“It was the last game of the season, and we had to win to stay in the old first division. It was never planned, it was something that happened,” says Alfie Conn, who performed the “stunt” while playing for Tottenham.
“The ball got played to me and I sat on it, waving the full-back to come at me. I remember once I stood up, I looked at our goalie, Pat Jennings, who just shook his head,” Conn chuckles at the memory of a legendary situation which almost blew up in his face.
“We were coasting 3-0, then Peter Lorimer scored a cracker and suddenly it was 3-2, we're fighting for our lives. If we'd lost, I'd have been slaughtered.” Luckily, Spurs held on, stayed in the topflight and to this day Alfie Conn is often reminded of the incident.
“I do quite a few events for Tottenham and that's the first thing everybody always mentions. Not, 'you scored against this and that team', it’s 'you sat on the ball against Leeds'. I think the Tottenham supporters took to me because I loved to take players on. And once I sat on the ball, the roof came off."
Alfie Conn describes his time with Spurs in his excellent biography, “What’s it all about” which came out earlier this year. It’s a book which also details the story of an even more controversial “incident” during his career. His move from Rangers FC to Celtic. Alfie Conn was the first player, post-war, who crossed the divide in Glasgow, and he’s forever reminded of it.
“It's a bit quieter now but one time, honest to God, the abuse was terrible. Once my wife and I were out with some friends at a club to see a comedian and we had a table reserved. The place was full and then a young couple came in looking for a table. There was still room left at our table, so we invited them to sit with us. We bought them a drink, they bought us a drink back, all was good. At the end of the night, we got up to leave, I put my hand out to shake his, and he says; 'do you think I'm going to shake hands with you, you turncoat?'"
Wanted to play for Jock Stein
Alfie Conn has no shortage of stories like that, and somewhat amazingly the backlash took him by surprise.
“Honestly, I never really thought about it. It was when I got back into Glasgow after signing with Celtic, and the press was there, that I thought, 'what have you done?' That’s when I realized I'm going to get dogs abuse here.”
Alfie Conn had been a life-long Rangers-supporter before becoming a fan-favourite at Ibrox himself, scoring in a cup-final against Celtic. And here he was, back in Glasgow after his stint with Spurs, turning out in the famous green and white. Outrageous to most, but as he says; “I simply wanted to play for Jock Stein”.
Stein was highly successful, tough as nails, just like another Scottish managerial legend who saw to it that Alfie Conn and team-mates were fit.
“Every Tuesday, Jock Wallace had us do 40 minutes of non-stop running. The players just hated it. Once, we had a young boy in who stopped to be sick. Jock Wallace was on the other side of the pitch but ran straight across to him, picked him up by the scruff of the neck and started running him. With the boy still being sick! Wallace just said to him; “You're a Rangers player now. If you're going to be sick, be sick on the run.”
While the rivalry was fierce on the terraces, Rangers and Celtic players didn’t mind sharing some good times between them and while still at Rangers, Alfie Conn struck up a great friendship with Celtic legend Kenny Dalglish. But, speaking of legendary managers, Conn got to meet the great Bill Nicholson when signing for Spurs. The whole process of signing for Tottenham tells a lot about football back in the day.
“I'd already met with Tommy Docherty, manager at Manchester United, who wanted to sign me. Then, Rangers manager Wally Waddle brought me down to London, hardly said a word the whole trip, never told me where we were going. It wasn't until I got to White Hart Lane that I realised we were talking to Spurs."
A career hampered by injuries
Nicholson soon resigned, though, and Conn would have loved to have played more for him.
“I was struggling to get a break to get into the first team and Mr. Nicholson used to phone me up and say, keep your head down, work hard, and your turn will come. And it did,” says Conn, who enjoyed turning out for Spurs but had his time there hampered by injuries. Just like most of his career was.
“At Spurs, I missed nearly a full season with injury, and I reckon I had about three and a half to four years out with all the injuries. I was 17 or 18, when I had the first cartilage operation and, in those days, it wasn't a case of in and out of hospital. You were lying in bed for 10 days and then it took you about three-four months to get back on track. I had two cartilage operations, a ruptured achilles operation, multiple hamstrings and groin injuries, so my whole career was always stop, start, stop, start.”
Current Spurs manager Ange Postecoglou recently said he admired Nicholson's work with Tottenham and Alfie Conns sees similarities between the two.
“Ange has his own style of play. It doesn't matter what happens, he won't change it because he likes his teams to go out and entertain. If you look at the way he plays, it’s a case of if they score two, we'll go and score three. The Tottenham supporters absolutely adore him because of his style of play. It excites them and they're looking forward to going to the games now, knowing they could get a result.”
Alfie Conn doesn’t watch much football these days as his love of the game has dwindled somewhat and he wouldn’t have put out an autobiography, had his wife still been alive. After losing her, he accepted an offer though, and almost all the proceeds from the book go into researching MND which took his wife away.
He played with Sir Alex Ferguson at Rangers, “there was no nonsense about him”, he played with a young Glenn Hoddle at Tottenham, “there was no limit to his talent, tremendous footballer and a lovely guy”. And even though he turned out for Celtic, Alfie Conn is still a Rangers Hall of Famer due to him being in the line-up when the Scottish giants won their sole European trophy. The Cup Winners Cup back in 1972 in a final played out in Barcelona against Dynamo Moscow. The highlight of his career?
“Definitely. The only regret is that we weren't allowed to parade the Cup because the crowd invaded the pitch. Our captain, John Gregg, was taken into a wee room and basically just handed the Cup."
To read more about that famous cup-win, Alfie Conn’s “What’s it all About” can be purchased at assorted bookshops, with Pitch Publishing or right here.
