April 15th 2015, Happy 75th birthday Eddie McCreadie!

I suppose as a card collector it’s no surprise Eddie was one of my early heroes, as he was one of the Anglo cards in all the early cards series I collected. Although in saying that, so was Tommy Craig and he was never a hero for me (and probably for a lot of Saints fans too.).

Chelsea were one of the cool clubs at the tail end of the swingin’ sixties and Eddie along with Charlie Cooke made them one of my favourite teams at the time. The thing was Eddie always looked so mean in his pictures, never one to smile, he was more of a scowler. He was a hard player and there’s great footage of him kicking Billy Bremner in the head although to his credit he was concerned for Billy afterwards or maybe he was just worried about Billy’s retribution.

Eddie played over 350 games for Chelsea and was signed by Tommy Docherty in 1962 for £5000 from East Stirling. Eddie would later manage Chelsea and also work extensively in the U.S. where I believe he still lives. On his 27th birthday Eddie played in the Scotland team that famously beat England 3-2 at Wembley in 1967. All his caps came in the 1960’s and he gained 23 caps altogether. Here’s to you Eddie, Happy 75th.

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David Stuart