The second part of the Baker Boy, from Issue Hibs Monthly Issue 52

THE BAKER BOY
:JOE’S STORY

(As told to Ted Brack)

Making a mark at Easter Road Park

I BECAME a part-time professional with Hibs in August 1957. I thought it wiser to keep on with my apprenticeship in an engineering shop in Wishaw in case I didn't make the grade in senior football. I expected to spend the season in the reserves understudying my great hero "Last-minute Lawrie" Reilly. but Lawrie was injured and Hibs kicked off their League Cup campaign with John Fraser at centre-forward. The season was only four days old when I received a Wednesday afternoon at work to report to Airdrie's Broomfield Park that evening and link up with Hibs first team squad there. I surmised that because Airdrie was on my doorstep. Hibs wanted to give me the opportunity of sampling the pig time atmosphere. They did, but not in the way that I expected.

AFTER work, I caught a bus across to Airdrie and made my way to the dressing room. I was met by Hibs manager Hugh Shaw and Hughie's message was simple: “Joe, John Fraser is injured so you are in.”

HERE I was then at 17 making my first team debut and I couldn't have chosen a more formidable opponent. Airdrie's centre half at that time was Doug Baillie. The papers used to call him the Man Mountain and when I saw him on the park that night, I knew why. Doug was there to mark me, and he carried out his task in literal terms. When the game ended I hadn't managed to get a goal but I HAD collected my fair share of bruises. Doug of course went on to play for Rangers before finding a niche with the Sunday Post as its main football correspondent. We lost the game 4- I but I felt that I had done well enough. It was back to the reserves for a while but in September the call came again.

HIBS had blazed the trail in Scotland with floodlit football playing European Cup matches and lucrative and exciting challenge games against top English opposition. Hearts had now decided to follow suit and to mark the opening of their new lighting system, they invited Hibs along to Tynecastle on a Monday evening to be their inaugural guests.

I WAS in the Hibs side for my second taste of big time football and a much more pleasant taste it turned out to be...

WE BEAT Hearts 4-2 and I managed to get a cracking goal, so once again TynecastIe had proved a lucky ground for me. It was to prove an even luckier ground before the season was out, but at that stage I wasn't looking any further than one game ahead. The Hibs fans enjoyed our performance that night and they seemed to like what they saw of the Baker Boy. For most of them it was their first look at me, and they seemed to take me to their hearts straight away. In both my spells with Hibs, I got nothing but support and encouragement from the crowd and indeed now I am astounded by the amount of goodwill and affection with which I am greeted whenever I am anywhere near Easter Road. After that Monday massacre of the maroons, I couldn't wait for the Saturday league fixture against Queens Park. The amateurs were still a force to be reckoned with in the top league at that time but my luck held for their visit. I scored in each half as we ran out 2-0 winners and again the Press had nice things to say about me.

TWO DAYS later we were back in action. The mighty Tottenham Hotspur came to town for a floodlit friendly and received a 5-2 drubbing. I got my first first-team hat-trick including two goals in two minutes and the Press were really starting to sit up and take notice. Things continued to prosper. Although our league form was patchy, I was managing to keep scoring regularly, but it was when the Scottish Cup came around that the sparks really began to fly.

ROUND one took us to Tannadice. Dundee United weren't the team then that they are now and we were disappointed only to manage a goalless draw, although we pulled through 2-0 in the replay.

THE DRAW for the next round provided a mouth watering prospect - Hibs were drawn to play Hearts at Tynecastle. Hearts, at that time, were the undoubted top dogs in Scottish football. They were regularly too good for the Old Firm and were sweeping through the season a tidal wave of success. Nobody outside Easter Road gave us the slightest chance. In the dressing room before the match, our manager, Hugh Shaw, leaned across to me and said: "Well Joe, what do you think?" I replied: "Why don't we just get wired in!" Hughie just shook his head and laughed. He was always more of a lounge suit manager than a tracksuit manager, but even to as unsophisticated a tactician as him, my advice seemed naive in the extreme.

HOWEVER, "get wired in" was exactly what we did. We harried and hustled Hearts all over the park and never gave them a moment's peace. We had three key players. Eddie Turnbull had by this time stepped back from inside forward to wing half. You could never accuse Eddie of being one of life's jokers. Football was a serious business to Eddie and he was as sparing with praise as he was with bonhomie. He had watched me - a 17-year old boy - score over 20 goals already that season and had barely offered me a scrap of congratulation. When I missed a chance though, Eddie was first to let me know all about it.

LEAVING aside his less than sunny nature, there is no doubt that Eddie was a magnificent football player and that day he was at his best, urging us on relentlessly. One man who needed no urging was yours truly. I was back at my favourite away ground and it was business as usual on the goals front. Hearts had a centre half called Jimmy Milne and I hope I don't sound immodest if I say that I don't think he knew what hit him that day. I outpaced him, out jumped him and generally led him a merry dance. I also managed to score four goals. Four goals should be enough to win any match but the Hibs defence of that time was less than watertight. Enter hero number three...

OUR goalkeeper Lawrie Leslie was a local lad from Niddrie, and although, like all 'keepers, he made his fair share of errors, he was a magnificent natural goalkeeper at his brilliant best. Hearts beat Lawrie three times, but of course that wasn't enough and we had recorded a famous victory. Hibs eventually allowed Lawrie to leave for a pittance which was just one of a series of ill judged moves the club made around that time. He went on to play for his country and anyone who witnessed his performance that day at Tynecastle would have been in no doubt that the man was international class.

THE HIBS fans carried Lawrie off the pitch shoulder high. The rest of us did not need carrying off because we were walking on air!

IN THE quarter-finals we received a home draw against Third Lanark, and although we didn’t play well that day we scraped into the semi-finals.

IT WAS on to Hampden to face the Rangers in the semi-finals. The first game was a 2-2 draw but in the replay we played really well and were leading 2-1 well into the second half The Rangers pressure mounted as the match wore on, but we were coping reasonably comfortably and with a minute to go, we were just starting to congratulate ourselves on weathering the storm when disaster seemed to strike. Lawrie Leslie went up for a high ball with Ralph Brand, and when the ball broke free Max Murray drove it in. We were devastated, but not for long…. The linesman flagged the referee, Bobby Davidson, who had given a goal. After consulting his colleague, Davidson disallowed the goal for handball against Brand. As you can imagine the referee was not the most popular man at Hampden that day. But he was vindicated the next day by the press photographs which clearly showed Brand punching the ball out of Leslie's hands.

THIS incident has gone down in Hibs fans' folklore and for a long time after that match “Ralph Brands” became a common rhyming slang in the Leith area!

WE WERE in the final for the first time since 1947 and were well aware that Hibs hadn't won the Scottish Cup since 1902. Our opponents were Clyde who were a fine side then, but we quietly fancied our chances.

A HUGE Hibs contingent swelled the crowd to 97,000 but they were to be sadly disappointed. Nothing went right for us, first Andy Aitken was injured and had to hirple out on the right wing (there were no substitutes in these days) then Clyde took the lead halfway through the first half.

OUR best chance came after the interval. Aitken managed to forget his injury for a moment and forced over a fierce head-high cross. I launched myself at the ball but couldn't reach it with my head, so instinctively stuck out a hand and pushed the ball home. Jack Mowat, the referee, gave a goal at first but the linesman soon drew his attention to my offence.

WE FINALLY knew the cup would not be coming to Easter Road when our left back Joe McLelland unleashed a thunderbolt of a shot which seemed net bound until it struck Clyde's Mike Clinton full in the face. Clinton was knocked unconscious but he would wake up a happy man. One unhappy man on the homeward journey that night was Joe Baker.

IN ALL honesty I should never have played in that final. My hectic debut season had started to catch up with me physical1y and the spring had gone from my legs. The prospect of playing in the final at Hampden was awe-inspiring to me at 17. I had sailed through other games unaffected but it had now finally dawned on me just what big-time football pressure really was. I toyed with the idea of telling Hugh Shaw all this. On the Monday before the final we had played Rangers at Easter Road in a league game which was Lawrie ReiIly's last game - we won 3-1 with Lawrie and I both scoring. Lawrie was clearly not fully fit, but the thought did occur to me that it should be him and not me that played in the final. In the event, I said nothing, played and contributed little. If I was older I might have reacted differently, but on reflection I think it would have taken a braver man than Hugh Shaw to have explained to the Hibs fans why the Baker Boy was in the stand and not on the park on Cup Final Day.