A Proper Photo

It’s the 23rd of December 2016 and I’m on my works end of term Christmas night out. There’s about a dozen of us squeezed into a couple of tables in the Phoenix and in amongst trying to listen to umpteen conversations at the same time I look up and notice someone sitting across the packed pub. To everyone else in my group it’s just a normal looking guy in his late 50’s. Someone notices me looking across and I’m a bit star struck.  

“Who’s that Scott?”

“That’s John Holt. He’s a Dundee United legend.”

“He was a footballer?”

“Yeah, he played when we won the league. Great player. Hang on… there’s a photo.”

“Are you sure that’s him? Where’s his moustache?”

“You should go and ask him for a photo.”

“Na, he’s in company.”

“Ach go on, I’ll come with you and take the picture.”  

“I don’t know…”

After about half an hour of humming and hawing I worked up the courage to slowly go across the busy pub to ask for a photo. Why was I so nervous? Well basically not wanting to embarrass John. I had a long history of either embarrassing myself or getting embarrassed when meeting United legends. There was the time my dad was talking to Paul Sturrock when I was about 7 or 8 and I went from being in total awe at meeting my absolute footballing idol to wanting the earth to open up and swallow me when my mum came across and said, “Look Scott, it’s Paul Hegarty.” An absolute minter of epic proportions as Luggy laughed and asked if Heggy was my favourite United player and I couldn’t answer because I was dying of embarrassment with a massive beamer.

There was the time a few years later when I was a ball boy at a United reserve game against Rangers (a big deal in those days) and I got a telling off from Jim McLean for speaking to Charlie Adam Snr. He was a great guy who I had known through my dad’s time at Downfield Juniors when he should have been warming up. Getting a bollocking off Wee Jim when you are an adult must have been scary enough but getting it when you are 11 is the stuff of nightmares.

There was the time Dave Bowman was a guest at a sportsman’s dinner I attended and the 16-year-old me having sunk more than a few pints asked a question to Psycho that degenerated into a rant about how crap United had been that season (we were on the brink of relegation) and how our signings had been a disgrace. Ranting at the arguably the scariest man ever to grace a football pitch. Looking back, what the hell was I thinking about? And you know what, Bo agreed with everything I said.

Finally, there was the time when I was coaching the younger boys’ team at a BB football game at Ardler as part of my Queens Badge work. I was under strict instructions to make sure everyone got a game with rolling subs even the best players. Of course, just as I was substituting one young lad who was particularly good (and looked familiar) he complained to his dad who had just turned up. I turned around getting ready to stick up for myself only to realise that the laddie’s dad was Dave Narey!

I don’t go out to embarrass myself honest. In fact, as a kid I would sometimes think about what it would be like to meet my heroes. And my goodness these guys are heroes. I can shut my eyes and still picture Tannadice in the 1980s. The sights, the sounds, the smells (Bovril, pies, tobacco). How packed it always seemed. The steep incline on the North terracing and how looking back now, how dangerous it could be if someone dropped their pie, and the steps were covered in grease! But most of all I can still remember the feeling watching that United team. You felt they were invincible and had the beating of everyone they faced in Scotland and abroad. The football was much more exciting then as well. I was lucky in one way that I kept seeing us win and rattling in a lot of goals whenever I went but, I was unlucky in another way because I didn’t get that often in the mid to late 1980’s because of my dad playing Junior football. When he did take me though it always felt special. We’d always get to the first home game of the season (due to the Junior season starting a bit later in those days), we’d get to evening kick offs and best of all, we’d get to European nights. It’s just mad to think that in modern terms we’d have been a team that was competing with teams who today would be in the Champions League, or the latter stages of the Europa League.

I was honest with Steve Finan when he asked me to contribute to this book that because of my age, my specific memories of John as a player are limited. When you were kid in those days you tended to idolise Paul Sturrock, Eammon Bannon or Ralph Milne given that they were the ones rattling in goal after goal in the games you watched. However, I do remember him playing against Barcelona in the Nou Camp and against Borussia Monchengladbach away and being outstanding in both. In the midst of the total pandemonium in my living room I broke my toe jumping over the armchair in my living room with excitement when Ian Ferguson scored against Barcelona. However, the 1987 semi-final away leg will never be beaten for me as a United supporter (all furniture was moved for this one). The complete performance in both defence and attack and John was man of the match once again.

John was a player who could play at both right back and in midfield equally effectively. In fact, when you rewatch videos of our games from back then you actually notice that United’s formation was often difficult to actually pin down with players like Holt, Narey, Gough and Malpas playing in a variety of different positions, with formations that almost look bespoke depending on the opposition. John like all these guys, never looks out of place, not just a great tackler, but someone who could play a bit, had great positional sense and a clear understanding of his role in the team. How much would managers pay for that kind of player now I wonder? He’d be out of Mark Ogren’s price range I suspect (although, I’d be tempted to ask if John fancies making a comeback in United’s midfield given how powder-puff we’ve looked in that area this season). Wee Jim didn’t make many mistakes, but he let John go a couple of years too early and I reckon we’d have had a better chance in the 1988 Scottish Cup Final had he still been there at right back. Most of our problems that day came from Celtic attacking down their left-hand side and I’ve no doubt the lack of a specialist right back cost us.

Ironically, my best memories of him were actually when he played for Dunfermline and seeing him on Scotsport giving a man of the match performance against Rangers in the 1988 Scottish Cup in what a good mate of mine who is a Pars fan describes as their best performance and result of the modern era. John played at the back and was outstanding against a team full of England and Scotland internationalists. It tells you something about how appreciated these players were because an older Raith fan I used to travel to teaching college with also used to gush about Dave Narey as well saying he was the best player he’d ever seen play for Raith Rovers and specifically how Raith would never have beaten Celtic in the League Cup Final if Narey hadn’t been playing that day. It just shows you, two United players of our greatest era, go to other clubs and provide performances that rank in the best in their history. I used to say to these guys that we got to see that every week for years at United.

Did I get my photo taken with him that day? I sure did. A proper photo too, I hate selfies. And I needn’t have worried because he was an absolute gentleman about it. We live in an age where football’s stars seem distant with headphones on, ignoring fans when they arrive at stadiums. However, John, like all the other United players who I have met from that era was humble and couldn’t have been more accommodating (including Paul Hegarty who I met at hospitality a few years ago, the real Paul Hegarty) even if I was either a bag or nerves or half cut or bright red from my mum saying something daft like, “Who’s this, Billy Kirkwood?” or something. Have a great night John, you deserve it.

Thanks to Steve Finan for asking me to contribute, if there's any copies of the book left, get in touch and get one, you won't be disappointed trust me.

Have a great Christmas folks and lets make sure we fucking stay up eh United, if yesterdays fight against Hearts can be replicated then we can certainly do it🎄❤️