As a Manchester United supporter, I coveted Alan Gilzean who played for my brother’s team, Tottenham Hotspur, especially in the 1970s when United were a fading force. I envied Gilzean’s mastery of time and space and his astonishing aerial ability with his repertoire of flicked and glanced headers, finding Jimmy Greaves as if guided by radar. But, with his bony figure and unflinching approach, no one should underestimate how hard he could be.
Always a spiky competitor, adept with his elbows, he had something of the undertaker about him, having gaunt and wintry features and wind-blown, thinning hair. In the parlance of the day, Gilzean was “no oil painting”.
I remember one of those inexplicable moments when the crowd falls silent in the midst of a fast and furious match, and a stentorian voice boomed out from somewhere in the United corner at White Hart Lane: “Gilzean, take OFF that ridiculous mask!” The fans fell about laughing on the packed terraces. Gilzean fixed the crowd with a steely glare, and then, rolling his eyes to the skies, he laughed too.
