You’ll Be Fine, Archie

Patsy, Andy McAtee, Joe Cassidy and ‘Jean’ McFarlane:  all of them Celtic legends , and Archie can claim to have been around in their time.  As one of the oldest regular Celtic supporter (home and away every week through the season) Archie at 82 is on his way to becoming a legend himself.  He is an ever-present member of the Edinburgh No.1 CSC, and in fact has been a member since the 1940s.

Woe betide the stranger who in all innocence takes the seat directly behind the driver! That hallowed spot is reserved for Archie.  Beside him sits Francie Larkin, recently retired at 65 but still a regular Celtic follower, home and away.  Behind them, but within earshot sit Charlie McFadden (also contemplating retirement) and myself.  Our combined age amounts to about 283 years, and I wonder at times about the craic on the bus, always good-humoured, occasionally boisterous and salty.  The collective terms directed in our general direction are at times ambiguous: “The Auld Gang” is acceptable, suggestive of a proper respect for one’s elders … “The Last of the Summer Wine” has a raffish edge, redolent of happier days in the past … another two (The One Foot in the Grave Gang” and “The Coffin Dodgers”) cast a shadow and make me ponder at times.

Quite a contrast, Archie and Francie.  Archie is still trim, white hair neatly brushed and combed.  He is dapper, shoes polished and always with a knife-edged crease to his trousers.  Francie, just past retirement age, is a big man, perhaps a bit on the heavy side, generally quiet and a listener rather than a talker.  Like Archie, Francie belongs to that vanishing generation that dresses up to go to an important match.  Scottish Cup finals show them at their best, Archie in an immaculate suit, complementary shirt and matching tie, Francie, spruced up in green blazer and grey flannels, clean-shaven, looks like a Masters’ champion just in from Augusta… Walking along Polmadie Road towards Hampden last May 22nd for the Cup Final, and seeing them amid the crowd of replica shirts and flag-bearers, Charlie McFadden turned to me and summed it up perfectly: “They scrub up well, those two.”

Although the best of pals, Archie and Francie bicker and squabble on a weekly basis to the amusement (and sometimes consternation) of the rest of the bus.  Even after fifty years their arguments and feuds are about everything: Celtic’s last performance, referees, the weather, the state of the economy – even the SpIce Girls … for the record Francie would have preferred one of the Teletubbies, and Archie lamented the fact there was not an Old Spice.

Archie, originally from Glasgow, is a shade quicker verbally than Francie and wins most of the arguments, a matter that Francie occasionally regrets.  At one pub in Dundee, one they had frequented on match days for decades, Archie had some trouble getting out of his bench seat, awkwardly low; he made it eventually and  made his way towards the toilet; Francie observed all this and commented wistfully to Charlie: “You know, I just wish Archie was about twenty years younger.”

The others at the table nodded in agreement and Charlie, a man never known to swear and who as a civil servant conducts workshops n mediation, was most affected.  He gave Francie a sympathetic pat on the shoulder but Francie shook his head and growled: “Naw, it’s no’ that.  It’s just if he was twenty years younger, I could batter the auld bugger.”

Archie was born in Glasgow, in the Calton.  It would be a massive understatement to describe the Calton of the 1920s as ‘a rough district’.  It still has that reputation but the overcrowded tenements of that time have largely been demolished, and rebuilt.  Back then Archie’s family lived up a close in a single end on the top storey.  The water supply was located outside, and the toilet (described by Archie as “a black hole”) was shared by several families.

Times were worse than hard.  Archie’s mother died when he was five and he and his father had to move in with relatives in Bridgeton.  As the Depression entered the Thirties, things became so desperate that at one time Archie was deemed to be “in need of care” and removed to the countryside for a few months.

Archie attended Turreen St. Primary School, and later John St. Secondary, both in Bridgeton.  During the Depression street gangs were a way of life, based on such things as religion as much as territory.  ‘The Billy Boys’ took their name from the infamous Billy Fullarton, still commemorated regularly in song at Ibrox.  Hopefully, not too many Rangers’ supporters are aware they are celebrating the life and exploits of a common hoodlum, street fighter, and leading light in the burgeoning Scottish Ku Klux Klan (rather than an opponent of the Catholic Stuart dynasty and occasional pedarist like his idol William of Orange).

So, Archie (like a fair proportion of Edinburgh No.1) is a Protestant.  How on earth did he ever become a Celtic supporter emerging from Turreen St. Primary in Bridgeton?  Growing up, Archie considered himself “a bit of a loner”  and he used to wander up and down London Road during the summer holidays to catch a glimpse of the players training at Celtic Park.  To this day he remembers a gate on Janefied Street near the corner flag at the Celtic End of the Jungle, and a corrugated iron fence with so many holes he could see most of the training.

The next and logical step was to turn up at the ground on match days and for someone to take pity on him and lift him over the turnstiles.  By then he was  a confirmed Celtic supporter, hanging around outside the ground before and after training , or on match days and getting players’ autographs usually in his school jotters.  It scarcely mattered that he asked the same players every week; what was important was to get close to his heroes.

 

The last stage in Archie’s initiation came from his Uncle Willie who used to see Archie when he visited his grannie on a Sunday.  Willie happened to be a regular at Celtic Park  and not only that – he was one of the few season-ticket holders at the time.  He was one of the lucky ones who had managed to hold down a job (with the Glasgow Education Department in Bath Street) during the decade of the Great Depression.  During World War 1 he had served as batman to the officer who eventually became Director of Education after both had finished doing their bit in the trenches.  Just before Archie left Primary School, Uncle Willie began to take him along to Celtic Park on Saturdays and lifted him over the turnstiles while the operators looked discreetly the other way.  When Archie became too big to lift over Uncle Willie would slip him in at the gate for stand patrons, again with the connivance of the attendant.  I’m sure that Celtic F.C. have long since made up any shortfall in revenue from Archie since 1929.

 

Fitba’-daft Archie would wander up and down London Road  and hang around Celtic Park for glimpses of players as they came and went.   Street urchins have a different perspective than others and Archie has distinct memories of some famous players from the 1920s and 30s:

 

“Peter Wilson? An awful quiet man.  I used to see him with his wife – or girl-friend at the time – and he always used to have a big poke of sweeties that he used to give away to the wee boys on the street outside the ground …

 

“Peter McGonigle was a rough-and-ready big man, somebody you wouldn’t want  to mess with but he always had a cheerful hello for us …

 

“Charlie Napier?  They used to call him ‘Happy Feet’ but he was a right, torn-face git.  He’d walk straight past you …

 

“Jimmy McGrory was my hero, everybody’s hero, the nicest man, somebody that would always sign autographs and stop to have a few words.  A gentleman, through and through…

 

“I was just a wee boy when John Thomson died, about nine years old, but I can remember the people gathering in the streets that night at the mouths of closes and hanging out of windows.  I remember the women greeting’ their eyes out.  The men?  They were likely in the pubs drowning their sorrows.”

 

Archie’s recollection of Jimmy McGrory rings a bell.  During the Depression Jimmy had to act as breadwinner for his large fatherless family in Garngad but he was such a soft touch for vagrants and beggars that his sister stopped him having money in his pockets because he was incapable of resisting any plea for a handout.

 

There was never any possibility of Archie’s staying on at school; so, in 1936 at the age of fourteen he had to get a job rather than an apprenticeship.  He began work at Collins’ (Children’s and Ladies’ Tailors) near Glasgow Cross.  His duties largely consisted of delivering the finished orders to the shops; and Archie would set off   pushing a wheelbarrow, filled with clothing, through the cobbled streets of Glasgow.  A good worker, he got on well with the management (“The first Jewish people I had ever met”), and remembers getting permission to leave work early to see Celtic and Hearts replay a Scottish Cup tie on February 22nd 1939: “Back in those days there was no such thing as floodlights.  Celtic Park was filled that afternoon, I remember.”

In 1941, aged just nineteen, Archie went to the Recruiting Office to join up for the Armed Forces in World War II.  He had hoped to be taken by the Royal Navy but there was such a waiting list that he enlisted in the RAF rather than hang around for months on end.  He did his basic training at Padgate in Lancashire, at Bridgenorth near Birmingham and then at Leuchars near St Andrews.  The next stop was Canada where he spent almost three years just outside Halifax, Nova Scotia, and in New Brunswick near the border with the U.S.  He returned to the U.K. to RAF Quedgley in Gloucestershire where he met Nan, an Edinburgh girl and his wife-to-be.  She was also in the RAF and working as a packer of parachutes.  They went out together, and got married; after demob in 1946 they lived in Glasgow for a while but Nan, unhappy there, suggested a move to her native Edinburgh and Archie agreed.

Now married for more than fifty years, Nan and Archie have two children, four grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. ( I should remind you that this article originally appeared some years ago, and changes have taken place since then).

Archie takes considerable pride in the fact that he has always been in work “ever since I left school at the age of fourteen”.

My own feeling is that the war years were the making of Archie.  The RAF instilled discipline and smartness – and probably greater self-confidence.  You can see the evidence in his appearance and bearing, even as he entered his 80s.  I’ve been impressed by the way the scars of those early pre-war days in the Calton have been largely erased.   It’s a long way from a condemned tenement in Glasgow’s Calton to a neat house and garden in Edinburgh’s Corstorphine but he takes pride in remembering he comes from Glasgow – and his fellow members of his Supporters’ Club are reminded of that frequently.  Quite a journey, I thought, and asked Archie about it.  “Aye, things have changed a lot.  I used to get a No 7 tram from Bridgeton Cross to see Celtic at Ibrox, and just think I went to Seville to see Celtic in 2003.  Times change.”

How did  I  first meet Archie?

Back in 1994 I travelled with the Edinburgh No. 1 to Ayr for a League Cup tie, and joined the club after its AGM held a few days later.  At the end of that AGM Archie made a point of coming over to introduce himself:  “If you’re thinking of joining, don’t be put off with all the argy-bargy at AGMs.  You’ll find we’re a friendly crowd; so, I hope to see you on the bus again…”

After a few games I tended to drift in the direction of ‘the last of the summer wine’, and have been there ever since.  A pattern developed:  I would drive to the Centurion pub, the last pick-up point before the bus left Edinburgh, and park the car … and drive home after the return to Edinburgh.  When I realised that Archie lived almost on my route home, I offered him a lift … and that became a routine.  Pick up Archie on the way to the Centurion before the match, and drop him off on the way home – along with Peter Johnstone, ‘Pim’ McNeill, Mick McArthur  and John Turner.

Don’t mistake my gesture as kindness; I’ve lost track of the number of “wee snacks” I’ve had at Nan and Archie’s over the years.

***

As the author or co-author of several books about Celtic, I occasionally get invitations to attend games as a guest of the club.  After receiving one such invitation in 1999, I  thought about including Archie on the visit.  I admit some hesitation because I thought he might prefer his regular company and that he might feel somewhat ill-at-ease in the more rarified atmosphere of the boardroom.  I broached the subject gingerly, and to my surprise he was very much in favour but he had one major reservation:  “Tom, there’ll be a lot of bigwigs there.  Will I be all right?  I don’t want to give you a showing-up or anything.  So, if I step out of line, just let me know.”

I had a vision of the perfect crease in the trousers, the high polish on the shoes, the trim figure and, above all, the sharpness of his mind:  “I think you’ll be just fine, Archie.”

I have to admit that the three or four occasions that Archie and I have attended matches as guests have blurred or merged in my mind but I have clear recollections of the first  (October 16th 1999) when Celtic defeated Aberdeen 7-0 (with Larsson getting a hat-trick in his last full game before breaking his leg at Lyon).

We turned up at the ground about 1:45 for the three o’clock kick-off with Archie appearing a touch disappointed because there were relatively few people to witness our grand entrance.  Invitation in hand, we waited for the girl at Reception to decide exactly where we should go.  Eventually we were escorted to a pleasant lounge upstairs, filling up and quite busy with well-to-do types like Jimmy Farrell, the former director and Dr John Fitzsimmons, who Archie remembered as having played for Celtic and having been team medic in Jock Stein’s reign.  The atmosphere was friendly and cheerful, sociable.  Archie, glass in hand, struck up a conversation with two gentlemen from Ireland and was immediately on first-name terms.

Meanwhile, I was getting slightly worried because I was supposed to present two copies of my latest book , one to Celtic’s chairman and one to Allan MacDonald, Celtic’s CEO, but I could find neither anywhere in the lounge.  I asked an usher to pass a message to Peter McLean, Celtic’s PR  man  who had invited me in the first place.  Two or three minutes later, Peter appeared in the lounge, full of apologies.  We had been expected in the Board Room, the Directors’ Lounge but the girl in Reception had mis-directed us.  I introduced him to Archie and was impressed by the immediate rapport the two of them established:

“You know, Mr McLean, I never thought I’d see the day when I would be here within the portals of Celtic Park.”

“Archie, this ground would not be here if it weren’t for people like you.  So, you are more than welcome here.  Call me Peter, by the way.”

Peter McLean was graciousness itself, whisking us through the lounge and led us into the Board Room where he introduced us quickly to a couple of guests.  Once he saw that we were settled, he excused himself to welcome the Aberdeen party who had just arrived downstairs.  I went over to the bar to get us drinks and, when I returned, Archie was deep in conversation with a pleasant-looking young man whom he introduced to me as ‘Jim’.  I was a shade surprised to find they were talking about ‘mergers’ but I listened until ‘Jim’ was called away..  I asked Archie how well he knew him:  “Never met him before… but he’s a Celtic supporter just like us.”  He looked at me sharply:  “Did you not recognise him?”  I had to admit that I hadn’t; Archie shook his head in some wonder:  “Well, that was Jim Kerr of Simple Minds.  Remember he was thinking of going into partnership with Kenny Dalglish to buy Celtic?”

So, there he was, a life-long Celtic supporter, in his element, delighted to be there, soaking up the ambience, noting the celebrities around him and making a point of having a word here and there without for one second being intrusive.  He worked that room like a pro, and I  (who had been prepared to nurse him through it) watched in fascination:

To Kenny Dalglish:  “I saw your first game for us, son, and I knew then that you would turn out all right …”  (‘Thanks, Mr Wright.’)

To Sir Patrick Sheedy:  “Forgive me asking, but what do I call you?”  (The answer in the plummiest of tones: ‘If I can call you ‘Archie’, you call me ‘Pat”)

To Allan MacDonald:  “Do we have any plans for getting new players”  (‘Archie, we are always looking.'”)

When the game was over, Archie and I were taken down to the Players’ Lounge by Peter McLean.  Archie revelled in the occasion.  He had a word of sympathy and consolation for Ebbe Skovdahl, Aberdeen’s manager, and nodded wryly to the Dons’ players trudging past us on the way back to their bus,  but it was to the Celtic players he was intent on speaking.

He found himself beside Johann Mjallby, a blond, tanned giant of a man:  “You’re playing really well in mid-field, son, but if you don’t mind me saying – you don’t pass the ball as well as Peter Wilson of Beith…”

Mjailby looked puzzled and i had to explain that Peter Wilson (who used to give sweets away to kids outside Parkhead), had been Celtic’s right half in the 1920s and that Archie had seen him play.   Mjailby smiled, nodded in understanding

and almost clicked his heels in respect:  “You know, Mr. Archie, my father said the same thing to me about my passing.”

To Craig Burley:  “i’ll tell you another thing.  You’re a lot better-looking with your teeth in, and you look taller than I expected.  How tall are you?”    Burley laughed at that and said he was 6 feet 2.

Then Henrik Larsson appeared in the doorway and a hush fell; everybody in the room knew he was there, and turned to stare.    Two other people in the lounge approached him with genuine autograph books and Archie himself (an awed Archie Wright) queued up for a signature.    He was on the brink of offering his match programme to Mr. Larson when a lackey appeared to take ‘Henke’ to the ‘Man-of- the-Match presentation.   Larson shrugged, apologised and told Archie and the other autograph seekers he would have to go but promised to be back.

I remember thinking, “Aye that’ll be right.”    But ten minutes later he was back, and looking for the people he had asked to wait a bit.  i was very impressed, and so was Archie.

Attentive to the  last, Peter McLean saw us to the door when it was time to head back to Edinburgh.    In the car, Archie was still so appreciative:   “I never thought I’d see the day when I’d be in there talking to everybody.    That Peter McLean –    they say he’s not Celtic minded – but  he couldn’t have been nicer.”

I asked him had he spoken to Billy Connolly.    “No, but I listened to his patter  for a wee while.    Mind you, for all the money he makes, you would think he could dress better.   He looks like a scruff with those jeans, and he could get his hair cut.”