In Search of Alan Gilzean

FIRST off, Alan Gilzean played his entire career before I was born and while YouTube had a few videos for me to watch, I start this book review having seen very little and know much about Alan Gilzean’s career, either for Dundee or Tottenham Hotspur.

Therefore I start James Morgan’s book, the first from BackPage Press, a little blind but full of optimism – this was somebody who is in both Dundee’s and Scotland’s Hall of Fame, won a Scottish League championship with Dundee, played in four domestic finals, winning three and played in two UEFA Cup finals, winning one and losing the other in what turned out to be his last game as a professional footballer.

Gilzean scored over 300 goals in his career, in just over 600 games and was capped 22 times by Scotland, scoring 12 goals in the process – this is definitely a player of pedigree, so I am looking forward to the book and reading about his career as everything should be new to me!

The title of the book is quickly understood as you start the first chapter when James Morgan, a lifelong Tottenham Hotspur fan, recalls how he got the idea for the book and how he choose his subject – his dad idolised Gilzean as a player.

Morgan then writes about how he tried to find out if internet rumours of Gilzean’s demise were true, before getting a break from a fellow journalist, which leads to a visit to Coupar Angus, where Gilzean grew up, from his birth in 1938.

The story continues as Morgan meets old friends, school teachers, scout leaders, former teammates, neighbours, and random strangers in pubs, while taking us on a whistle-stop tour of Coupar Angus and starts to piece together the early parts of Gilzean’s life – including his school days, meeting his future wife, and his National Service as a clerk in Aldershot.

As chapter three starts, the book starts to turn towards Gillie’s professional football career, from his debut at Dundee (his local team but he grew up a Hibernian fan), to the start of the building of the championship team in 1962 – Morgan meets some of Gilzean’s former Dundee teammates, stars of the 1962 team and starts to outline his main goal, other than the book, which is to have Gilzean inducted into the Scottish Football Association’s Hall of Fame.

Gilzean had just been inducted (in 2009 when the book was started) into Dundee’s Hall of Fame but his son Ian picked up the award, citing an illness as the reason his father did not attend, and as Morgan starts to meet the old Dundee players, it becomes obvious that nobody has seen him since 2006 despite him previously attending frequent events before that.

The 1961-62 League championship season is described in the subsequent chapter, through match reports from various sources, old newspapers and again Gilzean’s teammates – still no Gilzean himself and the title of the book comes into play again, over a quarter of the book has gone and no main star – but this in itself does not detract from the book nor the story. Gilzean is there through well researched extracts from various journals and books, the interviews with friends which makes you realise that the book is also a showcase for Morgan’s journalistic skills and not your ordinary autobiography style football book.

Morgan has the bit between his teeth, travelling the length and breadth of the country to discuss his goal with everybody he can and is starting to piece together Gilzean’s life and career, in a very intriguing way.

The chapter that follows is focused on Dundee’s run to the semi final of the 1962-63 European Cup, in which they lost to eventual winners AC Milan, a run in which Dundee won every home game.

Dundee beat Cologne (rumoured to be one of the favourites for the trophy that season) 8-1 at Dens Park in the Preliminary Round, losing 4-0 in Germany but easily going through; then beat Sporting Lisbon 4-1 at Dens having lost away in Portugal; next up was Anderlecht, who had put out Real Madrid along the way, and Dundee beat them home and away!

Dundee were beaten 5-1 away in Milan in the first leg of the semi final so were always up against it, in the return leg at Dens, Gilzean featured highly, scoring the only goal of the game and also being sent off – Gilzean would eventually win a European trophy with Tottenham but this chapter is a fascinating insight into what is probably Dundee’s finest moment in European football.

The subsequent chapter almost skips over the fact that in the following season, 1963-64, Gilzean scored a then record 52 goals, a record that stood in Scotland for 39 years, and instead focuses on the protracted move away from Dundee the following season – that started in the June and ran on for months before finally the (then record between teams in Scotland and England) £72,500 transfer to Tottenham Hotspur went through.

Gilzean is still Dundee’s record league goalscorer and left scoring 169 goals in 190 games, a record that any forward would be proud of – especially in the top division – although he did leave Dundee under a slight cloud after handing in a transfer request, it would appear from the book that he will always be remembered fondly by both former teammates and fans.

The next few chapters take in the first few seasons of Gilzean’s Tottenham career in the same style as previously in the book – through interviews with former teammates and various newspaper reports, again this works really well as they are all talking about one man and the same sentiment about Gilzean shines through – great player and a great person.

Now two-thirds of the way through the book and Morgan still hasn’t found the illusive Gilzean, he has spoken to some of his own (and his Dad’s) boyhood heroes and some legends from north and south of the border – but not the one he wants to.

The book is a twist on the usual autobiography or ghost written football books, as it is really not just an advert for after dinner speaking events or funny anecdotes from his career – this is a heartfelt search by a fan and journalist and a lot of recollection by former players and friends – you can feel it rising like a crescendo, as each player Morgan talks to is surprised by lack of knowledge about where Gilzean is (although most of them are not surprised he’s now living the life of a recluse) and why he has suddenly disappeared from the social scene.

One phone call during a chat with another player to Alan Brazil, who is rumoured to be in touch with Gilzean, gives Morgan an answer – no!

This doesn’t put Morgan off and you start to get carried away with the search yourself – not because the book is fantastically written (not that it’s not either!) but mainly because you are committed by this stage and really want to know how it ends (even if you already do!).

So, despite this setback, the book moves onto Gilzean’s twilight of his Tottenham career, covering the trophy wins (FA Cup, two League Cups, UEFA Cup) and then the subsequent short-lived spell in South Africa and a similar short career as a manager with the, then non league, Stevenage Athletic.

At the end of his career, the statistics don’t tell lies – his final numbers for Tottenham were 439 games and 133 goals and including his Dundee numbers that’s 629 games and 302 goals in the top divisions both sides of the border, throw in the 12 goals in (only) 22 caps for Scotland – and you can tell that the man was a forward of some prowess, yet not widely recognised outside of fans of Dundee and Tottenham.

The book concludes with a final chapter that completes the book nicely and is well worth the 200+ pages that come before it – one in which Morgan explains the main reason for wanting to write the book and the motivations behind it – to highlight a slightly forgotten man and player.

As mentioned several times before, it’s a really good twist on the usual football book and a great insight into a player (and an era) that I know little about, as it happened before I was born – I also think that James Morgan comes across in the book as a dedicated journalist (as well as a dedicated Tottenham fan!) and it’s neatly written, well paced and keeps you interested from the first page to the last.

Degsy Rating: 9 out of 10

You can buy In search of Alan Gilzean from all good bookshops, Amazon.co.uk or via publishers Backpage Press directly for £9.99

Written by Derek Harvie