BILLY BREMNER MEMORIAL JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN
Date: 2nd December 2025
Out of the vale – by Denis Frize
Written after a week in hospital and an MRI scan last Saturday I am being treated for a sore throat and earache This is week 13.
During the War my mother and a group of women was coming back in the dawn from night shift in n the Torpedo Factory in my native Alexandria.
As they passed the doorway of an Italian cafe, there was a drunk lying in the doorway.
“Efff old Churchill!. and eff his effin war!”
A view not so uncommon on Clydeside as we are nowadays led to believe.
“Oh, ” said one of the women, ” imagine having a creature like that in the house.”
My mother could say nothing. The man was her brother- in-law.
My uncle, Jim Frize, was one of the most talented players ever to ever to be produced by our area. Decades later, when I was a teacher in Clydebank, the retired Rector of Clydebank High came up to me and said, ” Are you Jim Frize’s son?”
I replied no, I was the son of Denis, who spent all his working life in the Royal Navy.
” Well, ” said Old Jimmy, I played for Clydebank against him and let me assure you he was in a class of his own.
Not only that, such was the feral rivalry between the two teams, Clydebank and Duntocher Hibs that Old Jimmy told me he was being kicked rotten by the Hibs defender.
At half time Jim got hold of his own player. ” Here, you, leave him alane. He’s frae the Vale'”
That was my Uncle Jim.
He was the left winger.
And Jim’s fame grew., just when the Celtic were looking for a replacement for Patsy Gallagher (Celtic and Ireland)
And Willie Mailey took an interest. Who else could fil the bill?
And then someone told the Celtic, ” Frize is fond of a drink.”.
And then it all fell apart. And so did Jim.. And that’s why this article is devoted to all those of the football world particularly those who did not make it- I am sure you can think of several examples who fell below the wheels of the chariot of fame, for whom Gaza was a person, before it was a place.
The bitterness of what might have been became rampant alcoholism. My father said he sold a drawerful of medals for drink. He and my father never spoke for years because Jim was drunk at my granny’s funeral.
Eventually I saw Jim at a Vale of Leven Match and my father invited him up to watch in black and white the Scotland v England game. Reconciliation.
Later in my own coaching days in Central Stirling I had in my team a boy called Noy. We were playing Perth Academy in a cup tie on the pitches beside the Allan Water.
Noy picked up the ball on his own goal line. hoofed it into the other half behind their defence, ran and got the ball and put it in the Perth Net. Sheer genius.
So I TWICE got him a trial with the Stirling coaches
But, No, No he would go his own way.
I wonder if he’s sitting in some bar tonight telling them how he could have…
In Memoriam all those who didn’t make it.
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