Former Dundee player and Scotland manager Gordon Strachan is known for his quick temper.
But the Edinburgh-born ‘firebrand’ insists he’s just as quick with an apology – handwritten, of course.
“When I was a manager, if I said something to referees or linesmen or an opposing dugout, I would end up writing a letter to these people,” reveals Gordon, 66, over a Zoom call.
“I’ve never done everything all right and perfect, but I do know when I’m wrong. I think that’s a problem these days, because I don’t think younger people know what’s right and what’s wrong.
“And I’ve always known what’s wrong, and I can always apologise – sincerely apologise – when I’m wrong.”
Gordon’s speaking from his Midlands home, where he’s squeezing in a couple of days of rest in between engagements, before heading up to Dundee for his ‘evening with’ show at the Whitehall Theatre.
“This is the first time I’ve ever done this night in Dundee, so it’ll be interesting because I started my career there,” he says, referring to his football beginnings at Dundee FC.
“I started at Dundee when I was 15, and was on the first team at 16,” recalls Gordon, who remains the youngest player to have captained the first team at age 19, and is now the technical manager at the club.
“For £15 a week!”
Indeed, Gordon is the first to admit he was a weel-kent face in former Dundee pubs like The Hansom Cab and Chrome Rail when he “really shouldn’t have been there”.
And the show itself, he explains, is “just like sitting in the pub with a couple of mates”, with stories about the people and places he’s encountered through his years on and off the pitch.
“We have a giggle for about two hours,” he says, with a mischievous grin.
“We laugh at the incidents I’ve been involved with; we laugh at me!”
Real reason for 1986 ‘leg balance’ goal celebration
One such incident is his famous goal celebration after scoring against West Germany in the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, where the 5ft 5in midfielder stopped short of leaping over the hoardings, opting instead to balance one leg on the barrier.
“The thing about it is, these stadiums in these American places, they usually had a moat behind the hoardings,” explains Gordon.
“So I was running and I thought: ‘If I jump over here, and it goes 6ft deep, I’m gonna break my neck!’ So as I was away to leap it, I thought: ‘I better just check and see if there’s a moat over there.’
“Your brain kind of goes mushy when you score a goal, and you start doing silly things.”
As well as standout moments from his career, Gordon’s show will see him reflect on the characters he’s met along the way.
Indeed, from the likes of Eric Cantona and Vinnie Jones to Chris Kamara and David Beckham, Gordon’s list of contacts is a veritable who’s who of football legends.
“Vinnie Jones was a great footballer, actor, singer; he’s one of the people I admire a lot, because whatever he did in life, he was a good teammate,” he says fondly.
“We were like chalk and cheese but we got on really well – we still do.
“And Beckham, I met him when he was 12 years old at Manchester United – he was a tiny wee lad! And a lovely kid.
“Then I met him again at 18, and Jesus, he’d turned into this big tall lad. He really worked at his game.”
But there’s no escaping that when one hears ‘Gordon Strachan’, there’s one other name that follows – Sir Alex Ferguson.
Friendship with Sir Alex ‘has been topsy turvy’ says Strachan
First working together at Aberdeen FC when Sir Alex came in as manager in 1978, the pair’s friendship – and famous feud – became a huge part of Gordon’s life.
And 45 years later, it still is.
“It’s been topsy turvy, that’s for sure!” chuckles Gordon. “But we were together last week, and you’d still think I was a 21-year-old lad and he was 40-odd.
“It doesn’t change! It’s one of those things – you put on a bit of weight, you shrink, you go grey, but your character never changes. It’s a wonderful thing.
“I was sitting there, and he came up and battered me on the back of the head and went: ‘Get a haircut!’
“And I went: ‘OK.'”
‘Great teammates’ are those Gordon Strachan admires most
True enough, it seems to be the people he’s met along the way which have left the biggest impression on Gordon, from his playing right through to his managing days.
“I’ve played against Maradona, Platini, Sir Bobby Charlton – who just passed away. I played against George Best,” he muses.
“But the ones I admire even more are the players who maybe weren’t naturally gifted, but they were great teammates.
“My favourite stuff on the pitch was being up against it and seeing who your good teammates were roundabout you – people like Brian McClair, who was a strange but lovely person. Pressure never affected him in the slightest.
“He could miss a goal from six yards at Old Trafford in front of 70,000 people and not blink an eyelid!”
‘You’ve got to be what you are’ in management
For Gordon himself, pressure was a cruel mistress – but one he’s learned to live with.
“It’s funny, the first thing a young manager will ask is ‘How do you get over the defeat?’” he says.
“And it surprises them when I say: ‘You don’t, you suffer. It’s part of the job.’ You’re sad and you’re depressed but you have to deal with it, and you’ll come out of it somehow.”
And having filled some big shoes – such as Martin O’Neill’s when he took over at Celtic – Gordon’s learned hard lessons about how to be a good manager while still being true to himself.
“There’s no easy way to go into management,” he explains. “How do you follow what’s been so iconic as Martin?
“But what you don’t do is try to change or be somebody else. You’ve got to be what you are. Whatever success or failure I’ve had, it’s always been because I’ve been me.
“I tried once, in my first team meeting at Coventry, to be Alex Ferguson,” he laughs. “And halfway through I had to stop it and walk out the door, reset, and come back in as me!”
And when it came to balancing work and family life, Gordon says he never let the pressure of the game affect his ability to be a husband, father and granddad.
“I could always mix my family and my job, I always found a balance,” he says.
“Even in the most pressurised job, me and [my wife] Lesley would always find a day during the week and we’d go to the cinema, go and see a play, or go driving. There was always time.”
VAR is ‘wonderful’ – Gordon Strachan
In terms of the game itself, football is an ever-changing world, but Gordon is supportive of the way the industry is evolving, particularly when it comes to Video Assistant Referees (VAR).
“It’s wonderful,” he says. “Conjecture’s always going to be a problem.
“I’ve been on football panels where two will say it’s a penalty, one will say it’s not. If three top footballers cannot decide between us what is and isn’t a penalty, how’s one official meant to get it right all the time?”
And even the oft-criticised high salaries in the sport don’t bother Gordon.
“If you take away Saudi Arabia, because the salaries there don’t make any sense whatsoever, I absolutely don’t mind the top players getting as much as they can.
“The problem,” he adds, “is the top players have dragged up the salaries of the not so great players, who shouldn’t be there at that level. Then they have salaries that they don’t deserve.”
‘Unlucky’ should be ‘banned word’
But the notoriously strict manager certainly isn’t getting soft in his later years. In the camp of ‘practice, practice, practice’, he’s got no time for professional footballers who “think work starts at 10.30am and finishes at 12.30pm”.
“A word that I think should be banned from the football pitch is ‘unlucky’,” he insists. “I hear pundits all the time: ‘Oh, that was unlucky!’
“Unlucky is if you put a header in, it gets past the goalie, and a dog runs out from the crowd and headers the ball back out the goal. That’s unlucky.
“If you’re missing an open goal from six yards because you haven’t practiced for that moment, that’s not unlucky, it’s unprofessional.”
But at the end of the day, Gordon admits he “wouldn’t change a thing” about the life he’s lived and the career he’s had, encompassing Dundee, Aberdeen, Manchester United, Coventry, Celtic, Scotland and more.
“If I wanted to come back as somebody, I’d come back as me,” he smiles. “I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
An Evening With Gordon Strachan – My Life In Football is at the Whitehall Theatre on November 17.
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