Stoke and I by Neil James

Author:Neil James
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pitch Publishing
Published: 2018-03-21T16:00:00+00:00

Saving Gordon Marshall … (Because he probably wouldn't be able to save himself!)

I start the search for Gordon Marshall by tracking down his current whereabouts – he’s working as a goalkeeping coach at Aberdeen, and has worked at a number of top-flight Scottish clubs since retiring. It’s clear to me from my initial research that Marshall’s a highly respected coach, but it’s not praise for his coaching skills that I’m intending to highlight – it’s positives from his playing career.

My first internet search throws up a recent article from the Daily Herald. It was written as a preview for the 2017/18 Scottish League Cup Final between Celtic and Motherwell, and centres around Marshall not only playing for both clubs, but making howlers in two separate cup finals. The tone of the article is quite complimentary towards Marshall (it would be – he had agreed, after all, to provide the writer with a few quotes), but all things considered, this is not a good start.

Undeterred though in my mission to at least partly restore the reputation of the man, I head off to trawl Scottish football websites and forums – dark, grim corners of the internet that they are – for some positive opinions about Gordon Marshall. Fans don’t need to be as diplomatic as journalists and I know I’ll get a warts an’ all view on any player, past or present, if I look in the right places.

As I wade through the various Celtic message boards looking for anything complimentary about Marshall, the true nature of this task became apparent to me.

‘How he ever played for us is unbelievable.’

‘A complete joke of a goalkeeper.’

‘Absolutely diabolical.’

Worryingly, they were the only printable comments on the thread I found entitled ‘Gordon Marshall’. The rest was a two-page assassination, albeit heavily based on his association with Rangers as a youngster as much as it was about his goalkeeping. All right, so Marshall – or ‘The Hairdresser’ as the Celtic fans call him, referencing his qualification as a barber (something I’d forgotten about until now) – was obviously never good enough for a fanbase as big and demanding as Celtic’s, but perhaps he’s thought of more fondly somewhere a little more forgiving, and less sectarian, like Kilmarnock?

In desperation for something positive to write about the man, if only to assuage my guilt, I tweet a request for comments about Marshall to a handful of Kilmarnock fans who at least look like they might be able to string a few sentences together. If they don’t reply with something nice, I may have to resort to hoping that the big man’s mum is still alive and getting something on record from her. He played 159 games for Kilmarnock: surely he can’t have been as bad for them as he was for us, and, it appears, for Celtic as well?

Thankfully, someone soon comes to my rescue. A Kilmarnock fan tweeting under the name of ‘The Murph’ answers my prayers. Bearing in mind that up to this point, I’ve

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