GB football team: When money was no object

DAVIE HOLT is thinking back to the muggy afternoon of August 29, 1960, when he and three other Scots were in Rome's Stadio Flaminio, representing Great Britain at the Olympic Games.

For more than 48 years he has been unaware that Giovanni Trapattoni and Gianni Rivera were playing that day, later to become two of Italian football's most celebrated figures. All he can remember is the crowd, the atmosphere and its effect on the team. "There's one thing about it I'll never forget," he begins. "We had drawn level, but with the heat getting to us, we were growing weaker and weaker..."

At which point, Holt drops his head, holds it between his hands, and falls quiet. After a moment or two, he gives himself a shake, and looks up, but the eyes are still moist. "Stupid old fool," he mutters, wiping his cheeks. "I never thought I'd break down thinking about it. There seemed to be a lot of British soldiers in the crowd, and at one point, they started singing Rule Britannia ... I remember looking at the rest of the lads, and watching them get tore in. God ... bloody nearly 50 years ago ... amazing isn't it?"

Amazing, too, that a Great British football team has not played in the Olympics since. What Holt did that summer, together with fellow Scots Ron McKinven, Hunter Devine and Billy Neil, has long since slipped into the footnotes of history, but with FIFA last week promising to sanction the revival of a GB team, for the 2012 Games, their exploits might just return to prominence. The SFA, who are pledging to have no part in the plans, needn't expect any support from this man, who gave up his job to compete in Rome. "It was a phenomenal experience," says Holt, "one I wouldn't swap for the world. There was more glory in playing for Great Britain than Scotland because it meant that you were better than your counterparts from England, Northern Ireland and Wales. If would be fabulous to see it happen again. And, if it does, the team should be amateur, like it was in my day. There are enough problems with professional football as it is."

Holt, 73 next month, devoted nine years of his career to Hearts, and made five appearances for Scotland, but ask him to pick out the time of his life, the achievement he is most proud of, and he plumps for the days when he played for free at Queen's Park, and for country in the XVII Olympiad. It tickles him to hear that the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has been asking Sir Alex Ferguson to coach the team for London 2012. He and Fergie, who both worked at Hillington Industrial Estate when they started their careers with the Glasgow amateur side, used to share a bus ride to training on Glasgow's south side.

Holt, who grew up in the Gorbals, was an engineer with Clyde Fuel Systems, but when he was selected for the Olympics, and invited to attend a weekend gathering in London, where the players were to be introduced to each other, fitted for the team uniform and given a practice match against an Arsenal XI, he had a decision to make. "I didn't have to go to the Olympics. I knew I was going to lose my job if I went. My bosses were demanding that I make myself available for overtime. But my wife told me to go for it, and I'm glad I did. I wouldn't have missed it for anything."

As well as four Scots, the British squad had three players from Northern Ireland, and a dozen Englishmen, the best of whom were Laurie Brown and Jim Lewis. Brown was a centre-half who went on to play for Arsenal, Tottenham and Norwich, while Lewis is remembered as the greatest amateur player of his generation. In the 1953 FA Cup, he famously scored the goal at Old Trafford that earned Walthamstow Avenue a replay against Manchester United. Lewis went on to make more than 90 appearances for Chelsea, including 17 in the 1955 championship-winning season, refusing all the while to turn pro.

It is a subject close to Holt's heart. Devine played for Queen's Park in 1960, but McKinven turned out for St Johnstone, and Neil for Airdrie, professional clubs from whom they could have taken a salary. There were, of course, expenses to be exploited, but for Holt, it was a matter of principle. "People sometimes ask me if I had money slipped into my boot, but believe me, you never got a brown penny out of Queen's Park. They were an amateur team, and there was no financial gain whatsoever. You were playing for the history of the club, and it was a fabulous history. When I came back from the Olympic Games, I turned professional with Hearts, but only because I was out of a job, and I wasn't long married. If Queen's Park had fixed me up with a job – and I'm not talking about managing director of the Royal Bank of Scotland, just a job – there is no way I'd have turned professional. I just loved football. And the great challenge was to be an amateur playing against professionals. Who did they think they were?"

It saddens him that few now pursue the Corinthian ideal, even at the Olympics, which reached something of a socio-political watershed in 1960. On his mantelpiece in Milngavie, Holt has a photograph of the squad boarding their flight to Italy, all blazers and panama hats, with a Union flag on the aeroplane's tail. He is near the top of the steps, with McKinven alongside him, each heading for a Games that was played out against a backdrop of racial struggle in the US, escalating Cold War tension and the growing pressures of professionalism. Decathlon winner Rafer Johnson was the first black athlete to carry the Olympic flag for America. Abebe Bikila, a bare-foot marathon runner from Ethiopia, became the first black African Olympic champion. Boxer Cassius Clay won light-heavyweight gold. It was the last Games in which South Africa appeared before its refusal to condemn apartheid was punished with a ban. A Danish cyclist, Knud Enemark Jensen, collapsed during a race, and died several hours later, providing the Games with their first doping scandal, while it was later revealed that the CIA had recruited a US sprinter, Dave Sime, to encourage the defection of a Soviet athlete.

And all of it was properly televised for the first time, broadcast live to 18 European countries, and, with a few hours' delay, to the US, Canada and Japan. Holt and his colleagues experienced it first hand, ensconced as they were in the athletes' village, which he describes an exhilarating riot of colour and personality. He still has a photograph, although he doesn't know where it is, of him shaking hands with Emil Zatopek, the legendary Czech runner who was there to support his wife, Dana Zatopkova, in the javelin. He also came to know Dick McTaggart, whose bronze in boxing was the only Scottish medal that year. Great Britain secured just two golds, one by Don Thompson in the men's 50km walk, the other by Anita Lonsbrough in the 200m breaststroke. "I remember we all went to see Lonsbrough in the final," says Holt. "As we made our way back to the village, cheering our heads off, there was this huge man walking in front of us, with long hair and massive shoulders. I said to the boys, 'look, there's Johnny Weissmuller, the boy that played Tarzan in the movies'. They said I was talking rubbish, but we caught up with him out of curiosity, and it was him all right."

Holt's memories of Rome 1960 are faded, a bit like the socks he has stuffed in a drawer somewhere. He thinks they were orange, but he can't remember. The shirt was white, the shorts blue, and all were given their first airing against Brazil, who had in their midfield a player by the name of Gerson, later acclaimed as the heartbeat of his country's 1970 World Cup-winning side. Then 19, he needed just two minutes to score against GB, who nonetheless produced what was their best performance of the tournament.

The key moment came with the British 2-1 up. Full-back Tommy Thompson, a 22-year-old railway worker, broke his leg in a tackle, which was followed by two quick Brazilian goals, and in the end, a 4-3 defeat. "They were more talented than us, but we were doing quite well until that happened," says Holt. "It was a horrible sight. Tommy's shin bone had come right through his stocking. And there were no substitutes in those days, so that was more or less it."

Failure to beat Italy meant that GB were out, and their last match in Group B, a 3-2 defeat of Taiwan – or Formosa as they were then known – was meaningless. Holt has three medals to show for his trip, one which came with the Pope's blessing apparently, but none is of the gold, silver or bronze variety. Those went to Yugoslavia, Denmark and Hungary.

Holt came home to turn professional with Hearts. Hibs and Northampton Town were also keen, but he had given the Tynecastle club his word. A dependable left-back, he made more than 300 appearances in maroon, but never scored. He helped them to win the 1962 League Cup, as well as reach two other finals, but he is bitter to this day about the way it ended in 1969. He says he had been promised a year's salary, and maybe even a job for life, if he finished his career there, but instead, he was handed a free transfer. "Queen's Park were more professional than Hearts when it came to dealing with people," he says. "They were a family rather than just a team."

Holt played for Scotland against Austria, Norway, Ireland, Spain and West Germany, but because none of those matches was a home international, he is one of the many Scotland players without a cap to show for it. "I'm led to believe you must apply for it. Well, I've gone all those years without, and if it's not that important for the SFA to get in touch with me, then it's not that important to me either. If I got them, I certainly wouldn't put them on show. My kids would probably get them."

After finishing his career with a brief spell at Partick Thistle, Holt has never returned to football in any capacity, sickened by Hearts, and by the way the game has gone. He doesn't attend matches, save for the odd Queen's Park reunion, and hankers after the days when he had gravel rash on his thigh, so bad that he had to hold his trousers away from it. "Your mother would be waiting with a scrubbing brush and raw iodine. And the family would be down on their knees blowing on it, so that you could play the next day. I wish I could show you an old football boot. The studs were held in with nails, and the day would come when those nails came through the sole of your boot, through your sock and into your skin. Taking them off was bloody impossible. You were in tears."

Holt, a taxi driver for 25 years, lives alone now, walking the dog, and caring for his handicapped son three mornings a week. He leads an active enough life, playing golf, cutting the neighbours' grass and even going to the gym, but he misses football, not in its modern guise perhaps, but the one he played for free.

As a player, Holt was never afflicted by nerves, but on the first Saturday after his retirement, he was walking down Glasgow's Hope Street, with his wife Milly, who stopped to ask him what was the matter. Holt replied that he had butterflies, which left her briefly incredulous. Then, when she looked at her watch, it dawned on her. "It's three o'clock, kick-off time," she said to her husband, who realised that football, as he knew it, was gone forever.

WHEN IN ROME

Also at the 1960 Olympics…

Ethiopia's Abebe Bikila, running barefoot in the marathon, became the first black African Olympic champion.

Then known as Cassius Clay, Muhammad Ali (pictured with fellow US medallists Eddie Crook, left, and Skeeter McClure), won boxing gold in the light-heavyweight division.

South Africa appeared for the last time under its apartheid regime. Its athletes were banned from subsequent Olympics until 1992.

Australia's Herb Elliott won the men's 1500 meters in one of the most dominating performances in Olympic history.

Soviet gymnasts won 15 of 16 possible medals in women's gymnastics.

Danish cyclist Knud Enemark collapsed during his race and later died in hospital.

Queen Sofa of Spain represented Greece in sailing events.

Also sailing for Greece was the future King Constantine II, who won a gold medal in the Dragon Class.