Dundee United legend John Holt on Jim McLean - 'He fined me for not turning off the boot-room light but he was the greatest'

How the heck did John Holt become a footballer, never mind a stalwart of the fantastic Dundee United team who were champions of Scotland and ran European big-shot glamour right off the park?

Dundee United legend John Holt in action for the club in the 1987 Scottish Cup final

I’m asking myself this as Holty tells me about his Tayside childhood on the 19th floor of Wellington Tower, one of the Hilltown “multis”. “Obviously I couldn’t just nip outside to kick a ball about,” he says, “but if the lifts were out of order then I suppose the stairs kept me fit.”

And surely even the fiendish designers of brutalist high-rises remembered to include a patch of green on the ground for these kickabouts? “No, there wasn’t any. Me and my pals just used to batter a ball off the garage doors.”

Ah, but he had parents, Mina and John Snr, a jute mill worker, who stretched themselves to enable the football-daft lad to follow his dream. “The boots I wanted were Stylo Matchmakers, as worn by George Best. They laced up the sides for a truer contact with the ball. McGill’s department store down the bottom of Hilltown sold them – 35 quid. Mum couldn’t afford that so she paid them up, a fiver a month. I really loved those boots … ”

On one of his many European adventures, watching David Narey's shot find the net against Winterslag in 1981.

And Holt had something else going for him – his PE teacher at Stobswell Secondary School was Doug Houston, ex-Rangers and both Dundee clubs. “Doug was good friends with Wee Jim and I think he must have said: ‘I’ve got a player for you.’”

Wee Jim – Jim McLean. The great, grumpy alchemist of Tannadice will today have a statue unveiled in his memory, 24 hours before the resumption of the city derby. Holt is in London when I catch up with him, holidaying with his wife Linda, but he’ll be back in time to chauffeur Ella Lindsay, club secretary for many years and now 91, to the ceremony. Looking down on them, even if McLean thinks the proceedings too much fuss and faff, he will be glad to see Ella there and it might not be a surprise that Holty is the one helping out, even if not all of the player’s good deeds were necessarily appreciated by the manager.

Holt laughs as he recalls two instances of falling foul of McLean’s odd code of ethics: “Jim wanted all the players to live in Dundee but Andy Rolland – we called him ‘Major’ – was dead set on moving back to Glenrothes. That niggled Jim and he said to me: ‘You’ll be making your debut on Saturday.’ Then Major asked me and Paul Hegarty to help him flit. This was a Thursday when you could be fined for playing golf. Jim found out – of course he did.

He said: ‘What were you doing lugging Major’s furniture?’ ‘Just giving him a hand, boss,’ I said, not really thinking the matter was closed. On the Saturday he was happy enough with my performance in the first half but after that he decided I’d tired. He said: ‘Did your dad tell you, second half, not to make any more runs?’ And then he fined me – ten quid.

Not letting Robert Prytz of Rangers out of his sight in a Tannadice victory in 1982

“It was five quid for forgetting to turn off the light in the boot-room at Tannadice. But you know what? I never leave a light burning in the house though I stopped short of fining our kids when they did it.

“Another time Allan Forsyth – ‘Elvis’ – was sent off in a midweek reserve game and Jim told him: ‘Tomorrow you’re going to be shuffling chuckies right round the track.’ He was grumbling: ‘I’m a footballer, I shouldn’t be doing that.’ I was off the next day but it was a big job so I decided to help him. Jim came storming out of his office and roared at me: ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

“That was Jim. He had his funny wee ways but I got on fine with him. He didn’t praise overmuch but you got used to that and if, as you were walking past, he said ‘That was okay the day’, you knew you’d played well. And he was a brilliant coach, the best, so innovative and light years ahead of his time.”

Paul Sturrock and Davie Dodds grabbed the goals in that team, Hegarty and David Narey’s rearguard resilience won them Scotland recognition and Eamonn Bannon and Ralph Milne were perpetual motion on the flanks. But they wouldn’t have won the Premier League, two League Cups and reached the Uefa Cup final without guys like Holt who, between 1974 and 1987, at right back or in the midfield, amassed 401 appearances in tangerine. His moustache was as much a United constant as Sturrock’s bare shins, Bannon’s busy elbows and Narey intercepting telescopically. “I was copying Graeme Souness with that,” he laughs.

Holt, dad to Sarah and John and grandad to Harry and William, was an S-form with United at the age of 13. “We trained Wednesdays at Kingsway and Jim was aye there keeping an eye on us.” At 15 one Friday evening there was a knock on the door at Wellington Tower. “It was Jim. He’d come right up to the 19th floor. ‘So who are you?’ said Mum. He explained he wanted to sign me for United. I supported Dundee until that moment. Dad leapt out of his chair, couldn’t believe it. He’d arranged for me to start a joinery apprenticeship on the Monday. That’s what I thought I was going to have to do with my life. Instead I got the chance to become a footballer, travelled round the world, visited places I’d never have got the chance to see. Wonderful … ”

The debut came at 18 at the start of 1974 when McLean fast-tracked half a dozen teenagers into the squad including Narey, Andy Gray and Graeme Payne. “We were all friends. And the experienced players – top men like George Fleming, Frank Kopel, Wattie Smith, Doug Smith and Jackie Copland – nursed us through those early games.”

In his own way Holt rhapsodizes about the Tannadice team spirit. It wasn’t bonding in those days but “the snooker hall down the road, coffee and Cokes with Jackie – Jake the Snake – the biggest bandit.” Our man compares and contrasts his genius boss with managers now and a touchy-feeliness which would shock the old-school disciplinarians of the McLean era. “You see coaches these days: straight on the pitch at the end, hugging everyone. I was at United’s last home game against Hearts and, nothing against Tam Courts, but, as I said to Doddsy [Dodds] and Hamish [McAlpine] that day, if we’d just lost two-nil at home Jim wouldn’t have been shaking our hands. We’d all have got a slap round the ear!”

Nevertheless, if McLean couldn’t quite lead the players in pub sing-songs and free-weekend hoolies, he understood the importance of a happy crew. “So Doris [McLean’s better half] would be handed a sum of money and told: ‘Take out the wives.’ These dinners happened regularly. Well, keeping the women sweet is important to the success of anything, isn’t it?”

Holt would return to Tannadice later as a coach, his post-United wanderings also including a stint across Sandeman Street playing with Dundee, the boyhood team. So what were the city clashes like? “Oh, fierce. I remember one where United’s physio, Andy Dickson, was constantly on the park and so was Eric Ferguson for Dundee. Gordon Strachan said to me: ‘Someone could get their leg broken today.’ I replied: ‘If you’re not careful it might be you.’ Why did I say that? It wasn’t meant in a nasty way. Next time at training we were about to play a game of fives. Jim said: ‘Watch your legs, boys - you ken who to avoid.’ We were standing in a group. All at once, the rest of them took a big step away from me.”

In a four-man midfield, McLean liked a runner, a dribbler, a passer and a tackler. Holt was the latter and was sent off three times, twice in mighty championship struggles against Celtic. “In one game, booked for clattering Tommy Burns in the first half, Jim pointed the finger at me: ‘You’d better watch it or you’ll be off.’ “Second half, who upends Tommy right on halfway? Jim was right – he was aye right. Later I became coach of Celtic’s women’s team. First day I didn’t know anyone at Parkhead and sat on my own, a bit nervous. Suddenly there was this great whack on my shin. It was Tommy: ‘That’s for all the times you kicked me.’”

Holt’s first derby was a goalless draw in 1975 but this would not be typical of them and three times in the fixture United banged in five goals. Holt wasn’t a prolific scorer but he managed one in a derby, Willie Pettigrew netting the other in a 1979 victory.

That was the season, and the month, of United’s first League Cup triumph, indeed the first major honour in the club’s history, and it came at Dens in the replayed final victory over Alex Ferguson’s Aberdeen. “It was nice to lift the cup over the road. I was too young to appreciate Dundee winning the title [1962] but that and the League Cup they won [1973] had been the only pieces of silverware to come to the city in all that time and United would always be reminded of that. Afterwards of course we went back to Dens for some more.”

The League Cup was retained by beating Dundee – “We dared not lose that final” – and then in 1983 came the ultimate prize of the championship flag.

McLean was persuaded in the belief the team could go for glory by a romping victory the previous season - 5-2 away to AS Monaco in the Uefa Cup. Holt: “I remember that game well, with the stadium right underneath the palace, and maybe Grace Kelly said to Prince Rainier: ‘That’s a no’ bad team Jim McLean is building.’”

No’ bad indeed, and assembled using mostly local talent, nurtured by the manager’s fierce love, United would win the greatest derby of them all to become immortals. So what were the Tayside tussles like from the other side of the street? “I’m not sure why I went to Dundee, and when I got injured and needed an operation, perhaps the club thought the same. But when I played in the derby and the United fans didn’t boo me in my blue shirt I was pleased about that. And when Kevin Gallacher raced past me and the next time I thought I’d better kick him, the Dundee supporters went berserk - they loved it.”

Holty’s best game? That would be the man-of-the-match performance in the Nou Camp in 1987 when Barcelona were eclipsed en route to the Uefa Cup final. Though this being United there was a funny coda to that epic night which summed up life in what McLean liked to call his “cornershop”.

Jim McInally was gushing in praise of his team-mate for helping shackle Gary Lineker, Mark Hughes, et al, when Holt said: ‘I think I’m off to Forfar now.’ Earlier that season, before Holt had forced his way back into the side after a spell on the sidelines, there had been Loons interest in him. McInally was flabbergasted. “After that showing? You must be effin’ kidding, man.” Not then, but Holt ended up at Station Park eventually. McLean, you see, was rarely wrong.

Wee Jim almost certainly wouldn’t have wanted a statue, reckons Holt, but he will just have to lump it. “I remember when we won the league, Heggie [Paul Hegarty] and Goughy [Richard Gough] hoisted him on their shoulders and he didn’t like it. There’s a photo of me grabbing one of his arms to get him to take the acclaim but he was just too embarrassed. That was Jim.”

And that was John Holt, the ever-dependable deputy, always there when he was most needed.

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