BETTY Dinnie was delighted when her new husband Bobby proposed a honeymoon in the States to celebrate their nuptials.

“What I didn’t tell her,” says Bobby, with a giant smile, “was that 18 boys were coming with us, to take part in a football tournament…”

He adds: “She was furious, but all she said was – ‘I might have known’. And it was a great trip, we had a wonderful time.”

Glasgow Times: Bobby Dinnie MBE age 89 pictured at home in Possil. Bobby, a retired football scout, was involved with the Possil YM football team for over 60 years and was responsible for discovering footballers Kenny Dalglish, Alan Archibald, Tony Fitzpatrick among

Betty clearly forgave her new husband, as the couple are still married, 48 years later and have two sons, Robert and Russell, five grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

“Betty is the love of my life,” says Bobby, now 89, who lives in Possilpark.

Glasgow Times: Bobby Dinnie pictured (with his MBE) with his wife Betty and sons Robert, left and Russell on the right. Bobby, a Korean war veteran, now age 89, is a retired football scout, was involved with the Possil YM football team for over 60 years and was

When he was a boy, growing up on the streets not far from his current home, football was the great love of Bobby’s life.

“Of all the street games I took part in, it was football I loved the most,” he says. “Me and my pals started a club, Bardowie Rovers. We’d hire the local pitch for a shilling a week. We had no strips, of course, so my mum told us all to bring her a white shirt and she’d dye it yellow for us.

“Of course, it rains a lot in Glasgow, so by the end of the first game, the yellow dye was running down our bodies….”

Glasgow Times: Bobby Dinnie pictured at home in the 1970s with a collection of trophies. Bobby Dinnie, now age 89, a retired football scout, was involved with the Possil YM football team for over 60 years and was responsible for discovering footballers Kenny Dalglish,

In 1948, Bobby joined the local YMCA, where Dougie MacDonald was general secretary. “I wasn’t that keen – I thought it was just for toffs,” he says. “I had nothing. I was just a football-daft boy from Possil.

“You had to go to the Sunday bible classes. If you didn’t turn up, you didn’t get a game the next Saturday. But I started to enjoy it – played on the outside left. It taught us all discipline.

“And Dougie and I became great friends. He was a fantastic man, and a monumental figure in the grassroots Scottish game.”

After his National Service, Bobby played for Possil YM Under-21s, and then the senior team. In 1958, still in his 20s, he offered to manage the team to help out, as several men were standing down.

“It was supposed to be for a couple of weeks,” says Bobby. “But that was that – they never did recruit anyone else.”

One night, at the Greenfield pitches, a man approached Bobby to ask about seven of the young players.

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“I was suspicious of him, he was all dressed up, fancy hat and shoes,” frowns Bobby. “He wanted some of the boys’ names, so I asked him what his name was, and he said he couldn’t tell me that yet.

“So I said I couldn’t tell him the boys’ names.

“He said he’d come to our next game, and that’s where he told me he was the chief scout for Arsenal FC, and wanted me and the players he’d spotted to come down for an all-expenses-paid trip.”

Glasgow Times: Young Possil YM footballers in Arsenal strips pictured in Possil in the 1960s. Bobby Dinnie, now age 89, a retired football scout, was involved with the Possil YM football team for over 60 years and was responsible for discovering footballers Kenny

It was the start of a beautiful friendship, with the English club helping out with sponsorship (they even “threw in” a minibus, says Bobby) and getting some of the best Glasgow players as a result. Many went on to do well, such as Eddie Kelly, who was part of the Arsenal team that won the league and cup double in 1971.

That meeting also helped turn Possil YM into a legendary hothouse of Scottish footballing talent. The team became m into a feeder club for the top English clubs, including Arsenal, Sunderland, Coventry and Aston Villa.

Celtic and Liverpool legend Kenny Dalglish was one of the young players discovered by Bobby – in his autobiography, Dalglish calls Bobby “something of a legend.”

Glasgow Times: Kenny Dalglish, left with Bobby Dinnie in 1995. Bobby Dinnie, now age 89, a retired football scout, was involved with the Possil YM football team for over 60 years and was responsible for discovering footballers Kenny Dalglish, Alan Archibald, Tony

“He was a nice boy, and a great player, of course,” says Bobby. “His dad was a marine engineer, and he’d sometimes run us to games in his van. He’d just pile us all into the back. By the time we got there, we were covered in oil.”

Sir Alex Ferguson, who got to know Bobby when he was a young player with Drumchapel Amateurs and later, as a fledgling manager with St Mirren, said in a book Bobby wrote in 2007, called Scout: The Bobby Dinnie Story: “Bobby had the wonderful ability to spot young talent and nurture them to greater things and his most famous boy, Kenny Dalglish, was testimony to his ability.”

Other Possil graduates included ex-Rangers players Gary McSwegan and Bobby Russell, St Mirren manager Tony Fitzpatrick, Jim Duffy, of Hibs and Dundee, and Allan Moore at Stirling Albion.

“I’m very proud of what we achieved,” says Bobby, refusing to take sole credit for any of it. “I’m proud of all the boys.”

Bobby, who worked at the White Horse distillery in Port Dundas for 36 years before becoming head commissionaire at the police headquarters on Pitt Street, went on to scout for Rangers under John Greig, and Partick Thistle.

A photo of the presentation made to Bobby when he finally retired from Thistle, aged 80, has pride of place on his living room wall.

“It was a real honour,” he says, smiling. “Sometimes, I can’t believe the life I’ve had. I have a wonderful life, with a wonderful family.”