March 3 – Dave Mackay, one of the iconic midfielders of British football whose name will for ever be synonymous with Tottenham Hotspur during the club’s golden era half a century ago, has died at the age of 80.
Mackay won 22 caps for Scotland but it was in England that he secured his place in the annals of the game, described by Tottenham as the “heartbeat” of its 1961 team that famously won the league and FA cup “double”, the first English team in the 20th century to do so.
Regarded as one of the most influential and tenacious players of his or any other generation, Mackay joined Spurs – whom he later captained – in 1959 from his boyhood club, Heart of Midlothian. He later also starred for Derby County before going into management.
Whilst at Tottenham Mackay broke the same leg twice but recovered each time.
“Dave Mackay will certainly always be remembered here as one of our greatest ever players and a man who never failed to inspire those around him. In short, a Spurs legend,” Tottenham said on its website. “He was the heart-beat of our 1961 ‘Double’ side.”
The late Manchester United icon George Best once described Mackay as “the hardest man I have ever played against – and certainly the bravest.”
The late Bill Nicholson, who signed Mackay from Hearts in 1959, described his fellow Scot as his best ever signing while his former Tottenham team-mate Jimmy Greaves wrote in his autobiography that Mackay was “the best player ever to pull on a Spurs shirt.”
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