The return of the King

I'm still buzzing from the news that Gillie turned up at White Hart Lane today to watch the 3-1 win over West Ham. I will confess, though, that it's a bittersweet moment. I had so wanted to be there and while I had heard a number of rumours about his imminent return there had been nothing concrete. I had my own long-standing arrangement: a return to the amateur club were I played for many years for a 40th anniversary dinner. I met several people who had read all about Gillie and I spent quite a long time talking about him (I'd also had to pull together an itinerary ahead of today's game for Arild Stavrum, the former Aberdeen striker who is writing a book about fathers and sons and football) so there was a kind of prescience about his reappearance at the Lane today - even if I wasn't quite aware of what that nagging feeling was at the back of my head - I simply thought it was a case of one too many last night. Gillie's return marks the end of a series of aims that I had hoped would come to fruition when I set about trying to track him down. The first was securing his entry into the Scottish football hall of fame - that happened even before the book appeared; the second was Dundee giving him some long-overdue official recognition - that box appears to have been ticked too since the club is planning to name a lounge after him the coming months; the final hope was that he would go back to the Lane. I can't wait to see Match of the Day 2 tonight for a glimpse.