Mike Aitken: A fond farewell to so many fields of dreams

Published on Thursday 30 July 2009 23:03

THERE are two personal photographs on my desk. In one, I'm standing beside Paul Lawrie clutching the Claret Jug.

In the other, on the plane home from Gothenburg to Aberdeen, I'm holding the European Cup Winners Cup. Over 35 years of exposure to the big sporting events, there have been so many moments which quickened the pulse. None raised the heart-rate more than a tumultuous afternoon in Carnoustie and a rainy night in Gothenburg.

As Sir Alex Ferguson plots the new season ahead for Manchester United, his role as manager at Old Trafford is simple: to realise the club's expectations of success at home and in Europe. When Fergie was in charge of Aberdeen and lifted a European trophy, the challenge was different. In 1983, he was a dreamweaver.

Even before Sir Alex was enlisted to succeed Billy McNeill as manager, Aberdeen were a club preparing to undermine the domination of the Old Firm. Thanks to the work undertaken by chairman Dick Donald and vice-chairman Chris Anderson, the circumstances arose which allowed a brilliant young manager to defeat the most glamorous club in Europe.

While there were other football men who became friends – notably Wallace Mercer at Hearts – Chris was influential in guiding the early part of my career. Perhaps Scotland's most far-sighted football administrator, Anderson is remembered by Ferguson as a visionary. "He was the one who predicted what would happen with satellite TV and all the other important developments in the game. Dick and Chris were a great combination. If we'd been beaten, Dick would do that little dance of his in front of the press before coming into the boardroom to pour himself a Coke. He'd say: 'Tell me, why do you play that Rougvie?' "

Start the DVD player in the cerebrum and a picture flashes of Peter Weir triggering that decisive move deep into extra time. Mark McGhee supplies the cross and John Hewitt, a substitute, delivers the winning head flick. That was when this writer leapt to his feet to celebrate while dictating a feverish description of the winning goal down the phone to a copytaker in Edinburgh.

One of the unwritten rules of the press box is you don't show emotion, you capture it.

The journalist's job is to report and interpret, not to cheer. While I've been pretty faithful to this maxim over the years – apart from Hewitt's winner for Aberdeen, only Archie Gemmill's goal for Scotland in 1978 tested my self-control – it was watching Heart of Midlothian win their first trophy for 35 years which really strained my neutrality.

I'd stood on the terracing with my late father when Hearts won the League Cup at Hampden in 1963. Sitting in the press box at Celtic Park in 1998 alongside Martin Dempster of the Edinburgh Evening News, there was an involuntary dig into Martin's thigh when Stephane Adam secured Hearts' second goal in a 2-1 win over Rangers. If my upper body was a mask of calm, my feet were dancing.

There were so many other memorable matches. Italy's 3-2 win over Brazil in Espanyol's Sarria stadium at the 1982 World Cup was sublime, a brace of superb goals from Socrates and Falcao trumped by a breathtaking hat-trick from Paolo Rossi. And who could forget that winter evening at Hampden in 1984 when goals from Maurice Johnston and Kenny Dalglish lit up a 3-1 victory over Spain in a World Cup qualifying tie? It was as close to a night of exhilaration as one could ever imagine watching Scotland.

Although there was a spell as chief sportswriter, covering Wimbledon, the Five Nations, the Olympics and Commonwealth Games, it was the opportunity in the Nineties to become golf correspondent which fulfilled my own dreams.

Luckily, my time on the golf beat coincided with the emergence of the greatest athlete in modern sport. I don't expect to see another competitor surpass the impact made by Tiger Woods when he won his first green jacket at Augusta. Having watched a raw, if fabulously talented young man finish on the losing end as an amateur when GB&I defeated the USA in the Walker Cup at Porthcawl two years earlier, the Masters in 1997 delivered confirmation the hyperbole proclaiming Woods as golf's next big thing undersold his talent.

At 21, he was the youngest Masters winner. Whether or not it was his greatest triumph in the majors remains to be seen. His 15-shot win at Pebble Beach in the millennium US Open was breathtaking while the victory on one leg at Torrey Pines in the same championship last year was uncanny. And, on Scottish turf, no-one could have guessed how brilliantly Woods would perform in 2000 on the Old Course or how much he relished following in the footsteps of history in St Andrews. To this day, Peter Dawson, the secretary of the R&A, believes Woods' scores of 67, 66, 67 and 69, which established an eight stroke win over Ernie Els and Thomas Bjorn, was the best performance from a golfer he's ever seen.

The finest display by a Scot during my tenure is just as easy to locate at Carnoustie in 1999. The defining noise of that Open was the whingeing of pros complaining about the way 'Carnasty' was set up. If the rest of the world felt unimpressed by the addition of Lawrie's name to the Open hall of fame, the story of Jean Van De Velde's collapse and the Aberdonian's unexpected home triumph in a play-off was one of the most compelling assignments imaginable.

Eight years later, when the Open returned to the Angus links, I walked the fairways of Carnoustie, shoulder to shoulder, in Lawrie's company. You can't ask a tennis writer to knock up with Andy Murray but, on a brisk spring morning, the first Scot since Tommy Armour in 1931 to win the Open on home turf partnered the man from The Scotsman to a comfortable win over a pair of correspondents representing English titles. A wee bit of a fiddle? Perhaps.

As our match drew to an end, Lawrie tossed down a ball on the 18th fairway close to the spot where he struck one of the best 4-irons in Carnoustie's history, a telling blow over the Barry Burn which ran with such gentle momentum towards the cup. Older and wiser, another shot soared into the grey Angus sky. After the clubhead met the ball, you could still hear the echo of glory.

As for the Ryder Cup, could anything surpass the Belfry in 2002? For two years captain Sam Torrance had known how he would approach the final day, with the best going first in the singles and those who were struggling placed near the end.

If Torrance was Europe's leader in the team-room, Colin Montgomerie was first lieutenant on the course. In what was one of the most intense and exciting weekends of sport, Monty was peerless. In fact, his countryman, Ewen Murray, commentating for Sky, went so far as to describe Monty's performance in the 15-12 win as the most professional given by any golfer in his lifetime.

At Turnberry earlier this month, there was karma for this sportswriter surrounding the most recent Open. Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson are two of the men I admire most and their ties to the Ailsa are immortal. Earlier this year, after interviewing Jack about his career in Scotland, I asked him to sign a copy of Duel in the Sun.

Before the Open, I spoke to Watson on the same subject and secured his message on the same page as Nicklaus. After a lifetime of encounters with the best and the brightest from Muhammad Ali to Tiger Woods, I'm not usually seeking autographs. But, at my last Open as golf correspondent of The Scotsman, it was touching to leave with a token from Watson and Nicklaus, as well as the kindness of a memento from the Royal and Ancient.

Moreover, who could have guessed the 138th staging of the oldest major would eschew nostalgia and highlight the continuing competitiveness of the finest links golfer of all time ? In spite of a hip replacement and the burden of 59 summers, Watson brought a sense of joy to the golfer's workplace. When he looked out towards Ailsa Craig and the famous lighthouse, the past champion grinned: "God, I love my office."

Watson's paperwork for 71 holes was researched, shrewd, thorough. And his ball striking blended aggression with the accuracy of an old master who understood the nuances of the links better than almost anyone else. In the end, as tears for his friend lined Nicklaus' cheeks at home in Florida, Watson was spurned only by a mercurial bounce and a burst pipe in the fountain of youth.

When I drove home to Edinburgh the next day, I slipped an old Fairport Convention album in the CD player. "Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving," sang the incomparable Sandy Denny. "How can they know it's time for them to go?" The answer, of course, is you have no thought of leaving, until it's time to go. I'll look for you behind the 18th green.