Gary Newbon: Legendary Mackay swept all before him in Midlands

-Credit: (Image: PA)
-Credit: (Image: PA)


David Pleat, one of the best judges of young footballers that I know, rates the Tottenham Hotspur team that achieved the Football League and FA Cup double in 1960-61 as the best team he has seen.

He says you cannot compare eras. Pleat is two months older than me – I am March 1945 and he is January of that year. So we were both 15/16 watching that team.

I was at boarding school in Suffolk but used to spend Saturdays in my holidays traveling by train from my home city of Cambridge to the Northumberland Park station and then a short walk to the old White Hart Lane station to watch this team in all their glory.

No warm-up sessions in those days. The first you saw of them was six or so minutes before kick-off when they would emerge from the dressing rooms for a short pre-match kickaround.

My young eyes were always focused on the tough wing-half Dave Mackay who would protect his fellow wing-half and captain Danny Blanchflower in the days before stricter refereeing.

Little did I know that some eight years later I would be handling the Spurs end of Mackay’s transfer, or that in the years that followed I would be covering his time as the winning manager of Football League Champions Derby County in 1975 and then later covering Star Soccer matches when he was manager of Walsall.

Always helpful, always social and always great company, Mackay was born in Edinburgh in 1934 and died in Nottingham in 2015, aged 80. He was 5ft 8ins tall and played left half until Brian Clough converted him to a sweeper at Derby.

He won 22 caps for his native Scotland from 1957-65.

He began his playing days with his local club Heart of Midlothian in 1953. He had been a supporter of the club when growing up. He soon proved his qualities – strong in the tackle, very fit and excellent skills with the ball. They will always be my memories of Mackay at Spurs.

He won seven trophies over nine seasons at Hearts and played in the third of Scotland’s three games at the 1958 World Cup finals in Sweden.

Hearts accepted Tottenham’s offer of £32,000. Mackay was 24 and moved to the London club in March 1959, making a major contribution to that double-winning team.

His honours at Spurs were the Football League Championship in 1961; three FA Cups in the ‘60s, and the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1963.

At the start of the 1968-9 season (a few months before I joined ITV), I was working for Hayters Sports Agency, based near Fleet Street.

The legendary Spurs manager Bill Nicholson had accepted an offer from Brian Clough for Mackay, who was then 33 years old. I was sent to meet Nicholson to cover the story.

Clough and his assistant Peter Taylor wanted Mackay’s skill, leadership and influence and played him in the effective role of sweeper.

In Mackay’s first season at the Baseball Ground, the club were promoted to the top division and Mackay was voted as the Football Writers’ Footballer Of The Year, albeit jointly with Manchester City’s Tony Book.

His sweeper role encouraged Derby’s passing game, of quickly turning defence into attack.

The Football Writers’ Association invites former winners to its annual awards dinner. Few attend these days, but it was different in Mackay’s day, and I used to see him regularly at this event.

He left Derby the season before they won the First Division title and the year before I arrived in the Midlands at ATV. He left for Swindon where he had one season as player-manager before retiring as a player.

He left to manage Nottingham Forest until October 1973 then became Derby boss following the resignation of Brian Clough.

In Mackay’s first season there as manager, the club finished third before winning the title in his second season, 1974-75.

It was good fun covering Derby with Mackay and his assistant Des Anderson in charge. I was lucky having Clough and Taylor before the Mackay era.

The next season saw the Rams finish fourth in the league; reach the semi-final of the FA Cup and the second round of the European Cup, losing to Real Madrid.

Mackay was sacked in November 1976 after a poor start to that season. It was ever thus with clubs and managers!

He then had a short 17-month spell at Walsall before managing several clubs in the Middle East.

In between, he took charge of Doncaster and Birmingham City – the latter in 1989.

The Blues has been relegated to the third level for the first time in their history and Mackay’s job at St Andrew’s was to get them back up.

He failed and resigned two years later, joining Zamalek SC of Cairo where he twice won the Egyptian Premier League.

You often get reminders of nostalgic, ironic photographs. One such was from 1966 when Mackay was snapped in an on-field clash with Leeds United player Billy Bremner, as Mackay grabbed Bremner’s shirt in anger, his face contorted.

I will recall my dealings with Mackay as a great bloke, good fun to be with over a drink, a successful player and manager at Derby County and an absolute playing legend at Tottenham Hotspur.

A reminder that my Tuesday comment column with Utilita Energy appears in both the Birmingham Mail and Coventry Telegraph.