Peter Cormack, 1946-2024
The period between Johnny Carey’s great 60s side and Brian Clough’s great 70s side wasn’t the easiest time to be a Forest fan. We seemed to be more interested in selling off the heart of the team as we slid down the league and out of the old first division. There were, however, one or two bright spots. We had two all time greats to entertain us: Ian Moore and Duncan McKenzie. And for two years we also had Peter Cormack.
Peter Cormack was a star of the Hibs team and a Scottish international when we signed him. One of our few successful signings of those times. My old mate Matt Gillies paid roughly £70,000 for the 23 year old Cormack in March 1970, intending to play him as the second striker. He’d already played 180 league games for Hibs since signing as a 16 year old, scoring 76 times. He’d also played 4 games for the national side.
He was an Edinburgh lad, brought up in Leith. Robert Carlyle calls him one of Begbie’s heroes, but he spent every spare moment kicking a ball about rather than wasting time trainspotting at Leith station. And he spent Saturday afternoons at Easter Road or Tynecastle watching Hibbees or the Jambos depending on whoever was at home. At 15, he was signed by Hearts, but they had him work on the ground staff, cutting the grass, sweeping the terraces, and other boring jobs. He soon got fed up and joined Hibs. His last act at Hearts was to drive the wee tractor they used to cut the grass into a wall. Deliberately. Just to let them know how much he’d enjoyed his time there.
He was a stylish, graceful midfielder, ideally suited to the Forest way of playing. He was a born footballer with an elegant touch. Passing, dribbling, & scoring all came naturally. He was another one of those entertainers who ran the show. Versatile and athletic. He had this majestic way of running like one of those dressage horses from Spain. He had the stamina to win one lap races at school and the natural spring to win high jump competitions. He scored a lot of goals with his head, thanks to his excellent timing and his ability to hang in the air when he went up for crosses.
He was a skinny lad, but tough as old boots. Coming from Leith, he knew how to look after himself. When he was at Liverpool, later in his career, Kevin Keegan had been sent off for his role in a mass brawl during a pre-season game in Germany. Peter Cormack managed to get Keegan let off by claiming to have been the culprit and suggesting that the referee had sent off the wrong player, both Keegan and Cormack having a similar hairstyle. As Cormack said to Keegan “Anyway, I’d have been proud of that punch, Kevin.”
He got sent off a few times himself when he was with Hibs, but he was as good as gold with us. He put some of his disciplinary problems with Hibs down to his irritation at not being allowed to leave when English clubs had tried to buy him before Forest came in. He says he took his frustrations onto the pitch, resulting in two sendings off in early 1970 and a twelve week ban from the Scottish FA. That’s when Hibs decided to cut their losses and sell him. Their loss was our gain.
In his first full season with us, he missed only one game, playing up front alongside Alex Ingram or Graham Collier or Neil Martin. He scored 8 in the league and 4 in various cups. Only Ian Moore outscored him. See if you can find our game against Everton from the 1970-71 season on youtube for a typical performance1. He scored twice and made the third. For the first goal (incidentally, our 4000th league goal) he seems to float in the air to head the ball goalwards. As the voiceover says: one of “two stars the other clubs envied… Ian Moore and the gifted midfield player Peter Cormack.”
The following year was harder as we struggled at both ends of the pitch. Nevertheless, he scored 7 goals from 32 appearances, again only bettered by Ian Moore. He even managed a spell in goal during one of those games when Jim Barron was off the pitch, injured. Needless to say given his athleticism, he was an excellent keeper. He’d played as stand-in keeper for Hibs on a couple of occasions.
Not always successfully.
His son tells an interesting story about when his Dad was a lad in Edinburgh. This was just after he’d signed with Hearts and had gone along to the boys club he’d been playing for to say goodbye. He pestered the coach there to let him play one last game, but the coach said no, he didn’t want to get into trouble with Hearts if Cormack got injured. Then their goalie hurt himself during the warm up, so the coach asked whether Peter would play in goal as long as he kept it quiet. Peter was delighted and played a blinder. There was a West Ham scout at the game and afterwards the scout told the coach that he’d come up to watch Cormack play and wondered whether he was injured. The coach said “No, he couldn’t play cos he’s just signed for Hearts”, so the scout said “Too bad. We’ll take your keeper instead.”
Peter Cormack says he never hesitated signing for Forest and never regretted the move. However, he felt that some of the Forest team were not good enough for the 1st division and wasn’t surprised when we went down. To be honest, we weren’t surprised either. And, having seen almost all of our stars leave, we weren’t surprised when Forest sold him to Liverpool that summer for £110,000. He’d played 88 league & cup games for Forest during the two years he was with us and scored 20 goals in those games. While at Forest, he played for Scotland another 5 times. Bill Shankly said he was the final piece in the Anfield jigsaw and everyone who saw him at Hibs or Forest would agree to his special qualities. And, again, none of those Hibbees or Trickies would be surprised that he went on to win the League (twice), the UEFA Cup (twice) and the FA Cup with Liverpool before his time there was ended by a dodgy knee.
I was living in Edinburgh for the 79/80 season. It’s a wonderful city – beautiful and vibrant. But it’s way too far from the City Ground. I went down to see Hibernian FC once or twice to get my ration of the beautiful game. I’d always had a soft spot for Hibs. For a start, I loved the green and white kit. Then there was the link with two of my heroes: Joe Baker (of course) and Peter Cormack.
That year wasn’t the easiest time to be a Hibbee. While Forest were winning everything, Hibs were struggling in the Scottish Premier Division. They finished that season bottom, eight points adrift. However, there were one or two bright spots. That season, they signed two all time greats to entertain us. George Best arrived in December 1979, although he was often too hungover to play. Then, in February 1980, Hibs signed Peter Cormack again and I had the pleasure of watching one of my heroes once more. Still entertaining. Still stylish. Still elegant. By all accounts, he was a thoroughly decent bloke off the pitch too.
Peter Cormack, 1946-2024. Sunshine from Leith.
- It’s been taken down since I wrote this. ↩︎
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