You don’t have to be over 60 to know about Alfie Conn, but one look at any picture of the Scotsman in action will carbon date his heyday firmly to the 1970s.
Long curly hair flowing over his collar, huge sideburns plus a ’tache to die for, shirt hanging outside his shorts – Conn was the epitome of a rock’n’roll footballer in an age when the Bay City Rollers and the Faces were riding high in the charts, and fashion trends on Top of the Pops translated to the terraces.
At Tottenham back then, one fan was seen wearing a white butcher’s coat with “Gilzean is King of White Hart Lane” written in blood, a unique tribute to the club’s Scottish forward Alan Gilzean. In 1974 though, Gilzean was replaced in the affections of Spurs supporters by his compatriot, when Conn arrived from Rangers for £140,000, a huge sum at the time.
“We’ve got our own George Best,” was the sentiment on the Shelf and the Park Lane end at White Hart Lane, and there could be no higher praise. Best was football’s first bad-boy superstar, long before Paul Gascoigne, Eric Cantona and Mario Balotelli.
Conn looked the part too, played in a similar devil-may-care way, and quickly won over Spurs fans who’d grown up during the Bill Nicholson era, when the club won eight major trophies in 12 years playing stylish, attacking football. Nicholson’s final signing before stepping down fitted the bill in terms of what fans loved in a player, but it wasn’t all plain sailing.
Now 72, polite, softly spoken and mostly bald, it’s hard to marry the Conn of today to the image of a player who infamously taunted Billy Bremner and Norman Hunter by sitting on the ball during a game against Leeds, and prompted graffiti that proclaimed “Alfie Conn is God”, still seen in parts of north London long after he’d left Spurs.
“George Best was my idol, although I was never going to reach those heights – if I had an ounce of his ability, I’d have been quite happy,” he tells FFT now. As a youngster, he’d seen the Northern Irishman up close when Best played in a charity match to raise funds for victims of the 1971 Ibrox disaster. Best and Manchester United team-mate Bobby Charlton were guests in a combined Celtic/Rangers team against a Scotland XI, and Conn trained with them. “Just to see him up close was unbelievable,” he says.
At the time, Conn was still traumatised by the events of January 1971, when 66 Rangers fans died and more than 200 were injured in a crush at the end of an Old Firm game. “I’d just turned 18, played in the game and had no idea what had happened until later that evening, when my mum phoned to check if I was alright,” he explains.
Rangers officials and players spent days and weeks visiting survivors in hospital and attending funerals. “Sometimes we went to three a day – one was for five young brothers, who lived down the road,” Conn says. “It turned out to be one of the worst events in my life. I lost over a stone in weight.”
Conn started his career at Rangers, even though his father Alfie Conn Sr had played more than 400 games for Hearts and once for Scotland. “I was a fan from the first time I went to Ibrox as a kid, seeing the big red brick facade,” Alfie Jr explains.
He was thrown into his Rangers debut in a Fairs Cup game against Dundalk at the age of 16. “I had no nerves, no fear,” he admits. “You don’t at that age.” Conn went on as a substitute for Alex Ferguson, then the Rangers centre-forward. “I had no idea he’d go on to be one of the best managers ever, but you knew he’d succeed in whatever he did because of his nature,” Conn says now. “He was always up for a battle.”
A year after the low of the Ibrox disaster, Conn experienced the club’s greatest success, winning the 1972 European Cup Winners' Cup at Camp Nou. The Barcelona Bears, as they became known, beat Dynamo Moscow 3-2 in front of 35,000 fans. “It was over 34,000 Scots and two Russians,” Conn quips.
Crowd trouble in the city centre and two pitch invasions led to headlines around the world and a chaotic final. “We'd gone 3-0 up soon after half-time, but whether it was the heat or the occasion getting to us, we were shattered, out on our feet,” he says. “Dynamo got two goals back and to be honest the second pitch invasion did us a favour, it gave us a breather.”
The pitch was cleared in time to allow the players back for the final minute, before another invasion. “We were hit by police batons as we tried to get down the tunnel,” he says. “It was chaos.”
UEFA decided not to risk having a trophy presentation on the pitch, so the cup was presented in a small room inside the stadium. “John Greig, our captain, was taken to a wee room by UEFA officials, given the cup and told to get the hell out of there,” Conn says. “That was a real disappointment not to be able to celebrate with our fans, but it was one of the greatest nights of my career.”
The following year, Conn scored as Rangers beat Celtic 3-2 in the Scottish Cup final in front of 122,000, the last time Hampden reached that capacity before being downsized.
A year later he was off to England, having fallen out with manager Jock Wallace, but he was surprised to be joining Tottenham.
“I’d spoken to Tommy Docherty the week before and it was agreed that I’d join Manchester United,” Conn explains. “But then I was told to meet at the airport for a flight south, and thought I was going to meet him again in London. So imagine my surprise when I heard the Cockney voice of Eddie Baily, Bill Nicholson’s assistant, saying ‘Welcome to Tottenham’.
“As soon as I met Bill and he told me what was on offer, I said ‘Where do I sign?’ He was a great manager, one of the few who had that special aura which commanded respect, like Jock Stein, Bill Shankly and Don Revie.”
Conn’s wages more than trebled from £60 to £200 per week, plus a ‘crowd bonus’ for cup games – £3 per thousand fans, once the crowd reached more than 29,000. It was a huge incentive to pull in the punters, and Conn certainly did that once he’d established himself, which took six months.
He had injuries as Spurs struggled at the start of the season, before Nicholson quit and was surprisingly replaced by Terry Neill. The former Arsenal defender lasted less than two years at Spurs, before leaving to manage the Gunners. “The fans all thought he was using Spurs as a springboard to manage Arsenal, and we didn’t see eye to eye, but at least he gave me my chance,” Conn says.
His full debut, in January 1975, couldn’t have gone better. Away to Newcastle and needing a win, Spurs were 4-0 up by half-time and ended up winning 5-2, with Conn scoring a hat-trick. “My dad and grandad came down from Glasgow, and I went back up with them afterwards,” he remembers. “We all had a few drinks on the train back and when the ticket inspector came round, my grandad said we were celebrating my hat-trick, then ended up taking over his duties!”
Conn quickly became a fans’ favourite at Tottenham, taking over the King of White Hart Lane title from Gilzean. “I couldn't believe it the first time I heard it – that sort of thing makes your chest stick out,” he says. “I got on great with the fans, and to this day I still think of Tottenham as my club.”
But that result was an outlier as Spurs went on a run of eight defeats in nine games, and in their final game of the season, needed a win to avoid relegation. They were up against Leeds, a club he’d almost signed for as a teenager, now preparing to face Bayern Munich in the European Cup final.
Inspired by one Conn goal and two assists, Spurs raced into a 3-0 lead. He then, however, decided to sit on the ball and taunt Bremner, Hunter and Co. What was going through his mind? “Nothing!” he laughs now. “I don't know why I did it, but as soon as I looked round and saw big Pat Jennings shaking his head, I thought ‘What have I done?’ The Leeds players suddenly turned it on and within 15 minutes it had gone from 3-0 to 3-2. It was a relegation battle for us and I could have been the villain rather than hero. Fortunately we got a penalty, won 4-2 and stayed up.”
“I thought I'd better apologise to the Leeds players,” he adds. How was it received? “I don’t know – I popped my head round the dressing room door, said ‘Sorry lads’ and got out as quick as I could!”
The incident cemented Conn’s place in Tottenham folklore, but he still couldn’t nail down a regular place. Keith Burkinshaw replaced Neill but also had little time for the maverick Scot. Spurs continued to struggle and by the time they were relegated in 1977, Conn was gone.
“I was playing the reserves and got a call to say someone wanted to see me,” he explains. “It was Jock Stein. It’s fair to say that no-one else could have tempted me away, but he was different. I needed no persuasion, even though it meant going to Celtic, which I knew would be difficult.”
Stein had just one special condition. “He told me all the best players wore their hair short and were clean shaven, so would I mind a haircut?” Conn says. “It wasn’t a problem and he said ‘Good, I’ve got you booked in at the barber’s tomorrow!”
The newly clean-cut Conn went on to experience success at Celtic, winning two titles and the Scottish Cup, but as the first man to cross the Old Firm divide since World War Two, his move was not without trouble. “An old friend, the best man at my wedding, was a diehard Rangers fan and never spoke to me again,” he says. “People would come up to me in pubs and at social occasions, and give me grief. On rare occasions they still do, unfortunately.”
Conn’s career took him from Celtic to America, playing professionally in an indoor seven-a-side league and then for San Jose Earthquakes, before a brief return to British football. He retired to run a bar in Scotland, with his former Rangers team-mate Willie Henderson. On the opening night they promised a special guest, and the locals were stunned when the great Stanley Matthews walked in. “Everyone wanted his autograph, including me,” laughs Conn.
There’s great sadness in his eyes when he talks about losing his wife Sue to motor neurone disease in 2021, and he now raises funds for MND charities through events and royalties from his recent autobiography.
He has few regrets from a colourful career that was blighted by injuries and some managers' mistrust of mavericks like him. He won just two caps for Scotland and wishes he could have featured more for Spurs. “If Bill Nicholson had stayed on, I would have played a lot more and stayed longer,” he says.
Conn appeared just 49 times for Tottenham, scoring 10 goals, yet his impact was about more than just pure statistics. With his swagger, sideburns and long curly hair, for many of the Spurs supporters who watched him play, he’s still the King of White Hart Lane.
Conn’s book What’s It All About? The Alfie Conn Story is available now
