Hugh Goldie, My Grandpa. 1939-2020.

You may forget exactly what they said, but you’ll never forget how they made you feel. When drafting the tribute for my Grandpa’s funeral this week I was trying to encapsulate that sentiment – the love he had shared across thousands of memories and 8 decades. While no single person or piece can ever cover such vast ground, it can at least consolidate the story of a life well lived and well shared.

My Grandpa grew up in Gartness near Airdrie, the eldest of three brothers. Like many working class Scots, what they lacked in money was made up for in family and community. He’d passed the 11+ – only to attend the Junior Secondary, Airdrie Central, to stay with his friends. It was there that he became a local sporting sensation. It began in the Lanarkshire Schools’ Cup, where he banged in goal after goal and on the athletics track where he won country sprint trophies.

He was selected at centre-forward for the Scotland Schoolboy squads in 1953 and 1954, scoring at Celtic Park against Ireland, playing against Bobbie Charlton, and starting upfront before 90,000 fans at Wembley in Scotland v England. The programme, a copy of which I recently got my hands on, described him as “Powerfully built, he is the fast, dashing, type of leader.”

You can imagine why these stories captivated me as a football-mad wee boy. They were legend in our family. My Grandpa looked back with humility and humour, but to me he was a hero. I knew various big clubs had wanted to sign him up. His old family scrapbook reveals how speculation over his future was the talk of the sports pages.

Four headlines of the day were “Hugh is the football starlet they all want”, “The Queue on Hugh’s Doorstep”, “The Boy They All Want”, and “Hearts like this boy Goldie”. Willie Waddell, who later managed Rangers to the European Cup Winners’ Cup, authored a piece “For Gallagher Read Goldie”, comparing my Grandpa to Scotland legend Willie Gallagher. Thirteen senior clubs were chasing his signature – including Hearts of Midlothian, Rangers, Aston Villa, Newcastle and Chelsea. No wonder. He’d scored 55 goals in 22 games for Slateford Athletic – as the first player from outside Edinburgh the young club had ever signed.

Bill Heeps, later chair of Thomson newspapers, described my Grandpa’s tough teenage training regime: up at 7am, trudging back the two mile country lane to Gartness by midnight after mid-week matches. From the article you can tell his parents kept his feet firmly on the ground.

Hearts were the victors in the signing saga. My grandparents were among 132,000 fans in Hampden to watch his new team lift the Scottish Cup in 1956. They joined the champagne celebrations, drinking out the trophy in the dressing room.

He couldn’t have joined a more talented squad, particularly upfront. In 1957-58 Hearts scored an incredible 132 goals in just 34 games, romping to the Scottish title with a single defeat. They remain the highest scoring squad in 130 years of Scottish football. So my teenage Grandpa was playing and scoring for the reserves.

Last Christmas we got him a book of football teams through the ages – with him front left in that historic Hearts squad. One Hearts fan recalled tales of that team and my Grandpa’s “bucket load of goals” in the Tynecastle reserves. He went on to play for Partick Thistle, Greenock Morton and Stranraer.

Hugh Goldie, on the left of the front row.

His passion for football never wavered. As his first grandchild – and until 2005 his only grandson – sport brought us together. He initiated me into the Airdrieonians family of the late 90s and early 2000s. It had a lasting impact. The ’98 win against Celtic. Steve Archibald’s Spanish Armada who, despite looming liquidation, won the Challenge Cup twenty years ago this month. (The photo from that night – with myself beaming, scarf aloft above my head – was permanently pinned to the fridge.) The ‘Save the Diamonds’ campaign. The 2001-2 push for the SPL. The bitterness and bittersweet relief of bankruptcy and resurrection. The league title in 2004.

To understand why football matters you have to get why it is such a big part of growing up as a young boy outside Glasgow, where your red diamond stood out from blue or green. It was something my Grandpa and I shared, most of all when I was young, but for the rest of his life too. When Scotland’s men beat the Czech Republic a few weeks back I told him it was their best run for 32 years. “Aye, but who have they been against?!”, he replied with laughter in his voice.

I was a runner not a striker. From 9 till 29 he’d want all the updates on how I was doing. He was stand in coach on many occasions, shuttling me and a future Olympian to the Kelvinhall for national championships.

There are few prouder occasions in my life than one wet weekend in Dumbarton when he took me to a cross country championships. I won. But what mattered most was that he was there to see me do it.

Of course he’d had a whole other life between his football career and when I was born. He was a draughtsman at Lambertons in Coatbridge, managed a factory in Auchterarder, before setting himself up with a firm specialising in the manufacture of magnetic cores. The company was a great success – even exporting to NASA in the U.S. Just weeks before he died I was showing him his old company’s current finances, and sharing memories of those he worked with.

He was a Lanarkshire man his whole life, staying in touch with many he’d gone to school and worked with. He was involved across the community – most prominently at the High Kirk in Airdrie where he was an Elder. He was involved with the Sunday School and ran the Bible Class. He was a youth club leader, and coached Airdrie under-18s football team. His support for young people was the common thread of those callings.

As part of the ‘Hands Around Monklands’ campaign, he joined the successful protest to save the accident and emergency facilities. We shared many political values. He believed in public service, community service, and the need for integrity in public life. We shared a healthy scepticism of whether the modern political class truly values or lives up to any of those standards.

He took an active interest in everything I did in politics or journalism – and was never shy to share his own views. Every time we saw each other in later years we’d have a lively debate over recent news. This ritual was always good spirited.

He had a healthy distain for the mean-spirited, cheap Nimbyism, or the pointless diktat. Once when playing football on the green round the corner from his house, a passerby scorned in our direction: “Haven’t you seen that sign?!” A kill-joy ‘No Football’ post was over our shoulder. “I can’t read!”, my Grandpa shot back with a giggle.

I’ve always loved that story. It reflects his warmth, joy, and sense of fun. He was never stern or cold. As grandchildren, we saw those strengths in his life long love and marriage to my Gran. This was the most important thing to him. Their life together – not football or work – was his greatest dream. It was a dream that came true. His love for her always shone brightest.

He showed unconditional love to his family. He was the ultimate gentleman. He was caring and considerate. When health issues were challenging, he remained steadfast and thankful. His positivity and determination in life were unbowed. He continued to spend time with his closest friends and family. Those that knew him said he inspired them to be better.

In the past year, as cancer spread, he showed immense self-sacrifice amid COVID restrictions. I, and many others, can at least be thankful that we knew early enough to spend time together.

On the morning of my Grandpa’s funeral neighbours stood outside their homes to share their sympathy; church Elders stood in solidarity outside the church; friends and family watched a service livestream if they couldn’t be there is person. This was a measure of the impact he left on others.

There is a lot more about the depth and strength of his character, much of which is best left in private, family memory. Others close to my Grandpa have their memorable stories that I won’t paraphrase. I can speak about my inheritance from him. 

He gave me a love of sport and football, an appreciation of manufacturing, a sense of humour and rebelliousness, a respect for integrity, loyalty, and hard work, and the values of care, compassion, and self-sacrifice. He even passed on his fierce red hair. In my nearly 30 years I was lucky to share with him, none of these ever dimmed.

One of that last things he said to me was to look after one another. That advice is a final gift to hold onto. We will miss him greatly.