Blogathon: Gordon Smith and why we're here today

Welcome one and all. The first post in the Scottish Football Blog's 24 hour blogathon. Enjoy.

A perfect starting point, then, suggested by the Twitter fixture that is @steakheed

This might seem like a bit of a cheat. People who read this blog will know I don't shy from a spot of Hibernian navel gazing.

Nor am I shy to hark on about the good old days when footballers were men and Scottish football wasn't in a perpetual state of crisis.

But Gordon Smith's story is one worthy of a thousand retellings. And it's a Boy's Own adventure that ends with heartbreaking resonance for the whole idea behind this blogathon experiment.

The beginning: a teenage phenomenon is living in Montrose and has become one of Scotland's most sought after young talents.

He impresses playing against an Edinburgh select. Hearts want to sign him, think they will sign him but they want him to play in a trial.

Hibs act quickly, decisively. He's signed for Hibs and, on the day of his signing, makes his debut.

Against Hearts at Tynecastle.

Wearing borrowed boots that are too small for him he scores a hat-trick.

And so the legend begins.

Spending his early career in the centre forward role he becomes the main man at Hibs.

Moving to the wing he becomes the jewel in the crown of the Famous Five team that won three league championship and, for a brief and shining moment, became Scottish football's irresistible, dominant force.

Gordon Smith became Scotland's first footballing superstar. Handsome, shy, complex. Women wanted to be with him, men wanted to be him.

He became friendly with Matt Busby, Stanley Matthews, the golfer Bobby Jones, film stars and musicians.

He holidayed in the south of France, was coveted by teams in England, Italy and Brazil.

He drove a sports car, dabbled in stock and shares and on one occasion got a £500 bonus in his weekly pay packet.

This guy stood out from the crowd.

As the powers of that Hibs team waned - Bobby Johnstone the first of the Five to leave the club - they remained a force enough to make the semi-final of the first ever European Cup.

Then an injury. Another leg break.

Hibs decided their thoroughbred was fit for the knacker's yard.

The press camped outside Smith's home in Edinburgh's Willowbrae.

Where would he go next?

Not far.

Hearts finally landed their man. A city switch involving one of the best players either Edinburgh team had ever produced.

Controversy? Yes. But nothing outrageous. It kinds of puts the twisting of knickers over a Michael Stewart or a Billy Brown into perspective.

Whose instinct would be proved right? Had Hibs got rid at the right time? Were Hearts signing the player or the legend?

Hearts won this one.

The league championship was brought back to Tynecastle. And Gordon Smith was an integral part of the team.

A second appearance in the European Cup followed.

Then the Hearts team began to disintegrate and Smith found he wasn't enjoying his football quite as much.

What next?

Dundee. A training regime and a relationship with the club and with manager Bob Shankly that suited a veteran.

And a young player called Alan Gilzean who would provide the perfect foil for his skills.

More success. Dundee won the league.

Another European Cup appearance.

Dundee beat FC Koln 8-5 on aggregate after a the first leg at home produced a Gilzean hat-trick and a goal for Gordon Smith.

Sporting next. A 1-0 defeat in Portugal. A 4-1 win - another Gilzean hat-trick - gets the job done.

To Belgium. Anderlecht are beaten 4-1. In the home leg a Smith goal seals a 2-1 win and a 6-2 aggregate victory.

A semi-final against AC Milan is a bridge too far. A 1-0 home win (Gilzean again) can't overcome the damage of a 5-1 defeat in Italy. An exit to the eventual winners.

Five league championships with three clubs. Three European Cup appearances with Scottish clubs.

And not an Old Firm team in sight.

Beat that. Not that anyone will.

The greatest individual achievement in the history of Scottish league football. That was the verdict of the great Bob Crampsey: and he would know.

A retirement out of the public eye. Smith was a private man and I get the impression he might not have been universally popular throughout the Scottish game - too good, too rich, too quiet, too handsome.

But he was lost to the game when maybe he could have offered so much. Maybe that was his choice, maybe it was an opportunity that we lost.

More than that though, I think his achievements have been forgotten. We celebrate less decorated players, less talented players more than we celebrate Smith. The consequence, perhaps, of flourishing in the pre-television age.

A recent biography written by Smith's Tony helps redress that.

It also provides a moving insight into why Gordon Smith is the perfect place to start a blogathon that is raising funds for Alzheimer Scotland.

The footballer of the 40s, 50s and 60s with the matinee-idol looks and the wardrobe and fast car to match suffered from dementia in his later year.

The books contains an honest, candid account of his descent.

The cruelty of the helplessness of the sufferer at the beginning when he is aware that something is wrong.

The helplessness that loved ones - so often thrust into the unfamiliar, unexpected role of carer - feel when faced with dementia taking hold of a family member.

All this is often not spoken about. People outside families often don't know how to cope so they ignore the problem, old friends disappear.

Too often dementia for both the sufferer and those close to them is something that's faced in a lonely isolation.

Alzheimer Scotland's work combats that.

There's also a moment in the book that shows the power of Alzheimer Scotland's Football Memories project.

Gordon Smith, the dashing prince of Scottish football, spent his 80th birthday in a care home.

During a family celebration a football was produced. Smith, who may not have known what was happening to him or where he was, immediately became enthused.

He could, amazingly, still head the football back when it was thrown in the air. Football can do that. And the Football Memories project can help.

That resonated with me. I had a similar experience with my own grandfather on his 80th birthday. He was a musician. When we played a tape of some old Glenn Miller music he managed to get up off his chair and, of his own accord, started to dance with my gran.

The emotion of that moment will live with me for a long time. A brief glimpse of the real character amid the destructive grip of a horrible illness.

So Gordon Smith: footballing legend and just one example of why dementia is so heartbreaking.

And for Gordon Smith, my grandad and thousands of others - I hope today's blogathon can raise some money to support the work of a charity that really does care.

Click here to make a donation to Homeless World Cup or Alzheimer Scotland - your help is really appreciated

Donate to the blogathon's Homeless World Cup fund by text: just text DXVR87 and the amount you want to donate to 70070

Donate to the blogathon's Alzheimer Scotland fund by text: just text APJB49 and the amount you want to donate to 70070

Join the blogathon on Twitter: #fitbablether

Champions League Test

Roped once more into acting as question setter as a local hostelry puts on a themed quiz.

Tonight's theme is Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

No, I jest.

It's the Champions League as Barcelona and Manchester United go head to head in the final.

15 questions on each team. I think this one is a bit easy but see how you get on.

Want to do it for real?

Send in your answers.

Top entry received by next Saturday at noon will win a second hand copy of Martin Waddell's Napper Goes for Goal.

Cosmic.

Manchester United

1. Who did Manchester United beat in the semi final of the 1968 European Cup?

2. United beat Benfica in the 1968 European Cup final, at what stadium was the game played?

3. Who finished this season as Manchester United's top scorer in the league?

4. Sir Matt Busby only played for one professional side in Scotland, who were they?

5. Who scored the goals when Manchester United won the 1999 Champions League?

6. How many English league titles have United won since Alex Ferguson became manager?

7. What was the aggregate score in Manchester United's semi-final over Schalke this season?

8. Jim Leighton was dropped before the 1990 FA Cup replay. Which goalkeeper replaced him?

9. Who is Manchester United's top scorer in this season's Champions League?

10. In 1966 George Best scored two goals in a European Cup quarter final match against which team?

11. Which player has been Manchester United's first choice captain this season?

12. In what season did Ryan Giggs make his Manchester United debut?

13. Ryan Giggs has made more appearances for Manchester United than any other player. Which player has made the second most appearances for the club?

14. Which famous United striker missed out on the 1968 European Cup final with a knee injury?

15. Who scored United's goal in the 2008 Champions League final against Chelsea?

Barcelona

1. Which Barcelona player is this season's top scorer in the Champions League?

2. Barcelona won their first European Cup in 1992. Who was their manager?

3. At which stadium did Barcelona win their first European Cup in 1992?

4. Including this year, how many Spanish league titles have Barcelona won in a row?

5. Two of Barcelona's current squad have made over 500 appearances for the club. Name them.

6. In 2009 Barcelona broke their transfer record to sign which player?

7. Barcelona played Hibs in the 1960/61 Fairs Cup. What was the aggregate score?

8. In final of the 2008/09 Champions League Barcelona beat Manchester United 2-0. Which players scored the goals?

9. Which club are Barcelona's local derby rivals?

10. Who was the last English manager of Barcelona?

11. In 1986 Barcelona signed which Manchester United player?

12. Which current Barcelona defender began his professional career at Manchester United?

13. Who did current boss Pep Guardiola replace as Barcelona manager?

14. What nationality is Barcelona full back Dani Alves?

15. Lionel Messi has made 54 appearances in all competitions for Barcelona this season. How many goals has he scored so far?

Champions League: Manchester United v Barcelona

The Champions League.

The tournament that best sums up all that is wrong about European club football. A grotesquely bloated monument to football's greed, its fiscal deities.

Yet still oddly compelling.

And tonight it reaches its climax. Wembley plays hosts to an unfettered orgy celebrating UEFA's money making fetish.

But also, we hope, a memorable game of football.

We have the favourites, Barcelona, considered by some to be the greatest club team ever to play the game, perhaps even thought of as the natural holders of this trophy.

And we have Manchester United. The worst United side for years we've been told. In Alex Ferguson an emperor whose wardrobe was not so much in transition as empty. How he's revelled in that nakedness.

A nineteenth English league title delivered with a nine point cushion. And a third Champions League final in four years. It's certainly a different way to measure footballing inferiority.

It's clear though that United have lacked fluidity, perhaps missed the je ne sais quoi of the real greats, at times this season.

We've seen that in both results and in Ferguson's continued retreats into the siege mentality tricks that have served him so well through years.

Pretty? Not always. Effective? 19 titles tell their own story.

A word here on Ferguson and the press. Does he treat the BBC well? No. Was he at his petulant, bullying worst when caught suggesting a journalist should be denied access to a future press conference after having temerity to mention Ryan Giggs? Yes.

Does any of this help Ferguson's image? Absolutely not. For a man to have achieved so much and still indulge in such pettiness is a shame, even if much of the hysterical outrage it provokes is engineered by people who just don't like United.

Don't let the press skip lightly off the hook though. They play Ferguson's game because too many football journalists have been reduced to filling the role of the simple inhouse scribe to the game's 24 hour media circus.

Argue, provoke or, in some cases, have the temerity to tell the truth and access will be denied. And access is all.

It's not a healthy relationship and it doesn't lead to great journalism. But Ferguson's behaviour is a symptom of that environment not its cause.

I read somewhere the other day that to deny a journalist access to a press conference would be to deny us, the people, the chance to get close to the game, to cut off a valuable source of information that the fans need.

Really? If these endless press conferences were so important then Ian Holloway's comedy routine, a routine that would play to empty houses in the worst sort of Edinburgh Fringe venue, wouldn't have been siezed upon as a highlight of each English Premier League week this season.

Football has very skillfully set its own agenda by constantly feeding the press what it wants them to hear. In turn the media have become convinced that we demand that their role is simply to play the middleman in a great conversation between "football" and the fans. They are terrified that access will be cut off. And that makes them even less likely to properly question what they are being told.

It's an open goal for football. Ferguson simply chooses to fill his boots.

Anyways, back to the game this evening.

Barcelona are favourites. Many predictions seem to consider a Barcelona win a foregone conclusion.

Understandable really. Here's one of the game's biggest clubs so often reminding us of what joy football can bring.

The majesty of this season's 5-0 defeat of Real Madrid will live long. So sustained is their excellence that there is a risk we will begin to take it for granted. We shouldn't. Teams like this don't come along very often. We should savour every moment.

In Lionel Messi Barcelona have a devastating weapon. His semi final goal at the Bernabeu proved that he can rise above his surrounds. That night he lit up a game so unpleasant to watch it had me longing for the delights of Alex Miller's Hibs team of the 1986/87 season.

That game also highlighted one of the problems Manchester United face. Barcelona are not such purists that they can resist being sucked into a war of attrition.

But even if you try to drag them down they have brilliance enough at their disposal to find the fleeting moment of devastating quality that will pull them free.

What Ferguson chooses to do with a problem like Messi is one of the big questions ahead of the game. Man mark him? Who wants that job?

I heard an intriguing theory based on the 1966 World Cup final when Alf Ramsay sacrificed Bobby Charlton's attacking threat and got him to shadow Franz Beckenbaeur. Step forward Wayne Rooney to do the same this evening?

It would be something to watch. But surely there is not parity enough between these two sides for Ferguson to give up on the hope that this is the final where Rooney can make his own indelible mark.

Darren Fletcher might be another contender. However well he would be suited to tracking Messi for 90 minutes or 120 minutes, this might not be Fletcher's time. The virus he has struggled to shake off has left him short of match time and, judging by his appearance last weekend, worryingly thin.

Ferguson would love Fletcher to play but it looks like such a decision would be based on sentiment and hope rather than any real confidence that he could perform to his best so soon after returning.

So the Messi problem offers an interesting chance to play the often fruitless game of trying to second guess Alex Ferguson. The manager has said, in a tone which I like to imagine hinted at Marlon Brando in The Godfather, that there is always a way to stop even the very best from performing.

But Messi has the talent to overcome even the sternest obstacle. And silencing his genius is unlikely to be enough to muffle the threat of teammates who are hardly cowed into walking in the Argentinian's shadow.

If Messi ever wonders which players are close to him at the top of the game he can just have a glance round at training. Andres Iniesta and Xavi joined him in the top three at the Ballon d'Or awards.

Everywhere you look United are faced with mountains to climb to reach the promised land.

It's impossible though to deny the stubborn resilience they've shown this season. And they are not without threats of their own. Guile in midfield, the electric Javier Hernandez, the talent of Rooney. And that work ethic.

Pep Guardiola has shown himself to be too canny to consider this one a done deal.

But it is Guardiola who has to be the favourite to repeat his trick of 2009 and get the better of Alex Ferguson.

Still a cautionary note must remain. Ferguson's career is full of moments when his teams shouldn't have pulled off this, were unable to win that.

He's got a terrible habit of delivering his greatest coups when they look most unlikely.

EuroChampsChallenge Festival of Football

Jump in the car at Celtic Park and arrive two weeks later at Wembley. Along the way visit 20 cities and 21 football clubs in 10 different countries.

And, inspired by a seven year old boy, try and raise £100,000 for charity.

21 football clubs? The 21 winners of the European Cup.

That's the challenge Robin Blacklock set himself. Next Sunday the quest will begin. Joined by three friends on every stage of the journey - 16 countries will be traversed in a car provided by Ford - the team hope to meet a 'Medallion Man' at each club.

That's European Cup winning players. Names like Jim Craig. Like Gerd Muller.

It's a road trip reimagined as a whistle stop tour of modern European football.

Robin's EuroChampsChallenge was inspired by his son Angus.

Angus was born two weeks early with only one ear. That condition, microtia, also affected his mouth and speech.

At the age of seven Angus has undergone over 15 operations. Undergone them with a stoic cheeriness and a love of football.

It's his bravery that will be honoured by the money raised with the Sick Kids Friends’ Foundation and Changing Faces the nominated charities.

The Sick Kids Friends' Foundation supports Edinburgh's redoubtable children's hospital. Changing Faces supports people in the UK with disfigurements to the face, hand or body.

Robin has struck on a unique way of helping two very deserving causes.

Yesterday in East Lothian a Festival of Football was held, giving Robin's home village of Aberlady the chance to give the EuroChampsChallenge team a huge send off.

Hundreds of local youngsters, representing teams from across the county, were involved. I'm pleased to say that the boys did so with a talent that I rarely displayed on the same playing fields a couple of decades ago. So did the girls.

There were also a number of local footballing deities on show. In a legends bounce game Paul Kane looked fat, Keith Wright looked knackered, John Hughes looked to have reinvented himself as a libero, John Collins looked like he could still play in the SPL.

And Colin Nish was there as well.

A great day that hopefully raised more cash towards that £100,000 target.

A fun, relaxed, family day. Don't say nothing positive can come from football.

And I even got my picture taken with the European Cup.

Robin and the team begin their quest next Sunday. Good luck.

Visit EuroChampsChallenge to lend your support.

Or just get your phone out:

Text to donate £3: text "CHAMPS" to 70003 (Text Costs £3 plus network charge. Sick Kids Friends Foundation on behalf of EuroChampsChallenge receives at least £2.67, shared equally with Changing Faces. Obtain bill payers permission. Customer care 08448479800. Charity No CR44723.)

Real classic

A bit late with this one - it was 50 years ago today that Real Madrid taught the world to play. Well, not quite.

But 50 years to the day since Real Madrid beat Eintracht Frankfurt 7-3 in what is still regarded as the definitive European Cup final.

At Hampden of course. Where else?

Would it be particularly Scottish to point out that the most famous, celebrated game to be played out at our footballing citadel didn't involve one Scottish player? Possibly. So I won't.

No one who was there will forget the 1960 European Cup final between Real Madrid and Eintracht Frankfurt.

Today is the 50th anniversary of that iconic match, a breathtaking 7-3 triumph for Real that moved a generation of Scots. In what many describe as the greatest game played, Ferenc Puskas scored four, Alfredo Di Stefano three, and a crowd of 127,620, almost all natives, stayed behind for an hour after the final whistle in recognition of what they had seen.

Alex Ferguson, Andy Roxburgh, the entire Celtic team, many of whom would go on to become Lisbon Lions: all would later admit that the glistening spectacle of pristine white on the emerald Hampden turf made a big impression. The Times