#19 Jock Stein
In 1970, Jock Stein was one of the most revered managers in world football. He had won 20 trophies with Celtic, Dunfermline Athletic and Hibernian that included the much coveted European Cup in the 1966-67 season. He had just reached another European Cup final with Celtic, knocking out great Benfica and Leeds United teams on the way and though he would lose to Udo Lattek’s Feyenoord in Milan, Stein was much in demand.
Manchester United were keen on appointing him as their next manager and for the longest time, it looked like the Scotsman would accept. He eventually turned them down though and would later tell another one of his famous compatriots that it would be a decision he would much regret.
The person in question is none other than Sir Alex Ferguson. Sir Alex considered Stein his mentor in the initial stages of his career, and it was on Stein’s advice that he took charge of St. Mirren in 1974. It was Stein’s regret that would also be crucial in Sir Alex’s decision to accept Manchester United’s offer to coach them 14 years after Stein had turned them down.
"Manchester United is the only club I would have left Aberdeen to join. I recall Jock Stein once telling me that his biggest mistake was to turn down becoming manager of Manchester United, and I bore this in mind when I was offered the job today.” Sir Alex Ferguson had said at the time.
Stein’s influence on Ferguson and a series of other managers was indelible. He was a superstar of a manager in the 60’s and 70’s and won 9 consecutive league championships with Celtic, 10 in all.
His ability to reinvigorate his teams year-on-year, and achieve great success in the continental level as well, demands recognition even today. He ended his career with a staggering 34 trophies in all; his life was brought to a premature end with a heart attack as he was still managing the Scotland national football team.
This is a man who spent considerable time working in a carpet factory and later as a miner. He was brought up in difficult times, and was working in the mines while the second World War raged outside and Scotland was under reserved occupation. Stein saw football as a way out and though he initially had to juggle his mining duties and football, he found he was good enough to become a full-time professional footballer and make ends meet.
Stein would have a 15-year career as a center-half with Albion Rovers, Llanelli Town and Celtic, the club he would later create history at.
The Burbank native would begin his managerial career in charge of the Celtic reserves, before being offered the post at Dunfermline. He took charge of a team that had not won in 4 months, and would then go on to win the first 6 matches in his tenure. A stunning turnaround that immediately brought attention to the then 38-year-old manager.
When Jock Stein was appointed as the manager of Celtic, they were struggling in the league as well. Stein would turn things around again, and take the club to unchartered heights. Unparalleled domestic success would of course follow, but Stein truly turned heads when his team beat Inter Milan in the final of the 1966-67 European Cup final. He became the first man not only to win the European Cup with a Scottish club, but also the first to achieve it with a British Club.
Jock Stein had the humility, personality, and charisma to make his team believe that could do anything, and their success would go on to make him an immortal figure in Scottish hearts. It would be fitting to end with excerpts from a Sir Alex Ferguson interview paying tribute to him a year back.
“He could remember players names from 30 years ago, he had a fantastic intelligence. He was a one-man university.”
“He would never take credit. It was wonderful to talk to a man who had achieved so much being so humble. It was a great benefit to me as a young coach, I thrived in it. It was a privilege to have worked with Jock Stein.”
Here is Sir Alex’s complete interview on Jock Stein.
