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.

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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:

2018: The ones I’ll miss most: Eric Bristow – the Crafty Cockney