2018: The ones I’ll miss most: John Lambie, for the greatest one liner in Scottish football history and so much much more

In the third in a series of personal articles on sports personalities that passed away in 2018, Prost founder Steve Clare remembers the legendary John Lambie, who played for St Johnstone and Falkirk, before going on to manage Hamilton, Falkirk and Partick Thistle.

I was in Ipswich when I heard the news, lucky to be a guest of former Rangers and England captain Terry Butcher at a game.

“Sad news, a lovely man. A great football man,” is my best recollection of Terry’s counseling words as I began to absorb the news that the man who almost disproved the adage that no-one is bigger than the club, had died.

There’s a fair bet that unlike Cyrille Regis and Eric Bristow, many of you reading will never have heard of John Lambie.

Lambie, the son of a miner and the grandson of a Wishaw provost, was the greatest manager Partick Thistle ever had. Every time he left the club, he rejoined it and turned catastrophe and perhaps on one occasion potential liquidation, into a side rising back to the top division. There he kept the Jags year in and year out on a fraction of the budget of the opposition.

Under Lambie ridicule and derision were not the norm for the Glasgow alternative to the Old Firm, although humour and self-deprecation were never far away.

But despite his well earned reputation for colourful language, he attracted such loyalty from his players that they often traipsed around Scotland from club to club just to play for him.

He also acquired a reputation for bringing out the best in players whose form and attention could often be described as wavering.

Foremost among them was James ‘Chic’ Charnley, probably the best player never to play for Scotland.

Charnley was perhaps one of the most technically gifted players to grace the Scottish club game since the departure of Alan Hansen. Yet that came saddled with an indiscipline that limited his career prospects as he accumulated 17 red cards in his time.

Under Lambie, Charnley flourished in a side that also included Ian Cameron in midfield. Cameron coupled his football with his training to be an accountant, and he was cerebral where Charnley was wild. Lambie got the best out of them both.

The media loved Lambie because, although he took his football very seriously, he did not ever bring an ego to the game. His most famous quip concerns the diminutive striker Colin McGlashan, known as ‘Dibble’ to the fans for his similarity to the Top Cat carton policeman, Officer Dibble.

McGlashan had suffered a head knock and the physio who attended him told Lambie that McGlashan was concussed and didn’t even know who he was.

“Tell him he’s Pele and get him back on,” quipped Lambie.

The quote is so famous that it became the title of a book of the best football quotes ever.

On another occasion, Lambie walked into his post-game press conference looking haggered and weary. On being asked if watching his side’s efforts had caused the stress, he threw the press core a loop, the likes of which you don’t hear anymore:

Although he led Hamilton Academical to the First Division title and promotion to the SPL, his time there is better remembered for knocking Graeme Souness’ millionaire Rangers team including England captain Butcher out of the Scottish Cup at Ibrox.

Adrian Sprott who scored Hamilton’s winner that day said of Lambie:

” He always motivated you, making you believe you were better than you were.

Four of that Hamilton team Kevin McKee, captain Gerry Collins, Albert Craig and substitute Alex Taylor went on to play for Lambie at Thistle.

In fact, Craig may be the best ever example of Lambie getting the most out of an average talent, as the otherwise journeyman midfielder scored 14 goals from midfield in the 1992/93 season in Thistle’s first season back in the Premier League, doing as much as anyone to comfortably stave off the expected relegation. That year Craig was not only Thistle’s top scorer but one of the top scoring midfielders in Britain.

Another of Lambie’s ex-players Roddy Grant knows plenty about being unique.

He has scored against every Scottish club in his career except Brechin City, who even more bizarrely, he once scored an own goal for. He played in Lambie’s best Thistle side during his second of four managerial stints at the club.

Grant recalled his former boss fondly when we spoke to him earlier this week:

“John Lambie was just a pleasure to play for. He really knew how to get the best out of players.

“I remember after beating Albion Rovers in the cup 11-1 he had us in on the Sunday at Ruchill running up the steep hill pulling tractor tyres.

Looking back I’m just pleased to have played for him. Certainly a one off.”

Another former player Danny Lennon told the media at the time of his death:

“John’s fantastic knowledge of football must never be forgotten. You could not win as many promotions and championships as he did without understanding the game and its players.

“He was especially good at building teams and a man of enormous personal integrity. It was a privilege and honour to play for him and be named his captain. He made his players feel ten feet tall.”

Lambie, nicknamed Beano as a child for his love of the comic, was born in Whitburn in West Lothian, ten miles from Falkirk, a club who even competed with Thistle for both Lambie’s services and affections. He has been inducted into the Halls of Fame at both.

He left Thistle for Falkirk in 1995, while he possibly had his best Thistle side ever, even loosely favoured to finish ahead of rival clubs who financially outmatched them.

By the time he returned to the North West Glasgow club, they had fallen into complete disrepair, dropped down two divisions and were going bankrupt with the proceeds of meager attendances forcing fans to collect the players’ wages in buckets outside the stadium.

He saved the Jags from the drop into the bottom tier and then engineered back-to-back promotions to return them to the Premier League where he had left them. On 17 May 2003 he coached his last home game having already guaranteed survival in the SPL once again on a far smaller budget than their competitors.

His legacy as a total football man however was simplistic and didn’t do justice to either the entirety or the complexity of the man.

John Lambie, cigar in hand, in his office at Firhill

Despite his famed use of profanity, Lambie spoke of the importance of his Christian faith in his life. He was better known for his love of pigeons, betting on horses and was a supporter of independence and the Scottish National Party in the days before that was the norm. He actually stood as a candidate for West Lothian Council in the Polkemmet Ward in 1999, ironically losing to a man called Gamble.

There are few men who could claim all that and also lay claim to being the man responsible for putting George Best’s bets on for him when both were at Hibernian.

Lambie’s playing career is less heralded but he did play for the excellent St. Johnstone side of the early 1970’s which reached the League Cup final and qualified for the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. The manager was future Scotland boss Willie Ormond, who finished every team-talk with the considered words: “Roll up your sleeves and get f****d in. The skill will take care o’ itself.”

Charnley allegedly also pushed Lambie’s buttons. The midfielder returned to the dressing room during a half time interval team talk while Lambie was loudly illustrating tactics with salt and pepper cellars. By the time he returned, Lambie has incorporated paper tea and coffee receptacles.

“I didn’t know this was a cup tie,” blipped Charnley – allegedly – and sat down again.

The skill took care of itself and he built a team solidarity that meant men of disparate backgrounds, skill levels and temperaments all showed him great loyalty.

“We used to get called by many opposition players that we were a gang in strips .. we loved that.,” Roddy Grant observed.

“We did not fear anyone. But they feared us.”

Despite the cigars and the swearing, Lambie did manage players of considerable skill like Charnley, Cameron, McGlashan, Geordie Shaw and Grant himself while getting best out of traditional centre halves like Gerry Collins and Willie Jamieson.

John Lambie’s death at the age of 77 took away one of Scotland’s most evocative and colourful characters, and we may not see his likes again.