Why Dave Mackay hated the picture of him confronting Billy Bremner
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- Опубликовано: 15 сен 2024
- Former Tottenham captain, who has died aged 80, always claimed one of football's most famous images portrayed him as "a bully"
It is still one of the most iconic images in football.
It is August 1966, the first day of the new season, and Dave Mackay - shirt tucked in, sleeves rolled up, hair slicked back - is striding across White Hart Lane's pristine turf, exuding an air of complete menace.
His face contorted in a snarl, his right fist has clamped around the shirt of Leeds United's Billy Bremner, who is holding out his arms in a gesture of submission. In the background, a young and bronzed Terry Venables watches on, his eyes wide with concern, while the referee already has his whistle to his lips.
It is a snapshot not just of a moment in time, but of football's forgotten culture, an age when hard men were precisely that and rough and ready physicality was not just tolerated in the sport, but actively encouraged.
Yet, for all that the picture has become a love letter for a time when hardly a game passed by without a flurry of fisticuffs, the man at the centre of it could not abide it.
Mackay, who passed away on Monday at the age of 80, always maintained that the picture was a grossly unfair representation of his playing style, even if he dealt with all the attention it provoked with typical good grace.
Speaking to the journalist Ian Abrahams five years ago, Mackay said: "The famous picture is one that a lot of football fans like.
"I am into my seventies now and I still get copies of them sent to my house for me to sign, which I do, all of them. While other people like the photograph, I don't because it portrays me as a bully, which I am not and never have been."
In a separate magazine interview, Mackay revealed the reasons behind his volcanic reaction.
He said: “He was a brilliant little player but a dirty little b******. He kicked me in the leg I’d just come back from breaking twice. If he’d kicked the other one, I could have accepted that. But he kicked the broken one and that really annoyed me. I could’ve killed him that day.”
Mackay was probably being unduly harsh on himself - not least because the idea of any player, even one as fearsome as Mackay, "bullying" Billy Bremner seems scarcely credible.
And what of the fall-out from the incident? If it were to happen today, a confrontation between two of the foremost players of their age would provoke Twitter outrage, days of hand-wringing and FA inquiries. But back in 1966, it did not even merit a red card.
"In the end the referee just gave us a talking-to, for which I was relieved," Mackay told Abrahams. "I had got away with it and was so happy, because it maintained my record of never having been sent off. I may have been dirty sometimes, but I never got sent off in my whole life, even as a schoolboy."
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I was at that game, in line with the incident, on the opposite side to the camera. Mackay was moving with ball at his feet with Bremner immediately behind him. Despite being in no position to get at the ball, Bremner was persistently kicking at the back of Mackay's legs and Mackay showed admirable but surprising restraint in not reacting for most of this. But then Bremner finally gave the kick that snapped Mackay's patience. Mackay stopped, put his foot on the ball, then went over to remonstrate with Bremner and the famous picture was taken. Bremner never went anywhere near Mackay for the rest of the match.
Walthur13. Brenner was a nasty little coward - but that's the way Revie had them all playing for years - and he was also offeri g bribes right left and centre - see the Gary Sprake utube interview if you don't believe me!!
@@ericsmallwood2009 yet another with the bribe allegations. If you actually check the facts every game that Revie was supposed to have made a bribe in Leeds lost. Sprake made unproven allegations but you have to remember that Sprake had a grudge with Revie. When he was a young man Sprake was going out with a girl and got another girl pregnant. He then married the pregnant girl but kept on seeing the original girl. Eventually Revie found out and dropped Sprake for the 72 cup final and Sprake never forgave him. As for the kicking Revie has stated on record that in the first five years they played to get results just like every other side at the time did. Man U at the time had Law, Stiles, Crerand and Foulkes none of who were angels and Giles learnt his method of play under Busby. After the first five years Leeds then cleaned up their game and as both Leeds players and other sides players have testified if you started kicking Leeds then they would kick you back. Chopper Harris (the clue is in the name) once stated that if you tried to play just football against Leeds they would destroy you so we had to kick then to slow them down.
@@waynelevitt4092 STFU, you all bloody bastards from Leeds...
I agree with you about Gary Sprake holding a grudge against Don Revie,as he was dropped and never got near the first team again.Sprake cost Leeds a lot of points with his inconsistent keeping and who could ever forget that howler against Liverpool at Anfield when under no pressure he threw the ball into his own net.As for Man United having dirty players that is true.You left out the full backs Shay Brennan and Tony Dunne and the most notorious of all Nobby Stiles.
@@thecockfather82 I'm a Leeds fan but I ain't from Leeds
I was there. 10 years old and I believe that my dad and I are in shot, in the stand second row between the protagonists heads. The only reason Dave went for Billy was because Billy had fouled Dave badly and Dave had just returned from his second broken leg. I remember dad saying that Billy could have caused dave a career ending injury. Dave reacted and Billy backed down. RIP Dad. Dave and Bill
Mackay and Bremner , two Real Men , and Unbelievable Players . Hard as Nails , the pair of them .
This only happened because Billy knocked over Mackay's pint a few weeks earlier.
Dave Mackay R.I.P to a legend,
Both lads were tough players but Dave was a really hard bastard. Certainly not to be messed with. Oh dear, all the heroes of youth leaving me.
I believe Dave Mackay had just returned from a broken leg and didn't take kindly to the treatment being dished out by the Leeds team, history is probably on his side.
I agree they had some good players but was all about stopping the other team play
They was named DIRTY LEEDS after all
Lots of these great players were mates of the pitch with utmost respect for one another despite what went on on the pitch.
Two Scottish legends, Mackay from Edinburgh (ex Herats of Midlothian) and Bremner from Stirling (never had a Scottish club as
far as I know and played for Leeds as a youth). Bremner epitomised the Leeds team at that time, hard as nails but with so much skill.
Mackay was a player of immense class. Another Spurs incredibly graceful and gifted player legend John White, started his
professional career with my local team (Alloa Athletic) unfortunately just before I started going to watch them. Interesting to note
that in those days football players were not paid eye watering sums of money, to them the game meant everything. RIP all three of them.
Great picture of both Dave and Frank Saul also in this video. Glad that Frank got his medal retrospectively in recent times.
Dave Mackay was a fantastic player - he played from the heart. Billy was world class, skilful, but annoying. This just shows Mackay's frustrations nothing else. They were both Scottish icons - bet they had a beer afterwards.
One of the iconic pictures of football. And it features two Scots to boot!
To boot? Very appropriate for Bremner.
Dave Mackay said he never had a fist fight in his life
I remember Dave Mackay's sports shop on the Seven Sisters Road. Used to pass it on the bus on the way up to White Hart Lane. As I recall Mackay was still playing then. Funnily enough my dad was Bremner's second cousin, though they never really knew each other.
There are many Cities, United & Rovers, there is only one Tottenham Hotspur.
A club that hasn't won the league for 57 years
@Mark Gable STFU, fuckin' bastard...
I love this picture , not because i'm a Spurs fan , but because it shows Bremner in his true light . OK dishing it out but shits himself when he gets it back
Billy could take it. Ask Denis Law.
Two GREAT players of the time "Super Leeds"
To be fair, Mackay would have smashed bremner to pieces. The annoying thing about that Leeds side of the 60s and 70s was they didn't need to be like they were. They were a fantastic footballing side but by God they were bloody horrible. Giles, bremner and Hunter didn't need to be dirty. If you watch the game where they beat Southampton 7-0 they play some superb football
That said, my old man reckoned Dave Mackay was up there with the hardest players he ever saw
Nick Simpson don’t lose sight of the fact that not every Leeds player of the Revie era would kick every opposing player up hill and down dale for shits and giggles. Back in the day ninety percent if not a hundred percent of our squad were internationals that were gifted footballers that had mad footballing abilities.
No one ever seems to take into consideration Ron Harris at Chelsea or Tommy Smith at Liverpool.
That rightly or wrongly was, if not the encouraged style of football, the generally accepted style of football. Looking back at it now, obviously it looks vicious and unhinged, but that was the way back then. It’s anachronistic and archaic by modern standards.
Two Scotsman still feeling prickly from England's historic world cup win just 1 month prior?😎😊
Garry Wood Scots have dominated the English game since day dot pal! Remember that 🙃
Bremner crapped himself
Mackay could have shattered Bremner into pieces if he'd wanted too.
Ye but hunter would have shattered him
@@alfiehighley6620 Nah, Mackay was harder than any of the Leeds lads.
Iam sure that I would not be alone in forgiving both Mackay and Bremner for this little skirmish, were they both around today. That was back in the day when men were men and Johnny Foreigner was a Scotsman playing for an English club with a surname any Englishman could pronounce. RIP Mackay, Bremner and English soccer!
Assume you voted Leave.
I remember Denis Law and Bremner squaring up at Hillsborough.
Of course we don't get Bremner's version, as it is assumed it was on purpose. However, aside from that Mackay had his moments too, but that was the game then. ps it looks to me the ref was Keith Burtenshaw, the one who was knocked out on the pitch by Millwall fans.
Do you mean Norman Burtenshaw? There was a manager called Keith Burkinshaw
@@mizofan Norman Burtenshaw it is! Still alive according to Wiki!
I remember one occasion when Dave broke his leg playing Man Utd. I believe it was Pat Crerand but it was horrible to watch and I think he did that twice. My dad and I used to stand in the Enclosure where the players came out and in those days the subs, reserves and staff sat on benches in front of us. Great memories, me and my dad and the wonderful Spurs 61/62. Danny Blanchflower and Dave Mackay were my all time favourites....
It was Noel Cantwell who broke Dave McKay's leg at Old Trafford and knocked Spurs out of the Cup Winners Cup.Spurs were the holders having thrashed Atletico Madrid in the 1963 final, I think the score was 5-2 to Spurs.
@@footballman7028 thank you but was it Crerand who broke it also? My photo was in the DM with my hands together. Oh Danny and Dave my all time favourites...
@@barbarawatson280 It was definitely Noel Cantwell the first time at Old Trafford but I can't remember who broke his leg the second time.I do remember him finishing the game even though his leg was broken.
It was deffo at WHL coz I was there. I think it may have been a reserve game after coming back from the first...thank you!@@footballman7028
@@barbarawatson280 you are welcome.
People like it because its Bremner being got a grip of. Everyone knows what a great footballer Mackay was. That should've happened more often.
Billy was truly world class. Pele himself greatly admired him.
Brian Clough did pointed that out !
Dave Mackay was not a dirty player although he would often go In hard, he was talented enough to always win the ball and never hurt the player..
You must have missed the part where Mackay said that sometimes he was dirty or do you have selective hearing?
Because it was not as serious as picture makes out
I don't think it makes him look a bully quite the opposite. Knowing that thug Bremner, Mackay looks more like the tough, but quiet type who's been goaded beyond reason and is taking down the school bully who's shown to be a trembling weakling when confronted by someone who gives him his own medicine. Leeds didn't like teams that kicked back. Great picture, he should have been proud of.
I am sure they were good friends.
One dirty player he broke Jimmy Husbands leg in the fa cup because he was to quick for him the lad was only 18
Dave McKay a Hearts legend, and Tottenham easy kick the shit Brenner, Dave was also a gentleman hard man plus truly one of the greatest players of world football unlike Brenner?
Did you actually listen to the whole video? In his own words Mackay said he was dirty sometimes but never got sent off. If you actually watch videos of games at the time that Bremner played in you would often see players kicking Bremner from the kick off in the hope that eventually react which he did.
Brenner?
Mackay seemed to be annoyed because Billy could shut him out of a game
spoken by someone who never saw the game... Bremner thought life was over at this point
FAR enquiries
What a player Dave Mackay Billy Bremmer was dirty player
Shut up whittle you know nothing knobhead.
Mackay could dish it out as much as anyone....and he did,
nonsense you no nowt about football
rubbish, two great players
Who is Bremmer?
@@tonycurtin2376 Who are you?
Scottish players are the better players.
Billy BREMNER probably got the ball of Dave Mackay(👎👎👎) thats probably why he got mad with "BILLY" "BREMNER" "LEEDS" "LEEDS" "LEEDS"👍👍
It's surprising how many people 'remember' this photo showing Mackay lifting Bremner off the ground ! Well, Billy's feet are clearly firmly planted. I see it as an old man struggling to intimidate a younger and more skilful player.
Agreed. I've heard so many people exaggerating this incident but the proof is in the photo
Death on two legs
should of cracked him billy
that would have been a mistake