Wally meets... Motherwell's Tom Hateley - son of Attila!

By Mike Walters

Published 22:14 17/10/09

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Tom Hateley can’t wait to get the bird from 60,000 Celtic fans today as a compliment to his football lineage.

In one of soccer’s longest-running generation games, Motherwell midfielder Hateley will be treading the stage where his dad Mark was an Old Firm legend who helped Rangers to clinch nine Scottish League titles in a row.

And with grandfather Tony, once Bill Shankly’s record £96,000 signing at Liverpool, in the same bloodline, Hateley comes from a family where chips off the old block are a rite of passage.

Father-and-son combinations are nothing new to the grand old game. Brian Clough, Harry Redknapp and Alex Ferguson, to name but three, have all seen their lads prosper despite hard acts to follow.

But three generations of the same family playing at a high level are rare breeds, and 20-year-old Hateley will find his father’s reputation goes before him in the east end of Glasgow’s land of hoops and glory this afternoon.

“I don’t think the name Hateley will go down too well at Celtic Park,” said Motherwell’s free transfer from Reading. “But if 50-odd thousand people give me a hard time because of who my dad is, he must have been one hell of a player.”

Everyone remembers John Barnes dribbling the length of the Copacabana before scoring that wonder goal in Brazil 25 years ago.

But few recall that England’s other scorer in their shock 2-0 win in Rio that night was Mark Hateley, and his thumping far-post header was enough for AC Milan to make Portsmouth an offer they could not refuse.

Hateley was christened ’Attila’ at the San Siro because of the rampaging style which would soon become the scourge of Celtic, and he had trousered five championship medals north of the border before QPR paid £1.5m for a 34-year-old in 1995.

He was to make a memorable curtain call for Rangers two years later, however, when manager Walter Smith - his nine-in-a-row bid crippled by injuries - re-signed him for the run-in, including an Old Firm title decider.

Son of Attila said: “I can remember taking my dad to the airport before the game, and the last thing my mum said to him when we dropped him off was, ’Don’t get yourself sent off.’

“Needless to say, he got a red card for an alleged head-butt on Celtic’s goalkeeper Stewart Kerr... who is now the goalkeeping coach with us here at Motherwell. I haven’t been here long enough to tell him that my dad wasn’t the sort of player to go around head-butting people for no reason.”

Despite Hateley’s dismissal, his presence galvanised Rangers and they won a stormy encounter 1-0, effectively sealing their ninth title. It is not widely known, however, that Tom played a part in the earlier triumphs of that astonishing run by helping goalkeeper Andy Goram to warm up.

Hateley junior used to spend five minutes hammering shots at Goram in the dressing room to keep his reflexes sharp while Smith conducted his team talks.

“Maybe I was too young to take in everything, or appreciate the privilege, but I was probably a witness to some of the greatest team talks in the history of football’s biggest rivalry... and I can’t remember any of them,” he said.

“What I can recall is that Walter Smith didn’t mind having a six-year-old kid around the dressing room, volleying balls at Andy Goram to keep his feet moving, while he was winding his players up.

“Times have changed, and you can’t imagine that happening now. But however trivial it may have been, I guess I played a part in Rangers winning nine titles in a row.

“I know Manchester United have just won the Premier League two years running, but nine in a row? You can’t imagine that happening in England.

“But that Rangers side was full of class players - for a short time my dad’s career at Ibrox overlapped with Paul Gascoigne’s time in Scotland, Brian Laudrup was a world-class player and Richard Gough was at the heart of the defence.

“It’s great to be playing in the Scottish Premier League, knowing I’m following in my dad’s footsteps. I used to be a centre-forward like him, and my grandad before him, but I’ve moved back into centre midfield now which suits me fine - I don’t have the pressure of trying to score every week.”

Today would be a good time for Hateley to register his first goal in senior football. Just to measure the reaction in decibels from the affronted home crowd. 

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