Dave Mackay: all I wanted all my life was to play for Hearts. And Scotland
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Version 0 of 1. The enduring image of Dave Mackay is one of the most instantly identifiable in football: the one with a firm grasp of Billy Bremner’s shirt and a threatening stare towards the Leeds United captain’s face during a match in 1966. People routinely chuckle when seeing that photograph but Mackay was uncomfortable with the legacy. He felt it portrayed him in an unfair light; as a bullying aggressor rather than what he was, a hard but perfectly fair footballer. Albeit he would never say so himself, the Mackay memories should surround success rather than an isolated flashpoint. In Edinburgh, north London and Derby, the news of Mackay’s death at the age of 80 was met with inevitable sadness. The emotion briskly turned, as supporters of Heart of Midlothian, Tottenham Hotspur and Derby County remembered and recognised the wonderful influence of Mackay in their clubs’ histories. The phrase “you simply don’t get players like that any more” is oft-used and overused but it does literally apply to Mackay. As impressive as his professional talent, though, was the time and courtesy Mackay would offer to anyone who sought to ask about his career in later life. He was a smiling, courteous, thoroughly decent man. Mackay’s love affair with Hearts began long before he was recruited by the club at the age of 16. “Just to get near Tynecastle was a dream,” he said. “I was a Hearts fan all my life; I used to walk the three miles to Tynecastle, go early to get under the turnstile because I couldn’t afford to get in. So when Hearts came along to sign me, I couldn’t believe it. “For as long as I can remember all I wanted in my life, nothing else, was to play for Hearts, which is my dream team. And to play for Scotland. I had no ambition for anything else; always Hearts.” The alliance was to prove mutually beneficial. And some. Mackay was a pivotal, driving midfield presence – or half-back, to place in proper historical context – as Hearts claimed all of Scotland’s domestic honours in a four-year spell. He captained one of the finest Scottish club sides in history, the Hearts team of 1957-58 which took the championship while scoring 132 goals and conceding only 29 in 34 matches. Mackay had been established as a Tynecastle legend. An international career that began at the Bernabéu in 1957 yielded another 21 appearances, including at the World Cup a year later. Little wonder, then, that the Scottish FA described Mackay on Tuesday as an “inspirational pillar”. Mackay always insisted he did not want to leave Hearts, the abiding memory of which was a young man on the platform at Edinburgh Waverley who had been reduced to tears upon hearing why his idol had just boarded a train to London. Mackay started 179 games for Hearts, scoring 29 times and receiving just a single booking. The £32,000 Spurs paid to take him south still ranks as one of their smartest transfers; any reservations the player himself had over a move south at the age of 24 were swiftly dismissed by the success that was to follow. Bill Nicholson praised Mackay as a “key piece” in a team who were quickly transformed from relegation candidates to the finest in England. That much was evident during the 1960-61 season, when Nicholson’s men won the Double. Mackay quickly earned respect across England, partly on account of a terrific recovery from a serious injury that ended careers at that time. George Best branded him his toughest and bravest opponent. Jimmy Greaves, the pin-up boy for the Spurs side Mackay was a part of, called the Scot “the most complete professional footballer I have ever known”. Greaves and Mackay used to win drinks from unsuspecting members of the public by challenging them to bet on who was the shorter. The answer was Mackay by an inch, so anecdotal evidence has it. In 1968, Brian Clough nipped in to prevent Mackay from returning to Hearts, a move that proved just one act of the former’s managerial genius. Another was converting Mackay to a sweeper; he was typically prominent as Derby earned a long-awaited return to the top division in 1969. He left the club in 1971, a year before they became champions of England. In 1975, though, Mackay himself managed Derby to another First Division title. That achievement should not be taken at all lightly; succeeding Clough was an unenviable task, one made tougher by the fact Derby’s players had staged a mutiny about their former manager’s exit. “They are a schoolboys’ XI, not men,” said Mackay of his squad at the time. “I am a man and I like dealing with men, not misguided children. I will fight them to the death.” Clough himself acknowledged the brilliance of what came next. “Mackay came striding in as only a man of his courage and reputation could and was eventually to win Derby another championship,” he wrote in his autobiography. Mackay retained a close link with all his clubs, through attendance at matches and supporters’ functions, until ill health took a toll. Never boastful, always appreciative of adulation, Mackay simply loved the football environment. And what of that photograph? “I’m not a bully and don’t like bullies,” he once said. “He [Bremner] was a brilliant little player but a dirty little bastard. He kicked me in the leg I’d just come back from breaking twice. If he’d kicked the other one, I could have accepted that. But he kicked the broken one, and that really annoyed me. I could’ve killed him that day.” That answer, just like everything Dave Mackay contributed to his game in a bygone and golden age, should still raise a smile today. |