Thanks for the replies to the Jimmy Milne question. I've been talking to his son Gordon this week because his autobiography is just out. The title references Jimmy - it's called 'Shankly, My Dad and Me'.

I'd been researching their careers and found it so fascinating that I was thinking of contacting Gordon to write a book. Then I heard he'd already written one! When it was published on Monday I quickly read it through and it's well worth getting hold of.

I'd like to tell you about an incident that's not in the book.

When Jimmy was 16, he was working for the LMS Railway. His father was a signalman, living in Roseangle, and Jimmy would later become a porter at Lochee Station before he joined Dundee United in 1930.

On this day, Boxing Day 1927, he was delivering goods for the LMS using 'a horse yoked to a lorry' when 'the horse took fright and bolted'. This is what happened next, according to the report in the Dundee Courier:

James was delivering goods in the shop at the time and was powerless to stop the runaway's progress. The vehicle, which was laden with goods, soon gathered speed on the steep incline, and as the frightened animal continued its mad career unchecked down the steep incline, pedestrians scattered for safety in all directions.

Just as the onlookers were speculating as to what would happen when the junction of Constitution Road and Bell Street was reached, a witness, with great pluck and at great risk to his personal safety, eventually brought the animal to a standstill. He leaped from the footway and succeeded in catching hold of the reins. He managed to stop it a few yards before it reached Bell Street.

Jimmy's reaction to the incident was not recorded.

The phrase that jumps out at you from that report is 'mad career'. Looking back now, almost a century later, that might be an appropriate description of the ups and downs that both Jimmy and his son experienced, as players and managers.