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When downsizing from the hotel he owned with his second wife Brenda, to the boutique B&B they currently run in Nottinghamshire, Don Masson decided to sell medals and other souvenirs from a long and eventful career. From the proceeds raised he helped his son, Neil, put a deposit down on a house. And then he bought a hot tub with what was left.
“I am looking at it now,” he says, as he scans his garden, and, beyond it, loamy
Nottinghamshire fields.
“It’s like being back in Banchory!” he adds, with reference to the Aberdeenshire town where he lived for the first dozen years of his life prior to his family relocating to the north-East of England.
“As for the hot tub, we bought that 17 years ago,” he continues. “So, the reward for kicking a silly football around for 20 years is that I have somewhere to go after I play tennis.”
He is about to head off to do exactly that at the local tennis club, where he still plays three or four times a week, and so is looking
forward to giving his bones a soak later. Now 74, he has learned to be more at peace with himself. He knows, however, there
are some aspects of his life, and one moment in particular, he will never be allowed to forget.
As he might reflect now, the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away, sometimes in the space of a matter of months. Later there would be far greater, more profound loss. And then an awakening.
His saved penalty against Peru in the 1978 World Cup is one of Scottish football’s greatest what if? moments. Shortly afterwards, when he was back home considering whether to quit the game, he received a call from a Scottish journalist. Would he like to write a book?
“It was too early, too raw,” he recalls. “I needed longer, wanted more perspective. I would not talk to any reporters after that. They can twist things, you know that.”
He had already given an interview to Mike Langley of the People chronicling what had gone on – and wrong – in Argentina. It earned him a sine die ban from the SFA.
“I would never have played again anyway,” he says. “It was a joke. They were looking for an excuse.”
He hadn’t visited Hampden before his debut against Wales in 1976. He hasn’t been back since the controversial farewell parade prior to heading off on that fateful trip to Argentina.
Masson eventually re-signed for his beloved Notts County, cutting short a spell at Derby County under Tommy Docherty, who ranks somewhat lower in his affections. He wonders if things – Scotland’s World Cup fiasco included – might have turned out differently had he moved to Newcastle United, as was mooted, rather than Derby.
In May 1978, having been placed on the transfer list the previous day, he couldn’t face attending a pre-match meal before the last game of the season v Arsenal and was fined a hefty £500 by Docherty.
The Scotland skipper (Bruce Rioch) and vice-skipper (Masson) were both at Derby at the time and both far from happy.
“He [Docherty] was playing us on and off,” he says. “He made my life a misery. The team we had at Derby, if we had been left to our own devices, would have been successful.
“We had Charlie George, [Roy] McFarland, [Colin] Todd, Bruce and I, Gerry Daly, [Billy] Hughes on the left wing, David Nish.
“It is good for me to get this all out now,” he adds. “I did not realise how bad a state I was in really. I was injured as well. Looking back, I should have said to Ally [MacLeod]: ‘Listen, don’t take me’.”
Staying with Derby post-Argentina simply wasn’t to be borne. Meadow Lane awaited like a comfort blanket. Masson was tasked with completing the job of helping Notts County reach the top flight, which they
did in 1980.
Meanwhile, any book plans remained on hold. “How long do you want to wait?” asked that Scottish journalist in the aftermath of Argentina. How’s another 40 years – at least – sound? Masson has now been persuaded to write the story of his life. He is planning a signing event in Banchory later this autumn, Covid-19 restrictions permitting. He still has cousins in nearby Rhynie.
“I am coming up in November, all things being equal,” he says. “I would like to spend a lot of time there. I am not averse to going anywhere in Scotland, if there’s interest.
“I will go anywhere, definitely the Banchory area. Terry tells me the book shop in Banchory already has six orders.”
“Terry” is the ghostwriter, former sports reporter Terry Bowles. He eventually convinced Masson about the worth of the project. Bowles – no relation to the mercurial QPR midfielder Stan, who Masson rates as the best player he ever played with, above even Kenny Dalglish – was woken one morning at 7am by Masson. Yes, the former footballer told him, it was time to face the past.
Still Saying Sorry is the result. The title suggests a tone of self-recrimination and regret. Masson stresses that what occurred in Argentina is not the sole reason he feels the need to apologise. The process of compiling the autobiography has proved as soothing for the soul as any hot tub.
“It’s been very therapeutic,” he says. “Twenty-one chapters, the first seven are the hardest for me – they are to get people interested. They deal with things like what it was like with the players when I was at Notts County. When I see them now my opening gambit is how sorry I was about my behaviour 50 odd years ago.”
His behaviour?
“It’s my mouth,” he continues. “I always say to people now, like my grandkids, your mouth is the strongest weapon you have in your body. Once you have said something you cannot retract it. I am very, very careful now with what I say. But back then I was impetuous. I was young, inexperienced. I didn’t think before I said things.”
A lot of this pent-up frustration dates to when he was a teenager growing up in Middlesbrough – his father, who had a hole in his heart, moved the family there because the local council had less stringent health rules for bus drivers than were then in place in Aberdeen. Masson got busy cleaning
Brian Clough’s boots while an apprentice at Ayresome Park.
“Once I got to the level I felt I should have been at, it was OK,” he says. There were, however, victims on the way, dust-ups in training. Masson wonders whether his son might have made it as a footballer
– he played to county level – had there been more of a devil in him. “I always said
you have to be a bit of a b to be a success,” ponders Masson.
“Still, that is no excuse for some of my behaviour, which comes over in the book. The book deals with the good and the bad, that’s what I wanted to get across.
“It was not all rosy. Far from it. But the end product, what my team-mates saw on the field, I like to think it made it all worthwhile.”
Imagine once playing for the world’s oldest professional football club, formed in the 1860s. And then when the club, namely
Notts County, asked fans to vote the greatest player during all that time, from the thousands who wore the black and white stripes, the inspiration for Juventus, coming out top among all others.
“Not bad for a teuchter from Banchory!” says Masson, an artful midfielder.
And imagine skippering that club to three promotions, from the fourth division to the old first, something which remains a unique achievement in the annals of the English game.
And imagine, despite all this, despite also being a member of the great QPR team that came so close to lifting the English title in 1975-76, eventually finishing a point behind champions Liverpool, having your life defined by… two penalty kicks. One scored, one missed – or at least stopped.
It’s not as if Masson did anything differently. The kicks were almost identical. The crux of the matter lay in the decision of
one goalkeeper to dive one way, another the other way.
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