The walk to the Cameron House Hotel library became known as the green mile. It’s the room where Hibs boss Alex McLeish would break the most dreadful news.
I was invited on such a walk on the morning of the 2001 Scottish Cup Final and I knew what was coming, I could read him like a book. Sombre, slowly strolling towards that library knowing I was about to be condemned to watching the biggest game of my career against Celtic from the stands.
To this day I can recall the silence after Big Eck told me he was going for experience on the bench – I was the easy option to miss out. Ian Murray spoke this week about the mixed emotions of having to share a room with me. Two 19-year-olds, Ian had been on his own walk that morning and was on cloud nine. He was playing from the start and there was me, inconsolable and in floods of tears.
I had expected to be involved, I’d scored the winning goals against Stirling then in the last minute in the quarter-final against Kilmarnock. We’d beaten Livingston in the semi and I was involved so to be thrown a custard pie ahead of the Celtic game was a shock.
I know Big Eck would have hated this part of the game, he knew he was breaking my heart. After he’d delivered the bombshell I ran back to my room and burst into tears. I’d left tickets for my family so I called them and could barely speak on the phone.
Ian just sat there trying to find the words to console me but all I saw was my mate bursting inside that he was about to play in a Scottish Cup Final against Celtic. Quite right too, I’d have been the same. I cried from 11am all the way through to 2.15pm. I’d made my way on to the team bus with a pair of black sunglasses to try and hide the distress I was in. We would go on and lose 3-0 to a superb Celtic side.
Ian has done brilliantly as boss of Raith Rovers and he will have to make his own tough decisions ahead of their game with Hamilton in Sunday’s Trust Trophy Final. Football is a brutal game, being told you aren’t required by a manager is something every pro has to deal with during their career. I thought I’d have plenty of finals to play further down the line but I was wrong. If that was a sore one, there was worse still to come.
Again it was a Scottish Cup Final against Celtic. It was another boot in the b**** but no walk to the library this time. I’d signed for Dunfermline in the January and I was flying, banging in goals left, right and centre.
When we reached the final I was told I couldn’t play as I’d been an unused sub in a tie as a Falkirk player earlier in the season. My agent wrote to the SFA to see if there was any way they could let me to play as it was harsh in the extreme but he was told under no circumstances could they change the rule.
To rub salt into my wound, the SFA managed to find some circumstances to change the rule as that’s exactly what they did the following season. The Pars went down to a Jean-Joel Perrier-Doumbe goal but I was back to bubbling away before the game and watching it behind those sunglasses.
Two Scottish Cup Finals, one missed after being 18th man and the other because of a stupid rule. Taking these
disappointments is part and parcel of being a footballer. It’s about how you deal with it and how you come back from it.
I look at Ian now as a manager and see how difficult it can be to leave players out. But he needs to pick his best team. Alex McLeish would shout boys over to him at lunch before away games. Whoever got the call would have to do the walk of shame while the rest of us would be laughing – gallows humour as we’ve all been on that green mile at some point.
READ NEXT
