a
van and clear this place out!'"

Niddrie - an Edinburgh housing scheme which produced, from among a
slightly-above-average quota of radges, one of the most elegant players to
grace the Scottish game. Young Niddrie Terror - a street gang, some of whose
members (those not Jambos) swelled the Cowshed at Easter Road, a College
V-and-Crombie cognoscenti who roared on Paddy Stanton whenever he sprang
another attack for Turnbull's Tornadoes. "Hey, Niddrie!" - the greeting this
correspondent heard at a testimonial dinner, directed at the Hibs captain
and 1972 League Cup-winning hero by Gordon Strachan, son of Muirhouse.

Stanton is immensely proud of where he came from, immensely proud of having
played for the team he supported as a terracing toerag - but he also loved
his time at Celtic. Now 65 - "Some folk have credit cards; my two most
important pieces of plastic are my bus pass and my ticket for Easter Road" -
he can look down the family line at five grandsons, his daughter Kirsty's
boys, and all Hibbys. But his son Patrick supports Celtic. "When I moved
there I used to take him to Parkhead so it's my fault!" he laughs.

We meet at Easter Road, in a suite that's a gallery of old favourites, among
them our subject with his fine head of hair, set like that of a
knitting-pattern model. Tomorrow, when Celtic visit, he'll be on duty as a
meeter and greeter - so what does he think of John Hughes' team, a Hibs side
promising more than they're delivering like some others we could name?

"Well, they got going right away, but maybe it would have been better if
they'd made a more modest start. Hopes were raised, maybe too much, and the
Hibs fans can be pretty demanding - they were in my day, too. But, you know,
the greatest pressures a footballer faces should be the one he places on
himself. Aim high, show that wee bitty ambition.

"I don't think the dip in form will be a surprise to John, and I'm sure he
anticipated it would come, back when things were going well. I think he's on
the right road but there's still work to be done and I would say that right
now they seem to be a bit of a soft touch. When they lose the ball, they
don't do enough to win it back. We'd all work at a certain pace if we were
allowed, whether it's laying bricks or strolling about with a football. But
if we're hurried we'll make mistakes. Great teams are great without the
ball, and they always get it back."

Was Stanton ever part of a Hibs line-up where marshmallows were the
half-time snack of choice? "Yes, I was. But then Jock Stein, when he was
manager here, brought in John McNamee and we all toughened up. Before games,
big John would be pacing up and down the dressing-room; he had a hardness
which caught on. And John Parke, an Irishman, was another who'd never let
you slacken off."

At that time, the mid-1960s, Stanton played in defence. "Big John would head
everything away and I'd tidy up behind him, passing back to the goalie,
getting a clap from the crowd." Stein noted this and a decade later at
Celtic he gave Stanton a break from midfield rampaging and installed him as
sweeper in the team which in 1976-77 would win the Premier Division and -
for Pat at least - the oh-so-elusive Scottish Cup.

In the Niddrie of his youth, there was lots of work about. "Four breweries
nearby, two pits, the brickworks and an ice cream factory in Craigmillar,"
he recalls, "but all me and my pals wanted to do was play football. Every
Sunday morning there was a big kickabout, 20-a-side, and if you missed the
start you didn't get to play. If the ball belonged to a bit of a mummy's
boy, who had to pick it up bang on 12 and go home for lunch, that was
tragic.

"Everyone played football, and almost everyone was attached to a top boys'
club like Salvesens or Tynecastle. Whenever any lad called round for me, the
first thing my father would ask was: 'And who do you play for?' I think I
had one pal who didn't play for anyone; Dad was astonished, gave him a funny
look. And you should have seen the ones who got away, who didn't go
professional even though they were better than some who did. When we debate
what's wrong with Scottish football now, and we talk about getting back to
grass roots, how are we going to replicate that scene? We just can't."

Stanton signed in 1963 to begin a 680-game career for Hibs. "I got a letter
from Wilma the secretary welcoming me to the club and confirming that 'as
agreed' my wage would be 17 quid a week." He's envious of today's players
with their fancy dan training complex. "In bad weather we'd try and train at
Holyrood but be chased away by the parkie. The same thing would happen at
Seafield and we'd end up on Portobello beach. And this was around the time
we were beating Real Madrid!" Jumpers for goalposts, a strict chitty
system - is it any wonder Hibs haven't won the Scottish Cup since virtually
the 19th century when Stanton's great, great uncle, Michael Whelahan, was
captain?

Stanton scored on his Hibs debut, in the 5-0 demolition of Naples, in the
League Cup triumph and had one of the seven against Hearts in 1973 nicked
off him by school pal Jimmy O'Rourke. But Turnbull's Tornadoes should have
etched their names in history, rather than lightly scratch them. "What can I
say about that? Celtic were still a great team then, we were unlucky on a
few occasions - but we've no one to blame but ourselves. We were the guys on
the pitch. The manager could only help us so much."

How would he describe his relationship with Eddie Turnbull? "That's a very
good question." Then, after a decent-sized pause: "A great reader of the
game, but the football side's one thing ... Put it this way: I don't send
him Christmas cards." Stanton was languishing in the reserves when the call
came from Celtic. "First the Hibs manager spoke to me, then Jock Stein, and
it was all over in five minutes." Fan revolt! The Pink, the Saturday night
Edinburgh Evening News' sports edition, spread protest letters across two
broadsheet pages; my own signed off with a misprint: "Yours in dusgust."

Stanton was disappointed at the manner of his leaving. "I got telegrams from
fans wishing me all the best; I even got one from a supporter who worked in
the telegram office. But no one from the club said good luck. Maybe I was
being overly-sentimental and football's rarely that, but I'd been at Hibs a
while. That left a sour taste. It made me wish I'd left sooner."

Cont...

[Hibbyradge]

Matches against Celtic were how Turnbull's Tornadoes measured their progress
and were therefore the most keenly-anticipated. "When Celtic came to town it
was an event," he says, "And playing at Parkhead was a big test. We had some
titanic struggles with them - in those Hampden finals as well." Like others,
though, the fixture has lost its sparkle. "We've got to get rid of this
over-familiarity of clubs playing each other four times a season so I'm in
total agreement with league reconstruction. Football is a spectacle and
whether TV accepts this or not, it's the people on the terracing who make
the game. They're not going to do that if they're bored."

It was perhaps inevitable that, sweeping behind Roddy McDonald, Stanton
would come back to Easter Road in a different shade of green and play his
cool, unflustered part in a title-clinching victory - to be followed the
next Saturday by Celtic winning the Cup (against Rangers). "Jock told us
afterwards that only 100 goalies in history had ever won the medals in our
hands. That really put the 'Scottish' in perspective, especially for a born
Hibby."

It's almost time for him to go. I realise we've spoken a fair bit about
disappointments today and that isn't Stanton's story. Yes, he wishes he'd
won more than 16 caps for Scotland. Yes, he wishes his spell as Hibs manager
had been more successful. And of course, he wishes Turnbull's Tornadoes had
contributed more silverware to the display cases surrounding us.

But he won't hear a bad word said about that team, not even concerning Alex
Cropley's criticism on the commemorative DVD that Stanton was too quiet as a
captain (his response: "I know what he said, but I still think Alex was our
greatest player, brilliantly creative and also absolutely fearless - the
combination Hibs need right now").

Recently, the old team re-convened in sad circumstances, for the funeral of
Alan Gordon. "What a lovely man Alan was. Football was important to him, but
he knew there was more to life. It's a bit of a jolt when someone of your
generation passes away but the rest of the guys all seemed to be well.
Amazing what make-up can do. I wouldn't be surprised if Alex Edwards was
wearing some for the troops!"

What's the most-asked question he gets as a matchday host? "Well, it's
concerning Turnbull's Tornadoes of course, and why we didn't win more. It's
unfortunate we didn't, but if you go through life and that's the biggest
disappointment, you're kind of doing all right, I think.

"Did I ever tell you about Hibs' summer tour of North America in 1967? Seven
weeks we were there - Texas, California, New York, fabulous places. Then a
sequence of matches where we criss-crossed between Chicago and different
points way out west and made you wonder if the club had forgotten to buy a
map. No matter, it was a privilege to be there, representing where you'd
come from, and overall in my career I regard myself as very fortunate.
Bloody hell, I even think I was lucky to play against Drew Busby and Davie
Robb, the hardest of opponents, who wouldn't get you from behind - you
always saw them coming."

Fortunate, too, to have been headbutted by Alex Ferguson, then Falkirk's
centre- forward, before he became Fergie's assistant at Aberdeen for their
first New Firm championship. "We're still in touch. I don't phone him
because he's such a busy man but the other day when I was in Leith he called
and we had a natter.

"But, where was I? Ah yes, Dallas. Jimmy O'Rourke and I were standing at the
street-lights - no jaywalking, and not many other folk around because it was
such a boiling hot day. And the wee man turned to me and said: 'You know,
Pat, we're an awfie long way from the West Port.'"

And from Niddrie, too.