THEY will say a final farewell to Tommy Gemmell later this morning in the East End of Glasgow, a place he once bestrode like a colossus as a Lisbon Lion and the finest left-back ever to play for Celtic as voted by the club’s fans.
There to say goodbye to his friend of more than 50 years will be Willie Henderson, legendary Rangers winger, who is deep in mourning at the death of Gemmell and who has taken until today to speak in public of his loss.
They were the greatest of rivals on the field, Henderson at outside-right and Gemmell at left-back in direct confrontation, but off the field they were firm friends for decades until Gemmell died last week at the age of 73.
“He was three months older than me,” said Henderson. “The thing is that our friendship went on all these years after we finished playing.
“In our careers we were in different parts of the world, but after that we were friends for a long, long time.”
With a chuckle, Henderson added: “We had all those battles back in the 60s and 70s and I would say he was a great overlapping full-back – except when he was playing against me!
“In fact he always played me well and contrary to what people think he always played me fairly. Tommy didn’t need to kick, he was such a skilful player.
“How do I view him? There are players, there are good players, there are great players and then there are world-class players. Tommy was in the world-class bracket.
“At his best Tommy Gemmell could have played in any team in the world, that’s how I view him.”
The long deterioration of Gemmell due to a combination of diabetes and circulation problems was one of the best kept secrets in Scottish football. Like the dementia affecting Billy McNeill which was announced just before Gemmell died a week ago, the media kept quiet about their conditions – it was, after all, a private matter for both families, and their wishes were respected.
Now the story can be told of the extraordinary friendship between Gemmell and Henderson, including the fact that Henderson assiduously visited Gemmell very regularly in his sick bed over the years and was with him in a Glasgow care home just a week before his friend passed away.
“I had been in to see him on the Thursday of the week before he died,” said Henderson. “We had a nice chat and he still had a smile on his face as always but you could see that he was slipping away.”
Like Gemmell, Henderson remains a man of humility, but in their heyday both of them knew they were good, very good indeed.
“He was a humble guy,” explained Henderson, “but he knew how good a player he was. You have to have that in you to carry it off.
“We were big rivals, make no mistake about that, because Celtic and Rangers was always a huge game – you wanted to win them all.
“There was no nonsense on the park, we went hard at it, so yes we were big rivals, but that ended when we came off the park.”
One incident has passed into Old Firm legend. Gemmell clattered his chum and Henderson jumped up and gave him an admonition that looked very angry – but it wasn’t.
He explained: “What I was actually saying to him was, ‘If you do that again to me we are not going to Reid’s Bar tonight for the usual drink’.
“All the while the Rangers supporters were doing their nut and shouting, ‘You tell him, Willie’ – it’s hard to believe, isn’t it?.”
Henderson is all too aware that Rangers travel to Parkhead on Saturday and he is hopeful there will be “dignity under the circumstances.”
He added: “I think Rangers fans appreciate what a great player he was and what he did for Scotland. I played with him for Scotland and I can honestly say he was a top-class internationalist for his country.”
Henderson wasn’t in the side when Scotland lost to West Germany in a World Cup qualifier in which Gemmell infamously booted Helmut Haller up the behind, but he recalled with a smile another incident in which the Gemmell temper flared.
“I remember the time when Celtic were playing in the World Club Championship against Racing Club of Argentina. The third game was in Uruguay and it was a battle, and then he went behind the referee’s back to kick a player and then hid behind the referee, forgetting the whole world was watching – that was unbelievable.”
That was in 1967, Scottish football’s annus mirabilis, recalled Henderson: “Celtic won the European Cup, we got to the final of the Cup Winners’ Cup and we beat England at Wembley and Tommy was playing that day.
“I think there are a lot of people who watched Scottish football in that era who only now are realising how lucky they were to see it.
“It wasn’t just Rangers and Celtic, there were tons of players in Scottish football, and Tommy Gemmell was one of the very best.
“If I am asked to sum him up I would say we was a good guy and a great player. I will miss him very much, there is no question of that.”
You learn of the long enduring friendship of these two great rivals and it makes you almost weep that in this Scotland of ours in 2017, there are still people wearing blue and green, Billy and Dan, driven by bigotry and sectarianism to hate the other side with a humourless passion, their tribalism gone mad.
It would be good to think that on Sunday, Celtic and Rangers fans alike can remember Tommy Gemmell with the dignity that his friend craves. Even in the midst of his grief, that would make Willie Henderson very pleased.
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