Designed by stuartpolsondesign.com

Cover photographs © Aberdeen Journals

£7.99www.blackandwhitepublishing.com

PBB 198x129mm17.5mm spine

SHEARER WONDERLAND

SHEARERWONDERLAND

DUNCAN SHEARER

WITH PAUL SMITH

BLACK & WHITE PUBLISHING

First published 2010This edition first published 2011by Black & White Publishing Ltd

29 Ocean Drive, Edinburgh EH6 6JL

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 11 12 13 14

ISBN: 978 1 84502 345 4

Copyright © Duncan Shearer and Paul Smith 2010, 2011

The right of Duncan Shearer and Paul Smith to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance

with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means,

electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, withoutpermission in writing from the publisher.

The publisher has made every reasonable effortto contact copyright holders of images in the picture section.Any errors are inadvertent and anyone who, for any reason,

has not been contacted is invited to write to the publisherso that a full acknowledgment can be made

in subsequent editions of this work.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Typeset by Ellipsis Books Limited, GlasgowPrinted and bound by CPI, Cox & Wyman, Reading

CONTENTS

1 A SENSE OF PERSPECTIVE 1

2 TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS 9

3 THE JOURNEY BEGINS 15

4 JOINING THE CHELSEA SET 22

5 FROM CITY TO TOWN 37

6 SUSPICIOUS MINDS 44

7 OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW 54

8 FROM PENALTY BOX TO WITNESS BOX 62

9 LANCASHIRE HOT SHOT 70

10 THIRD TIME LUCKY 83

11 LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON 88

12 ABERDEEN AMBITION 98

13 PRIDE OF SCOTLAND 111

14 THE ROAD TO WEMBLEY 119

15 THE END OF AN ERA 134

16 FOOTBALL’S GREAT DIVIDE 149

17 HAMPDEN GLORY 156

18 HIGHLAND HOMECOMING 167

19 POACHER TURNED GAMEKEEPER 171

20 THE MANAGER, THE DEMONS AND ME 181

21 GOING HOME 187

22 INTO THE RED 194

23 THE BIG CRASH 204

24 LIVING ON BORROWED TIME 213

25 BEGINNING OF THE END 221

26 JOB-SEEKING 228

27 TWO JAGS 235

28 THE FINAL CHAPTER 242

SHEARER WONDERLAND

To mum, dad and my big brother Willie

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The first people I should thank are those this book is dedicatedto who sadly will not get the chance to read it. To my late mum,dad and brother Willie, I say I love you and miss you. Mum,nobody could make scones like you. Dad, I miss your poachingand shinty stories over a few drams. Willie, sorry you ended upsupporting Rangers – but we can carry on that argument anothertime. They were all there at the beginning of the journey, a roadon which so many other people, far too many to mention, havehelped me along the way.

Two of the great inspirations have been my children, Hayleyand William. I’m proud to be your dad – now stop reading this,and go and clear up your rooms. I have to thank the rest of theShearer family too, not least my brothers and sisters, for alwaysbeing there whenever I have needed them.

Mike and Nita, my father- and mother-in-law, have also beena tremendous influence on me since the day they took me undertheir wing when I moved to London as a young man. I thankthem both for their daughter Michele, who became my wife, andNita for the ‘piece of cheese’ that was served up for my firstmeal in England all those years ago.

In football, I must note my appreciation for the late Rod Clyne.It was Rod who spotted my potential while I was playing in the

Highland League, and he and Ian McNeill were brave enoughto take a chance on a twenty-one-year-old from the Highlandsand take me to Chelsea. I’ll be forever grateful that they gaveme the opportunity, just as I will always be thankful that JohnDennison, Dougie Masson and John Flannigan did their bit tokeep me on the straight and narrow when I was a boy startingout in the game with Clach. David McGinlay is another personin the game I must thank for his friendship over the years andfor the endless phone calls to keep my spirits up when I washurting following my sacking by Aberdeen. To hear an old FortWilliam voice at that time was just what I needed.

I must also thank Paul Smith for all his efforts in workingwith me to make this book a reality, and to all the team at Black & White Publishing for their enthusiasm and attention todetail. It has been a wonderful project to work on, a real pleasure.

Last, but most importantly, I must thank my wife and bestfriend Michele. I would never have achieved my football or lifedream without you. You have given me constant support – andtwo great kids that we can both be proud of.

Love you always, Big D.XXXXXX

SHEARER WONDERLAND

1

1

A SENSE OF PERSPECTIVE

I know many people who would agree with Bill Shankly’s famousold claim that football is far more important than life or death.I’m afraid, on that issue at least, the great man got it wrong.Football can give you shiny medals, a big pay packet, a nicehouse and fancy cars. That’s all well and good, but none of thatreally matters in the grand scheme of things.

It took the death of my brother, William, in 2005 to hammerthat home to me. It was a lesson late in life but it is one thatwill stay with me for the rest of my days. I count myself veryfortunate that I managed to get a few seconds with Willie duringhis final hours and in that time he put life in perspective forme.

I was still coming to terms with everything that had happenedwhen Steve Paterson and I had been in charge at Aberdeen andthe way that had come to an end so suddenly. To be part of themanagement team at Pittodrie had been a dream come true forme and when it was snatched away it hit me hard.

Fortunately I had my big brother to put me in my place. Hewas terribly ill in hospital, fighting for every breath, when heturned to me and said: ‘If you think you’re feeling down, trylanding up in a wheelchair when you’re nineteen. Try gettingcancer when you’re forty-four. You’ve nothing to be down about.’

He was right, and I’ll never ever forget that. It took something

2

SHEARER WONDERLAND

so awful to make me see sense but I’m a better person for it.Until the summer of 2011 I was out of full-time football, back inthe real world as a working man. People would often say to me:‘You must be desperate to get back into management.’ The truthis all of that is not the be all and end all for me. I’m settled andhappy with my wife and have two fit and healthy kids – that iswhat is important to me, more than anything else in the world.I know where my priorities lie and I feel at peace with myselfbecause of that. I’ll never lose the competitive spirit and ambi-tion that I have always had, but in recent years I had come tothe conclusion that ‘what will be will be’. I knew that when theright opportunity came my way I would grab it with both hands,until then I was quite content with my life and work outside offootball. Sure enough, that opportunity came along when TerryButcher and Caley Thistle offered me a full-time post on thecoaching staff and I am now settling back into the familiar routine.It is great to be pulling on my football boots each morning ratherthan my work boots, but in many ways my break from the full-time game was an opportunity to see life in perspective.

It was difficult at times and I am sure there will be more chal-lenges ahead – but any time that I feel myself getting even alittle bit down, I think back to that conversation with Willie andsnap out of it in an instant. He will always be there with me inspirit.

In so many ways Willie has had a big influence on the decisions I have taken and the path I have followed. That canbe traced right back to the start of my career as a professionalfootball player early in 1983, when I signed my first contractwith Chelsea. While I was starting off a new life in London,back home in Fort William my big brother was facing far biggerchallenges.

I went down to England at a very difficult time for theShearer family. Just a few weeks earlier William had been

3

A SENSE OF PERSPECTIVE

involved in a terrible accident. He was nineteen at the time,and had been out at a nightclub in Fort William when he haileda taxi to take him home. Five minutes into the journey he realisedhe’d come away without one of his mates and asked the driverto head back and pick him up. To this day we don’t knowexactly what happened next but from what we can gather thedriver tried to turn too quickly, and lost control. The back ofthe car whipped round and clattered into railings down by thewaterfront. Willie was badly injured and was rushed to thelocal hospital before they realised they were out of their depthand a helicopter was scrambled to take him to a specialist unitdown in Edinburgh.

The first anyone at home knew about what had happened waswhen the police called to the house in the dead of night. Theword spreading around the area was that Willie had passedaway, but fortunately we had been told differently. Mum andDad drove down straight away to be with him. When they cameback they tried to put a brave face on it. Willie was paralysedfrom the chest down, but because it appeared he was regainingsome feeling in his legs there was a theory that he might recover,and that the paralysis could be down to the shock of the acci-dent. Deep down, I think we all feared the worst. We hoped forthe best.

That night, after my parents had come back from their firsttrip to visit Willie in hospital, the police came knocking at thedoor again in the early hours. Listening from the top of thestairs, we could hear them telling Mum and Dad that Williehad deteriorated and that he had lost a lot of blood. They hadbeen sent to tell us to prepare for bad news, but he pulledthrough.

We only had the one car between us, so the brothers andsisters had to take turns to go down and visit. I’ll never forgetmy first trip down the road, going down along with Willie’s best

friend John McKerracher, to the hospital in Musselburgh wherehe was being cared for. It was like a scene from a Frankensteinmovie, with Willie upside down on a big turntable bed. His headwas pinned in and his arms strapped down, as if he was in astraitjacket. Every six hours they would flip the bed over, movinghim from facing the floor to facing the ceiling. It was shockingto see and John was physically sick at the sight of it all.

After two or three months in hospital he was well enough toreturn home. Everyone had to adjust their life after the accident;everything changed. From the physical things like getting thehouse prepared for a wheelchair, to the emotional side, nothingwas ever the same again.

My mother was never the strongest person anyway, but thesituation with Willie really took its toll. She had given birth tofour big strong boys and all of a sudden one of them had beencut down in his prime. Willie was 6ft 2in tall and a real athlete– he was the fastest of all of us. Neither my big brother Davidnor myself and the youngest of my brothers, Finlay, could touchhim over 100 yards. He had gone from that big strong lad oneminute to being unable to do anything for himself the next. Itwas tragic.

Mum wanted to help so much, but in truth she was helpless.With the best will in the world there was no way she could copewith the heavy lifting of getting Willie in and out of bed, intohis wheelchair or getting him bathed. With all her heart shewanted to do those things but she needed help from her boysto do those things. You would find her wandering around Willie’sbedroom, downstairs in the big room because it was on theground floor, plumping his pillows up because it was somethingshe could do for him. It broke her heart and the fact that I wasabout to follow my brother in flying the nest couldn’t have helped,with Dave already playing for Middlesbrough and me on myway to Chelsea.

SHEARER WONDERLAND

4

When the taxi arrived at the house to take me to catch myflight to London, I gave her a big hug and watched as she turnedin tears to walk back up the path to the house. What I didn’trealise was that she was battling her own issues at the same timeas trying her best to come to terms with Willie’s situation.

She was a heavy smoker, never without her Capstan FullStrength, and my Dad was the same. That led to problems forMum and around Christmas time in 1983, just a few monthsafter I’d made the move to London, I got a call at my digs frommy aunty to say that Mum had been taken into hospital withcollapsed lungs. Obviously I had to get home quickly. I wasupstairs packing my bag when the phone rang again. It wasanother message for me from back home, this time to tell methere was no need to rush back – Mum had passed away already.It was the first time I had been away from home and all of asudden I felt like I was on the other side of the world.

Nita Hurley, who was my landlady then and later became mymother-in-law, took control of the situation, arranging my flightshome and getting me back as soon as possible. It was a shockingtime for us all. On top of William’s accident, losing Mum was ahammer blow. In my mind I was going back to Fort William forgood when I got on that plane. I was sickened by everythingand just wanted to get back and do what I could for the rest ofthe family.

Mum’s health had deteriorated but I will always believe thatit was a broken heart that claimed her life. To watch one of herbig strapping boys confined to his bed, needing help just to wipehis mouth, simply devastated her. She just wasn’t strong enoughto cope.

When I did get back I ended up drowning my sorrows withmy brothers for three or four days – serious drinking with nolet-up. I was in a complete daze. Eventually, after a week or so,the Chelsea assistant manager Ian McNeill obviously decided

A SENSE OF PERSPECTIVE

5

I’d had long enough. He tracked me down and had a good talkwith me. He pointed out that there was nothing for me in FortWilliam, that if I stayed I’d end up going back to the life I hadbefore, with odd jobs here and there and signing on the dole inbetween. He brought me to my senses and I decided to give itanother go with Chelsea. From that point on I never looked back.It had taken two of the most devastating periods in my life toset me on the road but once I took the first few steps I knew Iwas heading in the right direction.

After the drinking binge in the wake of Mum’s death, I didn’ttouch another drop for a good nine months. Even then, I wouldonly have the occasional pint. I learned that you have to knowwhen to drink and when not to drink – too many people can’tmake that call for themselves. Even when the boys were goingout for a few drinks on a Saturday night after games, I wasn’tinterested. I decided to knuckle down and give myself the bestchance of making a go of it.

It was an absolutely torrid time for the family, which wascompounded by the fact that my sister Amanda was involvedin a motorbike accident up in Tongue soon after and sufferedhorrendous injuries. Amanda recovered from that, but the painof losing Mum was far worse. As the youngest daughter, she’dbeen particularly close to Mum and it took a long time for thepain to ease.

I was one of seven children but my Dad and brother Finlay –or Midgie, as he’s better known – were left at home with Willie.When he first came home from hospital there was a determina-tion to carry on as before, as though nothing had changed. Theproblem was that it had changed.

If the brothers were going out for a few drinks, Willie wantedto come along. We’d wheel him along in his chair and everyoneat the pub was delighted to see him out and about. He was ahell of a pool player as a teenager and a popular guy at our

SHEARER WONDERLAND

6

local. We were a big family in Caol, the village where we grewup, well known and well liked. People would go out of theirway to speak to Willie and buy him a dram or two, somethingthat didn’t mix well with his medication. More than once hesuffered relapses and ended up in hospital, needing his stomachpumped to clear the mix of the tablets and alcohol. He still thoughthe’d be able to have a vodka and Coke or a couple of beers, butsoon found out it didn’t work that way. Of course we knew itwas wrong for him to take a drink, but I don’t think we realisedthe extent of the problems it could cause. Eventually he stoppedtaking a drink at all and it was for the best. I was so pleasedwhen he made that decision. It is one thing being hungover andill through drink when you’re able-bodied; far worse when you’reparalysed and being sick in your bed.

In the early days there were plenty of friends to call roundand keep him company, but that tailed off in time and lifechanged for Willie. Still I never heard him being bitter aboutit, never heard him blame anybody for the accident.

When it happened, my first reaction was to want to go lookingfor the taxi driver and give him a beating. It would have doneno good at all, but may have made me feel a bit better. I onlygot as far as mentioning it to my brothers before common senseprevailed, but I’m pretty sure the same thoughts had gone throughtheir heads. That would have only caused more worry for thefamily because it wouldn’t have taken a genius to figure out whowas responsible if the guy had landed up in hospital.

To be honest, I couldn’t tell you the driver’s name. As far asI’m aware I’ve never met him. I don’t even know if it was agenuine taxi. In those days a lot of people went out moon-lighting at weekends in their own cars, just slapping a big whitesign on the roof. There were no other cars involved and nowitnesses, so we’ll never know the truth about what happenedthat night.

A SENSE OF PERSPECTIVE

7

From memory the driver was banned from driving for a yearand fined for his part in the accident – but I’m guessing he haspaid far more than that by living with what he did for all theseyears. I know it isn’t something I would want on my conscience.

All we could do as a family was get on with life and makethe best of the hand we’d been dealt. Dad and Finlay looked outfor Willie, who had a wee bell to ring when he needed anything.There were home helps to lend a hand and everyone did whatthey could.

It was difficult to take. He had his whole life ahead of him.Who knows what he might have gone on to do had he not beencut down in his prime. It was a wake-up call for me and I wantedto make the best of the opportunities that I had.

SHEARER WONDERLAND

8

2

TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS

I’ll never forget sitting on the Scotland team bus after a trainingsession at Greenock and catching the eye of one of the Mortoncoaches who was loading balls into the boot of his car. It wasthe old Rangers defender Davie Provan, who was working withthe Morton youth team at Cappielow at the time. He looked upand gave me a knowing wink – he remembered me just as muchas I remembered him.

The fact that I was sitting there with the national squad wasa gentle reminder that he’d got it wrong when he decided I wasn’tgood enough to make it as a footballer while I was just a teenager.That was when Davie was with Partick Thistle and had the taskof taking the young players under his wing at Firhill. To be fairto him, I made it easy for him to cross me off his list of poten-tial professionals.

It was the summer of 1979 when my good friend AlanMcKinnon and I were invited down from Fort William toGlasgow for a week’s trial with the Jags. Alan had spent theseason before with Clach and had shown up well in the HighlandLeague playing as a striker, while I’d been playing away in theLochaber welfare leagues, still just a lad of sixteen. Partick obvi-ously saw it as a bit of an untapped market and, as well aslooking at the pair of us, there was also word of them lookingat my brother Willie, who was a fast and strong defender before

9

the road accident shattered any hopes he had of making it infootball.

Thistle were going well at the time, established in the PremierDivision and building for the future. They had just survived inthe top flight, at the expense of Hearts and Motherwell, and hadreached the semi-finals of the Scottish Cup when they showedan interest in Alan and me. Looking back, it was a big deal fortwo young lads to get a chance with a team at that level. To usit was just a bit of an adventure.

What nobody had told Alan and me was that we had arrivedjust in time for the start of pre-season training. It was a brutalexperience for two teenagers still wet behind the ears, but wecame through it in one piece as Bertie Auld and his coachingteam put the squad through its paces.

Davie Provan, as the coach in charge of us, chose a bed andbreakfast on Great Western Road in Glasgow for our digs andwe knuckled down and got on with the work. At the end of theweek we thought we’d celebrate by having a few beers in ourroom. We got six cans and it was my first real experience ofalcohol – after a couple I was starting to feel the effect, but wedidn’t cause any bother. When we finished we put the cans inthe bin and never thought any more about it. In glorious hind-sight I’d imagine the landlady would have been straight on thephone to Davie the next day to tell him what we’d been up to,although nothing was said.

We were taken up the road to Fort William for a couple ofgames as part of Partick’s Highland tour. I played and scoredon the Saturday; Alan played on the Sunday and did well. Despitethat, both of us were told ‘thanks, but no thanks’ at the end ofit. They promised to keep an eye on the pair of us, but we allknow what that means. To this day I’m convinced our littlerefreshers in the guesthouse put paid to any chance we had ofwinning a contract. We were young and didn’t know any better.

SHEARER WONDERLAND

10

If I had my time again I’d maybe do things differently, but thenagain everything worked out in the end.

I made a few decisions during those early years, and when Ilook back I wonder how things might have panned out if I’ddone things differently. Turning my back on Sir Alex Ferguson,or plain old Alex as he was back then, is one of them.

That episode began in September 1981, when I was inviteddown to Aberdeen on trial, after a good run playing for InvernessClachnacuddin in the Highland League. I should have knownit wasn’t going to run smoothly when I was involved in a carcrash that almost stopped me from getting there in the first place.

John Flannigan, Doug Masson, John Dennison and myselfdrove through from Lochaber together for Clach games and theday before I was due to join up with the Dons we were motoringthrough for a match at Buckie when the car hit a stray sheepnear Spean Bridge and we ended up ploughing into a ditch. AllI saw was a flash of white wool flying past the window beforewe careered off the road. We scrambled out of the car, whichwas smashed up pretty badly, but were shaken rather than injured.About forty yards up the road, the poor old sheep hadn’t beenso lucky – but that didn’t stop John Flannigan, our driver, givingit a piece of his mind. He was standing over the carcass, callingit all the names under the sun.

Eventually we got a lift through to the game and made it toVictoria Park with twenty minutes to spare. I dashed through toPittodrie afterwards, still in a bit of a daze. My Clach team-mateAlex Chisholm went on trial at the same time, with Celtic’s scoutJohn Kelman also tagging along to take a look at us around thesame time.

I didn’t even have a decent pair of boots to take with me forthe trial, so Clach dipped into their coffers to put that right. Itwas just as Alex Ferguson was really starting to make an impactat the club. He had some big characters in his dressing room,

TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS

11

and for a young lad from the north it was an intimidating envi-ronment to be parachuted into.

The thing that sticks in my mind is how nice John McMasterwas to me – he went out of his way to come and talk to me andgive me encouragement. He didn’t have to do it, but it was a greathelp in settling me in. It’s easy for senior pros to live in a bubbleand let the world revolve around them, but John was a class apart.It was a baptism of fire working with Alex Ferguson and ArchieKnox. There was no question the pair of them were in charge andeven in the week I had with them I knew exactly how big aninfluence they were on everything at Pittodrie.

I trained away for the week and really enjoyed my time, scoringfive in one of the bounce games we played and giving a goodaccount of myself. I went back to Clach on the Saturday but soonenough Alex Ferguson called up the chairman Alistair Chisholmto arrange for me to go down for a second week.

Clach must have been keen to push the deal through becausethey sent a car to take me to the station to catch the train down.I got word that the reserve game I was due to play in had beenpostponed and decided to ditch the train to Aberdeen and headfor home instead. Maybe I should have gone through anywaybut I ducked out of it.

Understandably Mr Ferguson wasn’t too pleased – and I don’tthink my chairman was either. He did his best to smooth thingsover with Aberdeen but when I turned away from the platformthat day the deal was as good as dead.

Being headstrong, I had decided I wasn’t going. I had no cleanclothes with me and needed to go home and get myself togetherbefore I went back. I didn’t think too much about it at the time,but in retrospect I can see why the club decided not to give meanother chance – they obviously thought I was too big for myboots and weren’t going to let me dictate to them. That wasn’tmy intention, but I can see why they saw it that way.

SHEARER WONDERLAND

12

There was a lot of speculation doing the rounds about exactlywhat had happened. I guess a lot of people thought I’d fallenfoul of Fergie and that I’d stepped out of line, but it was nothingof the sort. Just a case of crossed wires and a misunderstandingthat cost me what could have been a golden opportunity.

When I went back in 1992 as a £500,000 player I made a beelinefor Teddy Scott’s room. He’d looked after me when I was downon trial but I knew I could pull his leg, telling him: ‘See Teddy,if you hadn’t decided I wasn’t good enough all those years agoyou could have saved the club a fortune.’ He knew I was windinghim up, but Teddy insisted it was Drew Jarvie, not him, who’dconvinced Sir Alex that I wasn’t up to scratch. I’d actually stayedwith Drew when I was down, he had a guest house on GreatWestern Road in Aberdeen, and I’m pretty sure he would havegiven me a decent reference. Somehow I think Fergie made hisown decisions and he clearly didn’t think I was keen enough,given I’d hardly walked over hot coals when I’d been asked backfor a second week.

It wasn’t arrogance on my part, it was just that I had neverreally seen football as anything more than a hobby. Shinty wasreally my big passion right through my school days. It wasn’tuntil I turned eighteen or nineteen that I really started to takefootball seriously, and even then I never really considered itwould become my livelihood. I’d played with my school teamsand then in the welfare leagues but it was never more than funfor me.

A clutch of guys from in and around Caol had gone on to playprofessionally. Donald Park, a distant cousin of mine, had made aname for himself with Hibs, George Campbell had gone to Aberdeenand Donny Gillies had played for both of the Bristol clubs, but itwasn’t as though there was a senior club on our doorstep. For thesize of the village, as it was then, there was a pretty good successrate of providing players for the professional game.

TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS

13

I’ve often had the debate with Charlie Christie at Caley Thistleabout the reasons behind the success of Fort William in producingplayers compared to Inverness, with its far bigger populationand catchment area. That has turned on its head since RossCounty and Caley Thistle have been in the senior game, butbefore then the players coming out of Inverness and going onto play at the top level were few and far between. There wereexceptions, with Eric Black and Bryan Gunn feeding through toAberdeen and the likes of Billy Urquhart and Kevin McDonaldbeing picked up, but for whatever reason there was a better rateof success over in Fort William. When myself and John McGinlaybroke through to the international team in the 1990s it put theicing on the cake.

Playing for Scotland had never crossed my mind when I wasa wee boy. Kicking a ball around in the park was enough forme. We weren’t far from the shops and if I went for a loaf ofbread I’d go running through the fields with a ball at my feet.

I went to Caol primary school and I’ll always remember theheadmaster, Mr Macleod, telling my mum when I was no morethan ten years old: ‘I’m sorry Mrs Shearer, but I’m afraid yourson’s brains are in his feet.’ Maybe he was right, but it turnedout that all I had to do for the bulk of my working life was signmy name on a contract or two. I let my feet do the hard workfrom the day I got my break with Clach in the Highland Leaguein the late 1970s.

SHEARER WONDERLAND

14

3

THE JOURNEY BEGINS

I’m proud to have been part of the story of one of the biggest,or at least the longest, names in Scottish football: InvernessClachnacuddin. It is perhaps not the most glamorous of clubs,but it was Clach who sent me on the road that took me to somefantastic places in football and I’ll forever be grateful for theeducation I received as a young player at Grant Street Park.

When the club went into administration in 2009 it was a blowfor everyone who has a soft spot for the old Lilywhites. It wasnot the first time the club had been in financial difficulty, butthe real fear was that it might be the last. Clach had been savedbefore but no club has a divine right to survive and the worrywas that the latest setback would be one blow too many.

Fortunately, as had been the case in the past, there was a last-gasp effort to keep the team alive and they were able to moveout of administration and back onto a more stable footing intime for the 2010/11 season. It meant that Inverness retained aplace in Highland League football and that the grand old nameof Clachnacuddin was not lost forever. That was the very realfear this time round and it came very close to the wire before adeal was eventually struck to stave off the creditors and clearthe debts.

It would have been an absolute travesty if Clach were to havedisappeared completely, for the city and for me personally. It’s

15

a difficult thing to explain, but when you go back to an oldground where you played before you get flashbacks to big gamesand important goals. Just standing on the touchline can take youright back to the moment and Grant Street Park holds a lot ofgood memories for me. I hope in twenty years I’m still able togo back there and relive them, but that will depend on a rapidimprovement in fortunes.

There’s a tendency to think that a club cannot just disappear– but it has happened to others and there’s nothing to say itcould not happen to Clach in the future, unless the latest roundof administration serves as a serious wake-up call. It doesn’tmatter how much goodwill there is, it is cold hard cash thatkeeps a team going. Teams are having to become more and morecreative and I don’t envy them one bit – there’s an awful lot ofclubs and organisations, not just in football, competing for a potof money from sponsors that is hardly overflowing at the moment.

The competition for supporters is far more intense now too.People have plenty of choices when it comes to whiling away afew hours on a Saturday afternoon and football, sadly, isn’t atthe top of everyone’s list.

With Caley Thistle offering senior football just down the road,Clach really are up against it. The enclosure – known as the WineShed because the punters would smuggle their bottles in andhide away at the back for a sly drink – used to be packed to therafters. Now you’re lucky if there’s half a dozen in there – if it’seven open. It has been taped off a lot because of worries aboutits safety recently. The old grandstand was sold for developmentafter my time there and there have been plans recently to selloff more of the land around the ground for housing. Slowly it’schanging and being eroded, but that’s football.

The bad times make you appreciate the good all the more andI was fortunate enough to have plenty of those while I was onthe books at Clach. Billy Robertson, who had been a goalkeeper

SHEARER WONDERLAND

16

Designed by stuartpolsondesign.com

Cover photographs © Aberdeen Journals

£7.99www.blackandwhitepublishing.com

PBB 198x129mm17.5mm spine