Dave Mackay (footballer born 1934)

"Dave Mackay" redirects here. For the footballer born in 1934, see Dave Mackay (footballer born 1934).

Dave Mackay

Personal information
Full name	David Craig Mackay
Date of birth	14 November 1934 (1934-11-14)
Place of birth	Edinburgh, Scotland
Height	1.72 m (5 ft 7 1⁄2 in)
Playing position	Left half, later sweeper
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps†	(Gls)†
1953–1959	Heart of Midlothian	135	(25)
1959–1968	Tottenham Hotspur	318	(51)
1968–1971	Derby County	122	(5)
1971–1972	Swindon Town	26	(1)
National team
1957–1965	Scotland	22	(4)
1957–1958	Scottish League XI	3	(0)
Teams managed
1971–1972	Swindon Town
1972–1973	Nottingham Forest
1973–1976	Derby County
1977–1978	Walsall
1978	Al-Arabi Kuwait
1983	Al-Shabab
1987	Al-Arabi Kuwait
1987–1989	Doncaster Rovers
1989–1991	Birmingham City
1991–1993	Zamalek
1994–1995	Qatar
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. † Appearances (Goals).

David Craig Mackay (born 14 November 1934) is a Scottish former football player and manager. Mackay is best remembered for a highly successful playing career with Heart of Midlothian, the Double winning Tottenham Hotspur side of 1961, and winning the league with Derby County as a manager. He also represented Scotland 22 times, and was selected for their 1958 FIFA World Cup squad. Mackay tied with Tony Book of Manchester City for the Football Writers' Association's Footballer of the Year award in 1969 and was later listed by The Football League in their "100 Legends".

Career

Mackay was born in Edinburgh, and began his playing career with the club he supported as a boy, Heart of Midlothian. He won all three Scottish domestic honours with the club. He captained the side in 1957–58 when the club broke the senior British league goalscoring record with 132 goals for, with only 29 conceded.

He was signed by Tottenham Hotspur for £32,000 in March 1959. During the 1960s his fierce determination and skill contributed to the team which won the Double in 1961, further FA Cup victories in 1962 and 1967, and the Cup Winners Cup in 1963. Brian Clough claimed in 2003 that Mackay was Tottenham Hotspur's greatest ever player.^{[citation needed]}

In 1968 he was transferred to Derby County for £5,000, after Brian Clough and Peter Taylor persuaded him to sign. In his first season at the Baseball Ground, in which the club gained promotion to the First Division, he was chosen FWA Footballer of the Year, jointly with Manchester City's Tony Book. When he was a player at Derby County, Clough made Mackay play in a sweeping role and used his influence on the team to encourage them to turn defence into attack through a passing game.

In 1971 he was appointed player-manager of Swindon Town but left after just one season to take charge of Nottingham Forest. He remained at the City Ground until October 1973, when he returned to Derby as manager following Clough's resignation. In his first season Derby finished third in the table. In his second season in charge of Derby, he guided the team to the 1975 league title. The following season, he managed the club to a respectable fourth-place finish in the league, the semifinals of the FA Cup, and an unfortunate extra time second-round exit to Real Madrid in the 1976 European Cup. At one stage the side had been in the running for the Double. Mackay was sacked in November 1976 after a poor start to the season. A newspaper headline reading "Mackay sacked" was used as a visual prop in the British television situation comedy Porridge, which featured a prison officer named Mackay.

He then had an uneventful spell as Walsall manager from March 1977 to August 1978. This was followed by nine years coaching in Kuwait. He returned to the UK and was appointed manager of Doncaster Rovers in 1987, a year after being linked with the Scotland manager's job (which ultimately went to Andy Roxburgh).

Mackay's reign at Belle Vue lasted two seasons before he moved to Birmingham City, who had just been relegated to the third tier of the league for the first time in their history. His task was simple – to get Birmingham promoted to the Second Division. But he was unsuccessful in trying to achieve this and resigned in 1991. After that, he returned to the Middle East for two years managing Zamalek, a Cairo club team, with which he won the Championship, and then a further three years in Qatar before retiring from football altogether in 1997.

Legacy

In 2004 The Real Mackay was published, an autobiography written with Martin Knight. Mackay had previously published Soccer My Spur in the early 1960s.

Mackay was made an inaugural inductee of the English Football Hall of Fame in 2002 in recognition of his impact on the English game as both a player and manager, and in 2006 became an inaugural inductee of the Heart of Midlothian Hall of Fame in recognition of his success as a player in the 1950s.

George Best (1946–2005), of Manchester United, one of Tottenham's fiercest rivals in the 1960s, described Mackay as "the hardest man I have ever played against – and certainly the bravest".[2]

Honours

Player

Heart of Midlothian

• Scottish First Division
  • Champion:1957–58
  • Runner-up:1953–54, 1956–57, 1958–59
• Scottish Cup
  • Winner: 1956
• Scottish League Cup
  • Winner: 1955, 1959

Tottenham Hotspur

• Football League First Division: 1960–61
• FA Cup: 1961, 1962, 1967
• UEFA Cup Winners Cup: 1963

Derby County

• Football League Second Division: 1968–69

Manager

Derby County

• Football League First Division: 1974–75

Al-Arabi

• Kuwaiti Premier League: 1979–80, 1981–82, 1982–83, 1983–84, 1984–85, 1987–88
• Kuwait Cup: 1980–81, 1982–83,

El Zamalek

• Egyptian Premier League: 1991–92, 1992–93

References

• Dave Mackay and Martin Knight (2004). The real Mackay : the Dave Mackay story. ISBN 1-84018-840-5. 
• Dave Mackay Hearts Career Record
• Dave Mackay Scotland Record
• Dave Mackay Scotland Football League Record
• Dave Mackay Profile

Awards and achievements
Preceded by John O'Hare	Derby County Player of the Year 1970–71	Succeeded by Colin Todd