John "Jock" Stein CBE was born on the 5th October 1922 in Burnbank, South Lanarkshire. Born into a community where the majority of men worked in the pits, Jock used football as a way to escape a hard existence at the coalface.
He left Hamilton’s Greenfield School in 1937 and after a short period working in a carpet factory he followed his father down the pits to become a miner. A year later he joined Blantyre Victoria Junior Football Club before moving onto Albion Rovers as a professional in 1942. He continued to work as a miner throughout this time.
He made his name as a no-nonsense hard tackling centre half during his time at Rovers. A brief loan spell at Dundee United punctuated his7 seasons at the club. Jock made over 200 appearances for Rovers, helping them gain promotion to the First Division in 1948.
In 1950 Jock became a full time professional footballer when he signed for Welsh non-league team Llanelli Town. The lure of the £12 a week wage was enough to lure Jock away from his wife and young daughter, but a series of burglaries at his Lanarkshire home made his mind up that a return to Scotland was necessary.
In 1951, Celtic reserve team trainer Jimmy Gribben recommended the 29-year-old no-nonsense defender with unprecedented leadership and organisational skills to then chairman Sir Robert Kelly, and a fee of £1200 was Llanelli’s compensation.
In a twist of fate, Stein was elevated from the ranks of the reserve team in which he was signed to represent into the first team proper. Injuries to the likes of Captain Sean Fallon led to the armband being passed to Stein. Stein never gave up the captaincy of Celtic until he retired due to injury in 1956.
Celtic with Stein as captain met with limited success, after a lean spell that had not seen Celtic fly a championship flag since before the war, The league was duly won in 1954. Other noteable results during Stein’s captaincy were the winning in the Scottish Cup in the same year and also the unforgettable victory in the Coronation Cup in 1954.
After a persistent ankle injury forced Stein to retire in 1956, he was given the role of coaching the reserves. Sir Robert Kelly had noted Jocks exquisite leadership skills and decided to put them to good use. In total he had played 148 games for Celtic, scoring two goals, although it is not his playing career that he will be remembered for.
Stein’s first success as a manager was to lead the reserves to the second 11 version of the Scottish cup, beating Rangers 8-2 on aggregate. This led to Dunfermline approaching Stein to take over first team affairs.
Jock officially took over the helm at East End Park on the 14th March 1960, where he consolidated quickly and managed to save the East Coast outfit from relegation in that season. He quickly built Dunfermline into a team almost impossible to beat and guided them to their first ever Scottish Cup win in 1961 in a replay against Celtic.
His success continued and his first foray into Europe was a succesful one, beating the then impregnable Everton on the way to the Final of the Fairs Cup, in which they barely lost out to Valencia, managing to overturn a 4 goal deficit in the process!
After a brief spell at Easter Road Jock then reconvened with Celtic on March 9th 1965. Celtic had endured a barren eight-year spell without a trophy, which many attributed to boardroom meddling in team affairs. Never being anyone’s fool, Jock took the job at Parkhead on one proviso, that he and he alone picked the team. Rumour has it that one board member challenged this at the time and placed the team sheet for the next game on Steins desk on a Friday afternoon, which Stein duly ignored. He was never challenged on matters relating to the playing operation again.
Celtic under Stein quickly met with success, and just over a month later he led them to victory in the Scottish Cup Final over Dunfermline, with Celtic winning 3-2.
This was followed in the following year with a Scottish League Title, and Stein’s taste for Europe was further whetted by a Semi-final appearance in the Cup Winners Cup. Only away goals and a ludicrous offside decision against a Bobby Lennox goal prevented Celtic going all the way to the final.
Join us later in the week when we continue our reflection of the life of Celtic’s greatest ever manager. Until then here is a few of Stein’s greatest quotes.
