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Supermac! What can you say?
Coming from a family who has a history of admiration for Newcastle United number 9s, it was inevitable that he would quickly become my hero.
Signed from Luton for £180,000 by Joe Harvey, I had the pleasure of attending his home debut v Liverpool in August 1971.
At 9 years of age I was aware that we’d bought a new centre forward but I couldn’t remember seeing much about him prior to him lining up for his home debut. I’d heard he was a goalscorer who knew where the net was.
Two previous league fixtures had failed to produce a goal so a home debut against Liverpool of all teams was not a fixture where many people would have put a few shilling on a Supermac hat-trick….but what do we know!
Kicking off his goals by a pen smacked into the top corner with power and precision, he then followed that with a drag back and screamer into the net at the Gallowgate End. Two goals by half time was not a bad start. A third goal following a decent interchange with John Tudor, giving a 3-2 victory, followed by being stretchered off with concussion, concluded the electric start to his Gallowgate career…and I had a new hero.
In the seasons that followed he was the footballer who I looked up to the most. My hero in answer to my Dad’s Jackie Milburn. It’s fair to say he scored goals for fun and was a player who wasn’t afraid to miss. His style of play was exciting and you knew that if he was on the pitch no matter how we performed as a team, he just needed one chance. His goals brought him reward at international level, including all five against Cyprus in a 5-0 victory. My abiding memory of him will always be the semi-final of the FA Cup against Burnley and his double, the second after a Terry Hibbitt through ball with the centre half hanging on to him.
He didn’t disappoint over the years scoring 121 goals in 228 appearances over a period of 5 seasons before being shipped out to Arsenal by Gordon Lee, in controversial circumstances. I was gutted. Of course, as expected, he came back to haunt us.
Supermac, superstar!
You can buy the above photo and many others from sporting-heroes.net
