Archie Knox - The School of Hard Knox: The Autobiography of Archie Knox

First published in 2017 by

ARENA SPORT
An imprint of Birlinn Limited
West Newington House
10 Newington Road
Edinburgh
EH9 1QS

www.arenasportbooks.co.uk

Text copyright Archie Knox and Roger Hannah, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-909715-55-4
eBook ISBN: 978-0-85790-946-6

The right of Archie Knox and Roger Hannah to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express written permission of the publisher.

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologises for any errors or omissions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library.

Designed and typeset by Polaris Publishing, Edinburgh

Printed in Great Britain by CPI Mackays

Over the years, working in football, Ive been lucky to have met and made many great friends some of whom are mentioned in the book.

Although football consumed my life, any success wouldnt have been possible without the support of my family.

To my wife Janis who moved house on a regular basis whilst trying to pursue her own career in teaching and who sadly passed away in 2006, to Susan and Lesley who also had to contend with moving schools during the early years but never complained and who both now have families of their own. Having three granddaughters and one grandson has brought a different perspective on life and filled the gap left by retiring from the football.

Anna and Olivia live locally and being able to see them grow up is special and probably something I missed with my own girls.

April and Archie are a bit further away in Spain and, although we keep in regular contact, going to visit is always something special.

To my brothers Jimmy, Arthur, Jack and sisters Margaret and Evelyn for keeping my feet firmly on the ground.

Lastly I would like to thank Roger for his considerable effort in making the book possible.

Archie Knox

This book wouldnt have been possible without the advice, assistance and, most importantly, patience of Pete Burns at Arena Sport.

Martin Greig of BackPage Press offered much-appreciated encouragement from the first moment and helped enormously.

Thanks to all on the sports desk at the Scottish Sun and to picture desk colleagues Darren ONeill, Keith Campbell, Mike Schofield and David Henderson.

Sam Wallace and Ken Lawrence opened their enviable contacts books to bring some of Englands finest players to the table.

Thanks, too, to Satty Singh for his support in the project and helping us launch this book.

The staff of Nonna Ginas in Newton Mearns must be mentioned for keeping us fed and watered during our numerous breakfast summits.

And thanks go to everyone from Sir Alex Ferguson at the start of this story to Jim McSherry in the final paragraphs. Without each and every one of you, The School of Hard Knox would never have developed past kindergarten.

Thanks to Susan and Andy Baird for digging into their loft, garage and cupboards for family photos and mementoes.

Thanks to Derek and Amanda Templeton for keeping our glasses charged as we passed round those photos and mementoes. Its been dyno...

And, of course, huge love and thanks to Fiona, Mark and Katie for putting up with me and the clatter of the laptop keys at the kitchen table. I promise there will be no more late-night cursing when the internet router goes down and I cant Google the Forfar Athletic squad from 1978.

Finally, a big thanks to Archie. Its been wonderful to hear all your stories and gain a glimpse into a life less ordinary.

I told you folk would buy it!

Roger Hannah

In the summer of 1980, Aberdeen celebrated a first league title in a quarter of a century but one major change was on the horizon at Pittodrie. I had lost Pat Stanton as my assistant. I think his family wanted to move back closer to Edinburgh and he decided to take the managers job at Cowdenbeath. Despite our New Firm rivalry, I was close to Jim McLean the manager of Dundee United and I sought his counsel on a replacement. Jim instantly recommended Archie Knox, who was manager of Forfar Athletic at the time but had played and coached under him at Tannadice.

Jim told me He works like a beast, is dedicated, is as straight as a die and you can trust him. Those are all the qualities you need in an assistant.

Archie was prepared to work all right. He was also honest and I quickly found out that I could trust him to watch my back all the time. Choosing someone you can trust is the most important thing. But Archie also had energy, dedication and a terrific work ethic. What you see is what you get with Archie and we had a fantastic relationship. Mind you, he could be like a bull in a china shop at times. We had a million arguments it was never a honeymoon. But I trusted him 100 per cent and he always gave me the right advice.

We used to travel all over the place to games. We would leave our wives, Janis and Cathy, in Aberdeen and drive everywhere. I would drive down the road from Aberdeen and Archie would sleep in the car, then Archie would drive back up and Id get some sleep. That was the arrangement. Goodness knows how many trips we made down that road. We put in an unbelievable amount of work.

But we had an unbelievable amount of fun, too. We used to play a game called Tips in the gymnasium at Pittodrie after training on a Friday and it could go on for hours. There were lots of little goals all over the gym which was built underneath one of the stands and youd have to outscore your opponent. Sometimes the players were involved but most of the time it was just the two of us and wed haul in a young player to referee. We grabbed Brian Mitchell one day and he was sh***ing himself. He gave a bad decision against me and I warned him that one more wrong call and hed be running round the track. He then gave a bad one against Archie and got the same warning from him. I cant remember what happened next but, needless to say, it ended with Brian running round the track.

We played for another couple of hours before finishing. Teddy Scott, our coach at Aberdeen, would have a cup of tea ready for us. At that point, Teddy asked us what we should do with Brian because he was still out running round the track. Wed forgotten all about him!

I lost Archie twice, once to Dundee as manager in 1983 and then again to Rangers as assistant manager in 1991. I always remember in Gothenburg after the European Cup Winners Cup final win over Real Madrid, I was at the bar with Teddy at four in the morning. He said Someone will be coming in for Archie. Ive heard rumours. Of course, Dundee came in and he did very well for them as manager for three years.

I attracted him back to Aberdeen in 1986. I didnt want him going from being a manager to an assistant manager, so we became joint-managers. I was perfectly comfortable with it and so were the board. But then, just a few months later, Manchester United came in and we were both off. Im pretty sure Dick Donald offered Archie the job at Aberdeen on his own at that stage but he chose to come down to United.