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Hamish Husband’s recent post re meeting Eric Caldow served to remind me that I have met gie few football legends save for a number of Partick Thistle’s 1971 League Cup Final winning team at a 25th anniversary bash at Firhill.

My all-time favourite footballer however is John Greig who won the last of his 44 caps skippering his country to a 3-1 win against Denmark in a Euro Championship qualifier in 1975. It was the only time I actually saw ‘Ham n Egg’ in the dark blue of Scotland and so I missed seeing him more than hold his own at Hampden against the likes of Italy in 1965 [Facchetti, Mazzola, Rivera et al];Brazil in 1966 which included Pele, Jairzinho and Gerson; and West Germany in 1969 featuring the ‘terrible trio’ of Gerd Muller, Beckenbauer, and er, em, Vogts………

Greig also sorted out messrs Moore, Ball, Greaves, Hurst and Charlton on several occasions.A few years ago I had the chance to ‘meet’ JG at a book signing event in a WHSmith shop in Glasgow however I bottled-out of it partly on the basis of the old adage that sometimes it is best not to meet your heroes. So instead I sent the missus over to to speak to the great man and she returned with a signed copy of his autobiography…….. and a badly bruised shin!

Robert Marshall

First posted on Facebook on April 9th, 2015