I was also aware that he had joined John Harvey and, I think, Willie Waddell to visit Inter’s training grounds at Milan, Italy, to study the methods of Helenio Herrera. Incidentally, after that trip Hearts had become the first Scottish club to use the 4–2–4 system in Scotland, although a well-known local journalist observed that it wouldn’t be possible to play this system as only 10 players were involved.
READ THIS…Matt Corr with Pat Woods: When Jock Stein met Helenio Herrera – The Invitation
(NB: Part 2 from Matt Corr and Pat Woods will be published shortly on The Celtic Star).
After 10 minutes or so on the bench, I saw Mr Stein emerge from another room. He came over to me, introduced himself and took me into the boardroom (which I was to visit a few times over the next six years).
Seated at the table waiting for us was the Celtic chairman, Bob Kelly. I sat on the opposite side of the table from both of them. Mr Stein did most of the talking, telling me that the terms would be £65 basic appearance money, plus bonuses for the League and the Cup.
This was a great start for me, as my basic wage at Hearts was £35 a week, no appearance money and bonuses were nothing like as regular as they would be at Celtic. I was very happy with everything I had heard up to this point.
Jock Stein, Celtic manager
Then Mr Stein said the signing-on fee would be £1,000 and they would sign me until the end of the season. As this was all happening in December, that meant I would only have a six-month contract. I asked Mr Stein why the signing-on fee was so low and whether he was signing me only as a stop-gap until other players were fit. He said that the signing-on fee was low as the transfer fee was only £20,000 and, as the season was already halfway through, I could sign for six months and renegotiate a new contract at the end of the season.
I was quite taken aback by the size of the transfer fee. I knew that, at the start of that season, Hearts had been offered over £80,000 by Newcastle United and Stoke City. I couldn’t understand then – and don’t understand now – what exactly went on and why the transfer fee was set so low.
The new Celtic backroom team at Broomfield. From left: Neil Mochan, Bob Rooney, Jock Stein and Sean Fallon
I also said to Mr Stein that I didn’t understand the £1,000 signing-on fee, either. It was the normal expectation at that time that a signing-on fee would be a minimum of 10 per cent of the transfer fee. His reply was quite curt: “Oh. That’s in England, not here.” He had the transfer papers all ready and asked if I would sign them as, apparently, John Harvey had said it would be alright to complete the deal before the Hearts’ representatives arrived.
Continues on the next page…
