 LOU MACARI: A SPECIAL ON AND OFF THE PITCH

a Tuesday and Thursday for two years. And at the end of that two-year period, they were going to tell me whether I would be given a contract to be with the ground staff or not.”

Lou Macari

A Special On and Off the Pitch by Ray Calleja

In 12 years and 400 games for Man United, Lou Macari scored 97 goals, winning the FA Cup and the Second Division title. In March I had the privilege and honour to interview Lou, one of the Manchester United’s all-time legends. During our chat we spoke about his early days as a player, how he broke into the first team at Celtic, his move to United and then the transition from playing to managing. I also found out about his heart of gold when he decided to help the homeless away from the streets in the town where he lives today.

It was so fascinating to hear Lou’s story which began when he was a young boy and a big football fan from Scotland. He was born on 7 June 1949 in Edinburgh and after spending some years living in London, his family returned to Scotland and moved to Largs in North Ayrshire. He was football mad and for him everything was about football. In his own words “every boy in Scotland played football for as long as possible until the night and until your parents told you to come in. So, I grew up just playing football in the streets and supported Celtic. While I was supporting Celtic, they won the European Cup in 1967, the first British side to win the European Cup. And those Celtic players, who weren’t known to a lot of people, at the time, but quickly became household names, especially in Scotland. And I was one who obviously supported them. And my dream was to play for Celtic. And because they had won the European Cup and the team was so good, I never ever thought that could happen. I thought it would be impossible because all players like them would play for a long, long time ago. They keep playing and I’ll never get a chance to play for Celtic. However, I got invited by the club two nights a week, on He was sixteen years old at the time and he trained at Celtic Park twice a week. He trained with famous players like Kenny Dalglish, Danny McGrain, David Hay and other players, some of whom went on to play in English football later on in their careers. After two years they called him in as it was decision time. He was told that he was going to be employed as a young lad on the ground staff. He was obviously delighted and he got the job and worked very hard at it. As ground staff, his duties included cleaning the stadium, cleaning the players’ boots, taking the players’ kits to the laundry, putting it back out again the next morning. At that time, it was more about work than playing football. They would let him kick a ball around Celtic Park in the afternoons but not before he did all the work, which he had to do day in day out. The main job of a young apprentice, at the time, was to clean everything. He had to clean Celtic Park after the games and painted the terraces in the summer when they had nothing else to do. Lou pointed out that it is completely different now. They have academies and he says he’s not so sure that method has worked. He said the ground staff system when he was a young boy certainly worked because he and so many others came through. He eventually got into the team, even though he never thought he would because of the Lisbon Lions, who were there in front of him. However, Lou never gave up and once he was in the team he never looked back. He fondly remembers how they were a great bunch of lads, who looked after him, supported him and wanted him to do well. He made progress and stayed in the team and replaced some of those who had achieved European glory for Celtic but who had grown older and found out that their time was up.

Lou fondly remembers the time he won a winner’s medal when Celtic defeated Rangers in the 1971 Scottish Cup Final and scored in a 2-1 win in the replay at Hampden Park in front of a 128,000 crowd. Macari was Celtic’s

only substitute in the first match, played on the Saturday, which finished 1‑1 after Rangers drew level with just 8 minutes to go. For the replay, the following Wednesday, Jock Stein, the Celtic manager, threw him in at the deep end from the start, as replacement for Willie Wallace. He showed his eye for goal by scoring an opportunist opening goal as Celtic went on to win the game and Cup 2-1.

Lou spent over four years playing for Celtic. His wages went from £12.50 a week, as a youngster to £50 a week as a regular Celtic first team player and full-time professional. Then his contract was up and he asked the manager for a rise. Jock Stein offered him a £5 increase, which Macari turned down mainly because, he said, he was looking after his mother, Margaret, after his dad, Albert, had passed away, and that he needed a bit more than that. Lou was told that Celtic had a fixed pay structure in place and they could not accommodate his request. For that reason, he told the club that he wanted a move because he could not afford to stay due to the financial commitments he had. He was also getting married.

Next Lou told me the fascinating story about how his move to Manchester United came about. At the time, he had no idea where he could go, how to move clubs or if anyone wanted him. He said he waited and waited to see if the situation would change. Then about 4 or 5 weeks later Jock Stein called him to say that someone was taking him down to England the next day to join a new club. Lou just agreed to go. He said “you never argue with the manager because he’s the man in charge. Stein was just like Sir Alex. In fact, he was Sir Alex’s best friend. So that gives you an idea of how strict he was”. Lou said he was driven to England by someone from Celtic, who did not even tell him where they were going. Before he knew it, he was going through the gates to Anfield. He was not aware at the time that Jock Stein and the Liverpool manager, Bill Shankly, were the best of friends, both from the same sort of background, from the mining community. Lou said “Shankly told me that once Stein told him I was leaving Celtic he wanted to sign me right away. We went in, talked about terms and I agreed to sign”. Then he went to the directors’ box to watch the game as Liverpool were playing Burnley that night. Next to him there was an empty seat until a man walked in about 10 minutes after kick-off. The guy was Pat Crerand, who was assistant to Tommy Docherty, the manager of Manchester United in those days. Lou recalled the event “Pat asked me what I was doing there. He knew me from my time at Celtic. He was also ex-Celtic. I told him, I’m signing for Liverpool. Pat promptly said don’t sign, we’ll sign you. Crerand must have phoned Tommy Docherty, who told him that he wanted to sign me, too. So, after the

game I went back to Shankly and told him that I needed more time to think about the move. It was my way out of not signing for Liverpool. Next morning, I was going back to Manchester to meet up with Paddy and the Doc to sign for United instead.”

Lou said he was a big fan of the United trio of stars - Best, Law and Charlton. These players, he thought, were getting old so he fancied himself getting into the team eventually and in the meantime train with them on a daily basis. He signed for United for £200,000 after 105 appearances and 56 goals for Celtic. He made a scoring debut the following Saturday, on 23 January 1973, against West Ham, whose captain was England’s captain Bobby Moore, at Old Trafford. His goal at the Stretford End came with only ten minutes left and saved a point for United.

When I asked him why he turned down Liverpool, he said that he knew that without a shadow of a doubt Liverpool were the best team in the country at the time, but he fancied a move to United more. He had heard all about George Best how good he was. The same about Sir Bobby Charlton and he was in the same Scotland team with Denis Law. So, he knew all about these three and they were the main reason why he decided to join Manchester United.

He said he cannot understand how players, nowadays, don’t go to United or fail to agree terms. In his own words “I can’t get my head round it. To be at Old Trafford in my time it was awesome. It’s even better now. The stadium is better, the training facilities are better, everything. It was brilliant for me being there. You wanted to be there every day at training. It was fantastic. Even though we weren’t the best team in the country, to be there amongst all those great players, a big crowd every week, fanatical crowd, great support. So that is why I say that I cannot understand nowadays, why it takes people so long or why they make up their mind to go somewhere else. So many great memories for me.”

Lou helped United win the Second Division title in 1975, finishing second in the scoring charts with 11 goals. They finished third on their return to the top flight and were runners‑up in the 1976 FA Cup before going one better and lifting the trophy a year later, thanks to his winning goal in a 2-1 win against Liverpool. He was on the losing side in the 1979 final.

Lou recalls that famous 1977 victory over Liverpool, which was a great occasion but not just that. He is proud that he was in that United team which reached Wembley 3 times in 4 years, and says it was by no means something easy to do, even though they lost two of them. To be at Wembley and experience the atmosphere, he said, made him very proud. Many players in a long career never ever get to see Wembley, let alone play in that famous stadium.

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He was a Scotland international and made his debut as a substitute against Wales on 24 May 1972 in a 1-0 win. He was capped 24 times where he scored 5 goals. He played in the 1978 World Cup Finals in Argentina, where Scotland were eliminated early despite a 3-2 win against Holland in the last game of their group, but paid a heavy price for their loss against Peru and a poor draw versus Iran. In the late 1970s Tommy Docherty moved him into a midfield role and that switch greatly improved Macari’s game. Docherty was replaced by Ron Atkinson in 1982, and Lou fell out of favour with the new boss. Eventually after 400 appearances and 97 goals for United, he ended his playing career to turn his hand to management. This was in 1984, where he first managed Swindon Town and won back-to-back promotions in 1986 and 1987. Later he would also manage West Ham, Stoke (twice), Celtic, Birmingham and finally Huddersfield, from where he left at the end of the 2001-02 season. Lou was well known for his strict fitness regimes that he adopted with his teams.

He recalls his management years and said, “I was fortunate to move to management and the only opportunity, at the time, was with Swindon Town. They were in the old Fourth Division (now called League Two) near the bottom of the league. So, I’ve got the opportunity to go and manage them and decided I would take the job and I was there for five and a half years. It was great because we got on a winning run and we had a winning team. So that was the start.”

About his time as manager of Celtic, which started on 27 October 1993, this is what he had to say, “I eventually had the opportunity to go to Celtic and I knew it was the wrong time to go there because it was when the new owners were coming in. And I had just gotten there under the old owners at Celtic Park, or rather the old directors. So, I knew it was the wrong thing to do but getting the opportunity to manage a club that you once supported, it was too difficult for me to turn down that opportunity.”

Lou was referring to the takeover of the club by Fergus McCann. He was dismissed on 14 June 1994 which meant that he only lasted for eight months in the job, and around three months after the new owners had gained control of the club.

He took the view that the game had changed, which led him to the decision to quit management altogether in 2002. He said, “I don’t think I was wrong because Sir Alex made that decision years later where he must have thought the game had changed as well. When I went to Swindon, or wherever I went I used to ask the players to work hard and see if we could get anything out of it, get a return. That worked. But as time went on, I found less and less footballers actually wanting to work hard. So, I thought, right, this is the game now, it’s changing. The players themselves get to listen to their agents more than they’re going to listen to me as a manager. So, I thought, right, maybe now’s the time to get out.”

That led me to the question about Man United’s current problems. I asked Lou what were his thoughts of why success has eluded the side since Sir Alex Ferguson’s departure. He said, “The start of the problem was Sir Alex. Him leaving,

I remember saying that on MUTV that we were going in for a bit of tough spell. Because we’ve lost the greatest manager we’ve ever had. We are going to lose some unbelievable players, not players who come with a reputation and then they don’t deliver that reputation, but real players they had produced, top players, youngsters that had come through. I knew that with Sir Alex leaving a different player would be come in, different to the ones we had. And then things would change and things did

change. I didn’t know that the managers who came in wouldn’t be able to do a great deal because I thought one or two of them must do something. But it just proved, because they’re all good managers that came in, David Moyes, Van Gaal, Jose Mourinho and then Ole (Gunnar Solskjaer). It just proves that after Sir Alex left and the way he managed the club and his reputation and what he demanded was not what the new managers demanded and they didn’t go down that road. And of course, it hasn’t worked. They just haven’t been anywhere near the calibre of the manager that he was, and no one ever will be because his record is great. But the players that have come in, none of them have matched the class of ’92. None of them have matched any of the other players that we brought in the past. As the years have gone on, we have struggled to find the right players. It’s all about your players. If you haven’t got the correct players or if you haven’t got enough good players, then, you know, you’re not going to win anything. I just feel we haven’t been able to bring enough good players to Old Trafford, apart from the ones that have come in and done well. We did win things (the FA Cup in 2016, the League

Lou Macari at his Homeless Project in Stoke-on-Trent

Cup and the Europa League in 2017) but in the last five, six, seven years it’s been difficult”.

When I asked him what he thinks should be done to get back the club to winning ways, this is what Lou Macari had to say, “What hasn’t helped is the change in attitude of a lot of the managers. They have different, completely different views than I would say Sir Alex Ferguson. Plus, the money has changed the game. Money has been a monster and has just changed things dramatically. I don’t see it changing around. I don’t see the money getting sort of less important. I don’t see the attitude changing to the way it was in our day where the club came first, where you gave your all and you worked hard and you are desperate to do well for yourself and the club. I don’t think there is that same desire nowadays. But people will say well, you know, the manager of

Liverpool or the manager of Man City, maybe they just brought in one or two better players than us. Maybe they are managing slightly different to what we are doing. And maybe that’s why they’ve got better results than we have. But you know, when Sir Alex left, I took the view that … I didn’t know when it was going to change and when things would get really tough, but obviously things have changed”.

Lou still has plenty of connections at Old Trafford. He works as a pundit at Manchester United TV (MUTV). He has been there since the station was launched 20 years ago and he said he still enjoys doing that job, even though, in his own words “some weeks it’s awkward. You don’t like talking about defeats or players not performing or you don’t like talking about the team not being good enough. But unfortunately, you know, sometimes you’ve got to talk about the team, not having been good enough during that 90 minutes football because that’s what’s actually happened. And then the way that the game has changed nowadays. There are lots of other issues. There’s the internet, there’s social media, there’s all these other distractions where many United players seem to get a bit annoyed about what they read, sometimes. My simple advice to them would be don’t go on social media, don’t go on the internet, don’t read the newspapers. And that gets rid of that problem,

but you know, some can handle it and some cannot. And that is why it’s been difficult for so many players in the last five or six years, especially, there’s a lot of things going on at Manchester United. It’s a massive football club, and you’ve got to be able to handle it, you’ve got to be able to be ready to go out and play and give your all and take whatever criticism is given if you don’t perform. But maybe one or two, one or two players can’t handle that”.

Lou currently lives in Stoke-on-Trent and commutes to Manchester for his media work, which apart from MUTV also includes appearances on Sky Sports. In 2016, he set up to work on a completely different and new project of helping the homeless people in his local area in Stoke. This is what he had to say, “Yes, the idea came about because I read the newspapers. The talk of the papers was about the homelessness situation, how it was getting worse and the numbers kept going up. And so, I went out to Stoke-on-Trent, one night, in the town centre to see if we could find any homeless people and I found plenty. And then I went home and I thought well, what can I do for them? And because of my contacts in Stoke, and because I’ve been the Stoke manager and because we had been successful at Stoke as a team and as a club, I took the view that I could help them possibly by clothing them, putting a roof over their head and feeding them because I knew of the generosity of the people in Stoke and the surrounding areas. I knew that I would get a good response. So, I set out to do that and found the building to house them. I got a building from the Council five and a half years ago. I asked people for food. We got food, we got plenty of clothes. We’re still doing it because that generosity is obviously still there. We started out with about 12 people, now we’ve got 50 people in here, who I look after. We have 22 paid staff members, not volunteers, because I don’t really think this is a job for volunteers. And in my case, this is the toughest job I’ve ever had in my life.”

During the coronavirus pandemic, the homeless Macari Centre in Hanley, Stoke-onTrent had to be adapted according to new rules since the government no longer allowed dormitory-style accommodation. Lou worked with the city council to move the shelter to a nearby warehouse and moved the residents to COVID-safe pods. In this way, Macari was able to provide a safe space for people from the virus. Each pod was kitted out with new beds, heaters, TVs and were numbered on the front door to give the residents proof of address – and help them find employment. The idea of the Centre is to provide emergency shelter and safe, short-term accommodation for people out in the street, in other words, people in need.

“We had to move quickly to get around to try and find somewhere suitable and we did find somewhere. We brought them into it. A big warehouse, which is probably the size of the pitch at Old Trafford. As I say this will get 50 people – we have 48 men and 2 women – a roof over their heads and it gives you an idea of their difficult situation. Unfortunately, it’s becoming more and more each year. I’d like it to be less and less. Not because it will make my job easier, but because that’s the way you want it to be. Instead, there are more and more homeless each year.”

My final question was to ask if he remembers any previous visits to Malta. He did remind me that he had played in Malta for Celtic in the European Cup preliminary round on 3 November 1971. Sliema Wanderers were the opponents that day and the Scottish champions won 2-1, after a first minute opener by Ronnie Cocks gave Sliema a shock lead. Lou recalled the sandy and hard surface they played on at the Gzira Empire Stadium. Celtic went through having won the first leg 5‑0 at Parkhead on 20 October 1971.

He was also in Malta in his early managerial career with Swindon Town team when he brought over his side for one pre-season in the mid-80s. In fact, I recall watching Lou putting his players through a tough drill at Manoel Island one hot summer day.

He admitted that he would love to visit the Island again and pay a visit to the Manchester United Supporters Club to meet the local United fans.

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