With the announcement today on Fergies retirement it is worth pondering the influence a Glasgow Accie had on his career
The Daily Telegraph takes up the story


By Robert Philip12:01AM GMT 26 Jan 2005
If Douglas Smith had ever been the subject of This Is Your Life – and what an enthralling tale it would have been – then the studio would have represented a Who's Who of Scottish football, for in his own unassuming way, here was a figure as influential to the game in his native land as Jock Stein, Bill Shankly or Sir Matt Busby. Under his gentle guidance and encouragement, a score and more of the young boys who came under Smith's influence at an early age went on to gain full international caps, while more than 300 of them became professional footballers.



Not all of them reached the heights of Kenny Dalglish, Asa Hartford or Archie Gemmill after leaving Drumchapel Amateurs, the club Smith founded in 1950 and nurtured with abiding love until his death last year at the age of 76, some developed into football giants later in life. "Douglas Smith was a fantastic man," says Sir Alex Ferguson, who played for 'The Drum', as they were affectionately known throughout Glasgow, until joining Queen's Park at the age of 16. "It helped that he was very rich, of course, but it wasn't just about money – he devoted an incredible amount of time to us."

A Cambridge graduate in engineering, Smith was invalided out of the Army in 1949 after being seriously injured during training as an infantry officer and returned to his home near Dumbarton to run the family's successful ship-breaking business. His twin loves of football and the church led to him being invited to manage the Boys' Brigade team in Drumchapel, then a village in the north-west of Glasgow, before being transformed into a sprawling council estate of 30,000 souls which, in their wisdom, the planners of the day decided should be built without the benefit of pubs, restaurants, cinemas or any other amenity at the time for that matter. "A desert wi' windaes," as Billy Connolly so eloquently described the concrete wasteland of old.

Over the next half-century, Smith transformed the local amateur team into one of the most successful youth clubs in Europe, at every age level from under-14 to under-18. "But Douglas Smith didn't only teach you about football," continues Sir Alex, "he also instilled in you a code of life - discipline, cleanliness, good time-keeping, no swearing, sportsmanship, but how to be competitive as well. Actually, I'd already learnt about punctuality from my father, who was a real stickler. My mum said he opened up the yard every morning because he was always the first to arrive for work. So, between Douglas and my dad, I'm never late for anything to this day."

Smith, the millionaire shipyard owner, and Fergie, the son of a Govan shipyard worker, remained in touch for 50 years. "Funnily enough, I didn't want to sign for Drumchapel Amateurs when Douglas game to my home in 1954. I was playing with a local youth club and didn't fancy leaving my pals, but he could be very persuasive. Although we were amateurs, we were treated like professionals. The organisation and preparation were meticulous. Every Thursday we'd receive a time-table for the following Saturday informing us who we were playing, where we were to meet and who would collect us if we needed a lift after playing for our schools in the morning. Then we were taken to Reid's tea-rooms in Glasgow for lunch – we were in one room and Queen's Park were invariably next door –which made us feel even more professional. The bother Douglas went to was simply unbelievable.

"Every now and then, eight or nine of us would pile into his big Rover – I can remember going with Eddie McCreadie, Andy Lochhead and the best young player of all in my days, David Thompson, who went to America to become a song-writer – to be taken for Sunday lunch at Douglas's huge mansion where we trooped through his orchard to play football on his private bowling green. He didn't care about your background or religion, only if you could play football."

But did the fact that the Ferguson household had Drumchapel's green- and-white hooped shirt hanging on the washing-line every week not cause problems down Govan way? "Not at all. The only time we ever had trouble was the Saturday afternoon Celtic walloped Rangers 7-1 and we were playing Possil YM, who wore Rangers strips. We had a real battle at the end of that one when the result filtered through, as it always does in Glasgow. The lessons I learnt while playing for Drumchapel have stood me in good stead throughout my career – Douglas Smith was a great man and a massive influence."

Understandably, Smith took great pride in Ferguson's triumphs at Old Trafford and his subsequent knighthood, but you did not have to succeed in football to bring a gleam to the old man's eye. Paul Watchman was a talented if fragile winger at Dunfermline and Clyde before making his mark as one of the world's top environmental lawyers as a partner with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in London. Academic and author on several books on law, Watchman describes his early mentor as "a visionary". "He was taking Drumchapel to Europe in the 1950s to play the youth sides of Barcelona, Juventus, AC Milan, Roma, Fiorentina and Moscow Spartak. Just my luck, my 'foreign' trip was to Southend, but, as I'd never been on a plane before, it was still a great adventure. Typically, Mr Smith – I always called him 'Mr Smith' – told the bus driver to take us past the Bank of England on our way south from the airport where he informed us it had been founded by a Scot, William Patterson, in 1694 and be given a history lesson.

"As well as teaching us that football should be played in a certain style and certain spirit, he opened our minds. No wonder so many Drumchapel Amateurs went on to become advocates, lawyers, bankers or successful businessman. He was a very exotic character, having worked on projects in Egypt, India and Nigeria, and spoke very differently from us council house boys. Mr Smith was very Oxbridge in the way he constructed sentences and would say things like 'we displayed unwelcome paucity in midfield' or 'I thought the referee to be very pusillanimous today'. We certainly learnt how to use a dictionary.

"He insisted we play 'on-the-ground' football with no maiming – which went totally against our natural instincts – and on the very rare occurrence when one of us would be sent off, he took us aside to explain how 'disappointed' he was. He didn't shout or raise his voice, but that word 'disappointed' was sufficient to shame you. He gave us a belief in ourselves simply through his beliefs and values. He 'saved' lives, lads who came from nothing, who might have made nothing of themselves but for 'The Drum'. He could have bought into any club in Scotland but chose to devote 50 years to an amateur side. You had to be special to play for Mr Smith and even when I turned pro, I always carried my Drumchapel Amateurs bag to show I was a cut above the others."

And just as Smith remembered the name of each and every boy who represented the club, so the boys who have grown into adults have never forgotten the man who influenced their formative years. On Feb 27, Sir Alex and 700 former Drumchapel players will assemble in Glasgow for a charity dinner to raise funds in the hope of returning the club to their former glory.

Shortly before his death, Smith observed: "I only feel two or three years older than the boys I work with. That's what working with youngsters does for you. They're my life and I've been a very fortunate man."

It was Sir Alex and the rest, needless to say, who are the fortunate men for having known Douglas Smith.

'The Drum' roll of honour

Kenny Dalglish (Celtic & Liverpool)
Asa Hartford (West Brom, Everton & Man City)
Archie Gemmill (Derby & Nottm Forest)
John Wark (Ipswich & Liverpool)
John Robertson (Nottm Forest)
Eddie McCreadie (Chelsea)
Pat Crerand (Celtic & Man Utd)
Mo Johnston (Watford, Nantes, Celtic & Rangers)
John O'Hare (Derby)
Alan Brazil (Ipswich, Tottenham, Man Utd)
Bobby Hope (West Brom)
Jim Forrest (Rangers)
Jim Cruikshank (Hearts)
George McLean (Dundee)
Ally Hunter (Celtic)
Iain Munro (St Mirren)
Tony Green (Blackpool & Newcastle)
Tommy Craig (Sheffield Wed & Newcastle)
Andy Gray (Aston Villa, Wolves, Everton)
Jim Kennedy (Celtic)
Paul Wilson (Celtic)
Francis Munro (Wolves)
Frank McAvennie (West Ham & Celtic)
Ally Dawson (Rangers)

This article was originally posted on 8-May-2013, 15:42 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 9-May-2013, 06:24.