CELTIC LEGENDS

Heroes are Forever

Tommy Burns



Tommy Burns was one of the best-known and most popular figures in Scottish football during a career that spanned more than 30 years.

For most of that period he was associated – as a player, manager and coach – with Celtic; but it is a tribute to Burns the man that he was able to bridge the great divide in Scottish football, earning the admiration and respect of many supporters at Ibrox Park, home to Celtic's deadly rivals, Rangers.

A redhead with the temper to match, Burns was a gifted and determined left midfield player who made a total of 352 league appearances for Celtic, scoring 52 goals. He was also capped eight times for Scotland.

Thomas Burns was born to a Roman Catholic father and a Protestant mother at Calton, just a short distance from Parkhead, Celtic's ground in the east end of Glasgow, on December 16 1956.

He was educated at St Mary's School, the place in which Celtic had been formed by the Marist Brother Walfrid in 1888.

It was a hazardous environment in which to grow up, and the quick-tempered Tommy had his fair share of fisticuffs with other local boys.

When one of his schoolteachers suggested that he might get some O Grades if he applied himself, Tommy declined to stay on: "I had to tell him that getting to the stage where I could get my third-year leaving certificate had taken its toll of my nerves and that I wanted out while I was still alive."

As a boy he had prayed nightly for the chance to play for Celtic, and Jock Stein signed him for the club in 1973 from Maryhill Juniors. He made his debut against Dundee United on April 19 1975, and was to remain with Celtic for the next 14 years, making a valuable contribution to their league and cup double in 1988, the club's centenary season.

The following year, however, Celtic sold Burns to Kilmarnock for a mere £50,000. His final appearance in the green and white hoops was in a friendly against the Dutch side Ajax, at the end of which he threw his shirt into the "Jungle" terracing at Parkhead. He later recalled: "I ran about the pitch for 20 minutes with tears running down my cheeks because I knew I would never wear a Celtic jersey again."

In 1992 Burns was appointed Kilmarnock's player-manager, immediately guiding the club to promotion to the Scottish Premier Division. His association with Kilmarnock was, however, to end in controversy. In July 1994 he was invited to succeed Lou Macari as Celtic's manager. He accepted, but Kilmarnock refused to release him from his contract, and the Scottish Football Association subsequently fined Celtic £100,000 for the offence of "tapping".

A devout Roman Catholic, Burns kept a crucifix on the wall of his office at Parkhead. When he took over as manager, Celtic had not won a trophy for six years; but they now won the 1995 Scottish Cup, beating Airdrie in the final at Hampden Park.

For the man in Burns's position, however, only one thing was ultimately of any consequence – the relative fortunes of Celtic and Rangers. And in that department he failed to impress: although under his leadership Celtic produced attractive, attacking football, and lost only one league game in 1995-96, in 15 competitive Old Firm matches Burns's side won only three. Rangers won the Premier Division title in 1996 and beat Celtic in both of that year's cup competitions.

Then, in April 1997, Celtic made an undignified exit from the Tennent's Scottish Cup, losing a semi-final replay 1-0 to Falkirk, from the first division. A week later Burns was sacked.

His next move was to Newcastle, where he worked as assistant to his fellow Scot Kenny Dalglish. In 1999 Burns was briefly manager of Reading, but was fired after his side made a poor start to the season.

With Martin O'Neill's appointment as manager of Celtic in 2000, Burns took over as the club's youth development manager; and two years later he took on the additional role of part-time assistant to Scotland's manager Berti Vogts.

After Vogts was sacked Burns stayed on as assistant to his successor, Walter Smith. In 2005, on the departure from Parkhead of O'Neill, Burns was appointed Celtic's first team coach under Gordon Strachan.

In March the following year it was announced that Burns was undergoing treatment for skin cancer, and in January 2007 – shortly after Walter Smith had stepped down as Scotland's manager – he resigned from his role with the international side.

There were those who had thought that he might succeed Smith, but in the event he was not invited for an interview.

Tommy Burns was a man capable of generating great affection. The Heriot-Watt University Celtic Supporters' Club gave an annual Burns' Night dinner – for Tommy Burns, not Robert Burns – at which Tommy would invariably perform his party piece, an energetic if somewhat off-key rendering of Mack the Knife.

Neil Lennon (born June 25, 1971 in Lurgan, County Armagh) is a professional footballer from Northern Ireland, who played for Celtic F.C. in the Scottish Premier League, and was the club captain.

After joining Manchester City as trainee in 1989, Lennon has played for Crewe and Leicester City, before moving to Celtic, in 2000. For Northern Ireland, Lennon has been capped 40 times, scoring two goals. He has previously captained the squad.

Lennon decided to retire from international football in August 2002 upon receiving a death threat before a Northern Ireland match against Cyprus. The threats came after his alleged claim that he wanted to play for a team representing a United Ireland.[1] The threat was made by the Loyalist Volunteer Force, although the organisation later disputed this [2]. The death threat was met with widespread disgust from both sections of the community in Northern Ireland.[3]

Lennon is seen by Celtic supporters as a committed player[citation needed], and was made Celtic captain in 2005. In February 2006 he scored only his third goal for Celtic in their 8-1 win over Dunfermline.

When his former club Leicester City sacked Craig Levein Lennon was linked with a return to the Midlands side in a player-manager role. He went on record as saying he was flattered but wanted to captain Celtic to the SPL title.

Although he was also linked with a possible move to Crystal Palace in a player/coach role in the summer of 2006, on 23 June, 2006 Celtic announced he had signed a new one-year contract. Sunderland manager Roy Keane made an attempt to sign Lennon prior to the closure of the August 2006 transfer window, however his approach for the player was rejected by Celtic.

In his 2006 memoir, Neil Lennon: Man and Bhoy, Lennon revealed that he had suffered from clinical depression for seven years, and was taking antidepressants. [4] This book has been praised by mental health organisations and has became the biggest selling Scottish football book of all time.

Date of birth June 25 1971 (age 35)
Place of birth Lurgan, Northern Ireland
Nickname 'Lenny'
Playing position  Midfield

Honours of Neil LENNON at Celtic

Scottish Premier League Champions (Celtic )
Scottish Premier League Champions (Celtic )
Scottish Premier League Champions (Celtic )
Scottish Premier League Champions (Celtic )
Scottish Premier League Champions (Celtic )
Scottish FA Cup winner (Celtic )
Scottish FA Cup winner (Celtic )
League Cup winner (Celtic )
UEFA Cup Finals (Celtic )

Jimmy McGrory

He scored a British record total of 550 goals in first-class football. He even netted eight goals in one match against Dunfermline Athletic in 1928, and scored a hat-trick in three minutes against Motherwell eight years later.

Unequivocally granted the status as the greatest goalscorer in Celtic's history, he has been nominated as the greatest exponent of goal-getting in the history of British football. His goals to games ratio stood at more than one for every start.

All told, the legendary Celtic ace bagged 397 goals in 378 League games which remains an achievement almost unmatched in World football terms. Football historians have described him as the greatest Celtic player of all time.

And the name? Jimmy McGrory - Celtic immortal.

Born in Garngad on April 26th, 1904, McGrory played for the Parkhead club for 15 seasons but his involvement with the club extended right through to the time of his death in 1982 while he held the post of Celtic's public relations manager.

McGrory's tenure as a player with his beloved Hoops was a glorious one. Ironically he first entered the hallowed portals of Parkhead at a time when the green and whites were labouring under the shadow of their greatest rivals across the city of Glasgow.

After winning the Championship in stylish and gritty fashion in 1921-22, Celtic proceeded to go into decline the following season, to the extent that they were way off the pace by season's end.

The mercurial Patsy Gallagher had been injured midway during that forgettable season and the team never quite managed to compensate for his absence.

The team, and the club, needed a pick-me-up. Cue rising teenage star Jimmy McGrory.

A debutant in a 0-1 defeat against Third Lanark on January 20th, 1923, the 18-year old prodigy was asked to fill Gallagher's inside-right jersey and, at first, he laboured in attempting to do so.

Indeed during his formative senior football career, few observers could have forecasted just how influential McGrory would turn out to be in Scottish football circles over the preceding 15 years.

McGrory's debut season was short and sweet. He only played in three games although he netted his first ever goal in one of them, against Kilmarnock in a 3-4 reverse. Subsequently it came as no great surprise to Celtic's faithful when McGrory was farmed out on loan to Clydebank for the 1923-24 season.

Like many another raw youngster though, the loan move re-kindled his innate enthusiasm, helped his self-confidence and eased him gently into the rigours of senior league football.

In simple terms, McGrory was a much improved player by the time he returned to the east end establishment of soccer excellence for the beginning of the 1924-25 season as the club's centre-forward.

McCrory's return signaled an upturn in Celtic's fortunes.

The Scottish Cup final at the tail end of 1925 duly saw the great McGrory notch the winning goal in the dying minutes against a stunned Dundee side. A diving header by Jimmy from a flighted free-kick secured Celtic's 11th victory in the competition and further cemented McGrory's special relationship with the Celtic fans. In truth though, the ace goalscorer had everything that the fans wanted in a player.

And with the departure of 33-year old Patsy Gallagher in the summer of 1926, the focus on McGrory intensified even more. And the opportunistic goal ace didn't led the Celtic faithful down.

The following October, he looked poised to enter the record books when he headed four of Celtic's six goals against Aberdeen and cracked in a fifth with his boot.

The record individual score in a first class Scottish league match was six and Celtic's hitman seemed to have equalled it with a header in the dying minutes of the Aberdeen game. Alas it was ruled out for offside.

On January 14th, 1928 though, McGrory got his record though and made world soccer headlines and captured a world record when he notched eight of Celtic's nine goals against bottom-of-the table Dunfermline.

The stocky striker was a player tailor-made for the inter-war years but it's likely that he would have shone in any period. He was immensely potent in the air although he was relatively small for a striker at just 5'8" and light too at 11stone 8lb.

In fact, he scored a disproportionate amount of goals with his head, earning him the moniker 'Golden Crust.'

And in comparison to some of the wing wizards who plied their trade in the '20s and '30s in Scotland, he wasn't exceptionally quick either but he had the broadest of shoulders and extremely good technique, both in striking and heading the ball.

Above all though, McGrory was blessed with a brilliant striker's instinct and brave to boot. In the 1933 Scottish Cup final, for instance, he scored the only goal of the game despite suffering two broken teeth in an early collision.

The archetypal six-yard box poacher, his bravery also stood out - a tremendous asset to Celtic at a time when individual battles were often crucial in deciding who won the war. Jimmy McGrory was the complete centre-forward of his day.

Powerful yet blessed with a clever touch; mobile yet built like a tank to wage terror on rigid defensive formations.

And apart from his goal-scoring prowess, the Garngad lad was also noted for his ability to create space for colleagues and to supply them with the required ammunition at just the right time. Above all, he was totally dedicated to the Celtic cause. His attitude was that nothing came before the cause of Celtic.

In this regard, it goes without saying that since the Bosman affair and the virtual demise of the one-club player, McGrory's goal-scoring records are unlikely to be ever surpassed.

Still, for one disturbing period of time, it seemed as if the Celtic directors were hell-bent on breaking up their star man's romance with the club.

In the summer of 1928, Celtic manager Willie Maley, on the advice of the club's directors, attempted to offload McGrory to Arsenal after reaching agreement on what was then a record fee of £10,000.

McGrory had no dislike of Arsenal's manager Herbert Chapman but he was having none of it. He placed an insurmountable barrier in the way of the proposed transfer by insisting on a £2,000 signing-on fee, a figure which was way in excess of the then legal limit of £650.

To the delight of the Celtic faithful, their star striker remained in place and went onto bang in the goals for fun even though Celtic began to experience something of a lean spell in the late '30s.

Despite suffering an increasing number of injuries which interrupted one season after the next, McGrory learned to compensate for his declining physical powers in the latter part of his career by intelligent runs off the ball, clever positioning, dummies and opportunistic strikes.

Jimmy McGrory, Celtic immortal, after 15 years of giving his beloved club outstanding service as a player, played his last match for Celtic at the age of 33, on October 16th, 1937 at Celtic Park against Queen's Park.

And he went out with a bang, predictably, scoring in his team's 4-3 victory. Amazingly despite all his heroics at club level, the famed striker was constantly ignored by the Scottish national team selectors.

Their failure to recognise McGrory's innate talents added fuel to the notion of an anti-Celtic bias among the football establishment of the time.

Unbelievably, he was only awarded seven Scotland caps. While he was up against the likes of Hughie Gallagher (Chelsea) for a position on the team, there were many inferior players picked in front of him on the national team.

After his playing career finished, Jimmy McGrory became manager of Kilmarnock from 1937 until 1945 when war put a temporary halt to the playing of games.

Shortly after World War Two, he returned to Parkhead as manager but he didn't reap the same success in the dug-out as he did on the field of play.

Nevertheless, he served a 20 year stint in the hot-seat before making way for another would-be Celtic immortal, Jock Stein.

Thereafter, the great McGrory remained a much-loved figure at Parkhead till his death in 1982.

Tribute to Jock Stein

Saturday 10th September 2006 was be the 21th Anniversary of the death of one of the greatest Manager’s this country has ever seen. He managed Celtic to nine Championship’s in a row and won 5 trophies in the same season that he took Glasgow Celtic to the greatest moment in their history by becoming the first British side to lift the European Cup defeating the Italian giants Inter Milan 2-1 in Lisbon.

He also managed his country and it was on a fateful night Tuesday 10th September 1985 in Cardiff, after a Davie Cooper penalty had given Scotland a 1-1 draw with Wales that the Big Man lost his life. That man was the one and only Jock Stein.

Big Jock had collapsed at the end of the match in Cardiff and within half an hour he had passed away! Unknown to the Scottish support who were still celebrating their play-off place but soon word spread and their cheers would soon turn to tears as one by one they had heard the big man had died.

The man who had gone from playing for clubs such as Albion Rovers (14th Nov-July 1950),

Llanelly (July 1950-Dec 3 1951), Celtic (Dec 4 1951-29 Jan 1957-player) before announcing his

retirement on Jan 29 1957 through injury this after captaining the club to victory in the

Coronation Cup in May 1953 and winning the double in season 1953/54.He went on to be reserve

Team coach in July 1957.

Jock would become a Manager in his own right when he took the job at Dunfermline on the 14th

March 1960 and he would stay there for 4 years till the 30th March 1964. Jock won the Scottish Cup in 1961 with Dunfermline beating Celtic, of all clubs in the final!

From the Pars, big Jock then moved on to Manage Hibernian (1 Apr 1964-8th Mar 1965) till the team that wore the green in Glasgow came calling, this was to be the club the Jock Stein would have amazing success at. No one could have imagined that when Big Jock went through the front door at Celtic Park on the 9th March 1965 till when he left on the 31st May 1978, the number of trophies that he would lead the club to his success at Celtic was amazing!

10 League titles-9 in a row!

6 League Cup victories

8 Scottish Cup victories

1 European Cup win

Jock Stein had played a brand of football at Celtic Park that was not only taking the Scottish game by storm but it was taking Europe by storm! Players like Jimmy Johnstone, Danny McGrain, Billy McNeill, Kenny Dalglish, Tommy Gemmell, Stevie Chalmers, Bertie Auld, Bobby Murdoch, Bobby Lennox, Ronnie Simpson, Willie Wallace, Jim Craig, Dixie Deans, John Clark and many others would be household names all across the world thanks to Jock Stein and playing his football with flair and attack, playing the Celtic way!

Big Jock has left many memories for fans all around the world, winning many great matches with Celtic, beating the great Leeds side home and away in Europe was the best results seen for many a year by a Scottish side, they not only beat Leeds they played them off the park!

With Scotland beating Spain 3-1 at Hampden with Kenny Dalglish scoring a great curler in to the top corner being one of my favourites.

Even 20 years on the big man is still being talked about and I have no doubt fans will go on talking about Jock Stein.

Scottish Manager’s down south at the moment, people like Sir Alex Ferguson and David Moyes

look up to this great man and hope that they can achieve some of the success Stein had, in Fergie’s case he has done very well indeed and is in some ways liken to Jock in his achievements, Moysie’s time will come - I am sure of that.

Famous quotes

* "Celtic jerseys are not for second best, They don't shrink to fit inferior players" Jock Stein 1

* "I don't believe everything Bill tells me about his players. Had they been that good, they'd not only have won the European Cup but the Ryder Cup, the Boat Race and even the Grand National!" Jock Stein on Bill Shankly 2

* "We did it by playing football. Pure, beautiful, inventive football". - Jock Stein, Lisbon, 1967 (After winning the European Cup) 3

* "Football is nothing without fans"

* "Jock, you are immortal now" Bill Shankly on Jock Stein following Celtic's European Cup victory over Inter in 1967

Charlie Tully

Charlie Tully (born in Belfast, Northern Ireland on 11 July 1924 - died 27 July 1971 also in Belfast) was a famous footballer of Celtic Football Club.

Tully signed for Celtic from Belfast Celtic on 28 June 1948. He played his debut match at inside-left at home against Morton on 14 August in a 0-0 draw. He played a total of 319 matches for Celtic, scoring 47 goals throughout his career, which spanned 11 years.

Tully's skill quickly earned him the reputation as a Celtic great after a memorable performance against Rangers in a 3-1 victory at Celtic Park. This catapulted Tully to the status of cult hero and the beginning of "Tully Mania", when Tully cocktails were sold in pubs; Tully ties in shops and green flavoured Tully ice cream in cafes.

As well being such an accomplished club player, Tully played international football for Northern Ireland. One game is particularly well remembered. In 1952 Tully scored both goals in a 2-2 draw with England, one of which was scored from the corner flag. Tully achieved this feat again in 1953, not once but twice against Falkirk in a Scottish Cup tie at Brockville. Tully took a corner for Celtic and swung the ball directly into the net. The referee, presuming that the ball must have been placed outwith the arc, instructed Tully to retake the corner. Tully did so with the same result, swinging the ball into the net directly from the corner.

Tully spent brief periods on loan to Stirling Albion before being released in September of 1959. Thereafter he took up the position of player-manager at Cork Hibernians before spells in management with Bangor (twice) and Portadown.

Tully died in his sleep at home in Belfast on 27 July 1971. The Falls Road was packed with mourners for his funeral.

Charlie Tully

By tommy Mac (Thomas Mc Sorley)

Footballer Charlie Tully was my greatest hero, in more ways than one.

In 1948 I was in the Army when Celtic signed Charlie Tully from Belfast Celtic for the enormous signing on fee at the time of £8,500. Of course we were hearing about him by way of the Forces Radio, but he was to play a part in my life I couldn't even dream about at the time.

He was so popular in Glasgow that the joke doing the rounds were like:

The Pope was visiting Glasgow and Charlie Tully was showing him around. The people in the crowd turned to each other and said, "Who is that with Charlie Tully?"

His prowesss on the football pitch was becoming legendary.

The letters I received from my father were full of wonder at this player and he sent me all sorts of cuttings from newspapers telling of his exploits. One I can remember seeing for myself when I got home was the match against Falkirk at Brockville. Tully took a corner kick and scored direct, but the referee ruled the goal out because the ball was outside the corner arc. So Tully grabbed the referee and took him accross to the corner where the kick was to be re-taken. What did Tully do? He promptly took the kick again AND AGAIN SCORED DIRECTLY!!

But I am getting ahead of myself as this was in the future. So to go back to 1948...

In October of that year I had my accident and was in a very bad way indeed. In so much of a bad way that the Army decided to bring my father over to Italy to see me, telling him on the way over that he was probably coming over to bury me.

When my father arrived I was still drifting in and out of consciousness, which lasted for five days and nights. Sometimes when I awoke I could see my father with the tears running down his face. Still when I had stabilised, he toook a life-sized poster of Charlie Tully and pinned it above my bed.

He said to me, "Come on son, you will have to get better so you can come home to see this wonderful player. He is even better than Patsy Gallagher." Now! For my father to admit to something like that meant that Charlie Tully must be very special indeed.

From then on I gradually improved and the doctors all agreed that the poster of Charlie Tully might have been the vital spark I needed to make me want to live. My chances before this looked very shaky.

My Dad stayed with me for nineteen days. He was made a Sergeant in the Yorkshire Light Infantry so that he had a place to stay and my mother would get an allowance all the time he was with me. He only left me after my leg was amputated and my condition had been reduced from Critically Ill to Seriously Ill - this was just Army jargon, but it meant I was going to live after all and so my Dad could go home.

It took a whole year to get home, plaster of paris gradually being removed from my arms, my head, my pelvis and eventually my leg (when the stitches were removed) showing signs of healing, enough for me to get about on crutches.

Can you wonder, then, that my hero is Charlie Tully? He saved my life. I am convinced of this, and I am happy to say I went on to watch him play some wonderful stuff on the football pitch. His fondness for the bottle only made him all the more endearing and made him out to be just like "one of us."

Next to Pele, he was the finest player I ever saw.

The Great McNeill

Billy McNeill's assessment of the impact to be made at Celtic Park by the arrival of Jock Stein in 1965 was prophetic.

The giant central defender was, even at that early juncture, one of the seasoned veterans at Parkhead but he was one of the first in the Celtic camp to sense that better times lay on the horizon with Stein in tow.

McNeill told his then team-mate John Divers on hearing of Stein's appointment to the hot seat; "Oh, that's fantastic! Wait 'till you see how things change now."

Ironic then that less than a year earlier rumours had been rife in the east end of Glasgow that the formidable centre-half was being courted by Tottenham Hotspur.

The summer of 1964 saw major speculation erupting in both Glasgow and north London concerning what many believed to be McNeill's impending transfer to the White Hart Lane club.

Some say that it was the pair's destiny to work together and that the arrival of Celtic legend Stein was just the spark to ignite the re-invigoration of McNeill's already vaunted role at the famed Hoops.

It was hardly a co-incidence either that it was a goal by the solid centre-half which altered the landscape of Scottish football back in the mid-Sixties and paved the way for the emergence of one of the greatest club sides ever to grace the world's soccer scene.

It was a stunning goal by the Celtic colossus in the dying minutes of the 1965 Scottish Cup final which changed a team of perennial losers into the most successful outfit ever produced in Ireland or Britain.

When the inspirational captain headed Charlie Gallagher's corner late in the game into the Dunfermline net for the winning goal, team-manager Stein proclaimed his central defender as the man who would show his colleagues how to win from there on. And how true the manager's forecast would become.

The Cup victory, coming after the club lost a number of semi-finals and finals in the preceding years, seemed to instill a new sense of self-belief in McNeill and Co.

Stein had just arrived at Celtic Park a couple of months prior to the victory over Dunfermline and naturally his arrival was viewed as the catalyst for victory for the club's first trophy success for eight years.

The cup win heralded the start of a real fairytale story for both the new manager and his esteemed captain.

Three days after the 1995 Cup final triumph, Billy McNeill was named as Scotland's Player of the Year for 1965, the first winner of a new award created by the Scottish Football Writers' Association.

Born on March 2nd, 1940 in Bellshill, Lanarkshire, the great McNeill joined his boyhood heroes in August 1957 as a schoolboy for the unbelievably modest sum of £250. Early on in his Celtic apprenticeship he was 'farmed' out to junior outfit Blantyre Victoria.

Less than 12 months later, he was whisked back to headquarters where, over the next eighteen years, he would endear himself to Celtic supporters worldwide with his totally committed attitude, his leadership qualities and his honest, passionate displays at the heart of the Hoops' defence.

Billy McNeill became the lynchpin and pivotal figure of Stein's Celtic. Like the Roman Emperors of another era, he stood head and shoulders above those around him as he exhorted his colleagues to give of their best every time. No wonder that he would have the moniker of 'Caesar' for the duration of his career.

Celtic fans were to grow accustomed to his imperious, authoritative displays at the heart of the action.

Billy McNeill graduated to become the most successful captain in the club's history and the undisputed leader on the park of inarguably the best Celtic team of all time. Making the central defensive role into an art form,

McNeill made filling the boots of Bobby Evans seem like positively easy. And while his formative career in the Hoops in Jimmy McGrory's struggling teams kept him out of the spotlight, the mid-sixties period onwards saw him receive the acclaim his ability fully deserved.

Amazingly, the great leader of men won just a paltry 29 caps for Scotland - a figure which was all the more mind-boggling for his admirers considering that his country weren't exactly blessed with a surplus of centre-halves during the sixties and seventies.

A player blessed with great heading ability which made him equally valuable in defence and in attack, McNeill played with Celtic from 1957-75, notching 790 appearances in all competitions during that period and scoring 34 goals.

A debutant with Celtic's first team on September 6th, 1958 against Rangers, Billy McNeill won every honour in the game, including nine successive League Championship, seven Scottish Cup and six League Cup medals plus, of course, the famous European Cup honour in 1967 when he captained the hoops to success over Inter Milan in the final in Lisbon. That 1967 success saw McNeill become the first British player to hold aloft the great trophy.

Earlier in their successful European Cup campaign, the inspirational defender had further endeared himself to his manager, his team-mates and Celtic fans by his last gasp swoop to steer home Charlie Gallagher's late, late corner in the quarter-final victory over Vojvodina Novi Sad.

Two years later, a similar effort served as a stunning opener in the famous 4-0 win over Rangers in the 1969 Scottish Cup final. Sadly the Celtic legend's days were numbered come the 1974-75 season.

Now 35 years of age, McNeill came under pressure from the snipers in the long grass midway through that season, especially after Celtic exited the European Cup in the autumn of that year at the hands of Greek champions Olympiakos.

At the end of the 74/75 league campaign, the Hoops ended up in third place, eleven points behind Rangers and four below second-placed Hibernians.

The Scottish Cup final that year against Airdrie was to represent Billy McNeill's last great hurrah in a Celtic jersey. The hoops beat their opponents by 3-1. Following the game, McNeill, all six feet one inch and 12 stone of him, after ten years as Jock Stein's captain, announced his rather premature retirement.

His cup final performance was exceptional but it was also to be his last appearance for Celtic. The on-field post-match celebrations saw the indomitable McNeill carried shoulder high.

As Stein's trusted lieutenant, Billy McNeill had always carried out his duties impeccably on and off the field.

"Big Jock and I always had a good relationship. He put additional demands on me.

"I had to act in such a way that I sorted things out when he wasn't about; when he went out of the dressing-room, when we went on the pitch.

"When we went away and started enjoying ourselves, I had to be an influencing factor, which didn't bother me.

"We had a real hard, aggressive squad of players, some with real strong personalities but it wasn't important for me to be liked by everybody.

"What was important was that they respected my position, which they did do. And it was important that I respected their point of view as well. I was the captain but in effect we had another four or five people who could have performed as captain as well.

"The bulk of the players would have wanted nothing other than to play for Celtic. We had a magnificent team spirit. We enjoyed each others' company.

"I'm not saying we were the greatest pals - we weren't. But we had a feeling and a pride in our achievements and we enjoyed the fact that we could take on the best on the European scene and do well," 'King' Billy remarked.

'Caesar' later turned to management and stints with Clyde and Aberdeen were served before he returned to Celtic Park to succeed his former mentor Jock Stein, three years after retiring as a Celtic player.

McNeill proceeded to lead Celtic to three Premier Division titles and a Scottish Cup success, before being replaced by David Hay in controversial circumstances and much to the chagrin of the Celtic support.

A spell in management down south followed with Manchester City and Aston Villa before the call came again from Parkhead.

McNeill responded positively to the invitation and he moved back north to halt Rangers' resurgence under the leadership of Graeme Souness.

McNeill again proved to be up to the task asked of him by Celtic and he duly delivered the League and Cup double in the club's Centenary Year of 1987/1988.

His greatness and his status as a Celtic Legend was thus confirmed.

William "Willie" Patrick Maley

'How much Maley contributed to Celtic can probably be summed up in the phrase, 'Willie Maley - he is Celtic'. There could certainly have been no Celtic without him, and a glance at today's magnificent stadium - an awesome sight when full - will show how much Celtic means to so many people in Glasgow, Scotland and beyond. None of this would have happened had it not been for the vision and energy of Willie Maley.'

The eventful journey during the formative years of Celtic FC begins in Ireland, the birthplace of William Patrick Maley, and his influential father, Thomas Maley, before moving with the Maley family to Scotland - to Cathcart in Glasgow. And, before long, Celtic, and specifically Brother Walfrid, is knocking at the front door of the Maley family home.

The year is 1887. Willie Maley and his brother, Tom, become Celtic players, as the Club that would become 'the greatest football club in the world' is born, playing Rangers in the volunteer-built stadium on Monday 28th May, 1888, and winning 5-2. 'The history' begins. Within ten years, Willie Maley is Celtic's manager, having become an accountant and shown accomplished business acumen and book keeping skills.

Maley begins the task of creating Celtic, the football power, with his energy, initiative, ingenuity, business brain and, most importantly, man-management skills, football knowledge and tactical awareness. In the years to come, there are glories galore and silverware aplenty, as Willie Maley guides Celtic to numerous successes and trophies - Scottish Cups, Charity Cups, Glasgow Cups and, of course, League Championships. David tells the story of this glorious chapter in Celtic's history, in particular the famous Celtic side of 1904-10 and six-in-a-row.

We are also introduced to the initial skirmishes in our eternal battle for supremacy with Glasgow's other football team, Rangers, and David recounts the first taste of bad blood between the 'Old Firm', as they were about to be christened, at the Glasgow Exhibition/ Ibrox Disaster Trophy of 1902. A four-team tournament between Celtic, Rangers, Sunderland and Everton, Celtic became victors when they defeated Rangers, 3-2, in the Final and, much to the chagrin of the host club, Rangers, we decided to keep the Cup, as it had been won fair and square.

Rivalry began and two tribes were formed. However, as David rightly points out, this then was rivalry, and nothing more than that. It was only when Rangers, in the 1920s, deliberately cultivated sectarianism, discriminatory signing policies based on religion and the extremes of Protestantism and Orange-ism, and all for filthy lucre, that bigotry within football emerged.

Not that there was not religious intolerance, prejudice and sectarianism long before that in Britain and Ireland and, being an historian and writer of honesty, credibility, social conscience and political awareness, David W Potter is not averse to describing all the manifestations, rebellions and upheavals that were ubiquitous at that time. David's story of Maley is intertwined with the social and political unrest in Ireland and Scotland throughout Victorian and Edwardian Britain.

The horrors of poverty, squalor and urban deprivation always lurk in the background of the book, as does The Great War, the 'land fit for heroes' thereafter that plainly was not that, The Depression and the rise of the evil of Nazism. David does not shirk his duty to tell it as it was and does not labour with the sensitivities that some would prefer were not retold. Commendable, David! One cannot rewrite history for the benefit of misplaced ideals of current political correctness. The truth is the truth.

Aside from every kick of the ball and the winning of so many trophies, there are the great Celtic players of the era that David brings to prominence, from Maley's perspective - Quinn, Gallacher and McGrory are, perhaps, the most famous. There are also players such as Tommy McInally that David describes from Maley's viewpoint - McInally seems to have been the Frank McAvennie of the 1920s. And, there are the tragedies: from the death of Peter Johnstone, a Celtic player, in the trenches of Flanders in 1917 to the deaths of Willie Maley's brothers, Father Charles O'Malley and Tom; from the deaths of Maley's mother and his wife to the injuries sustained by Maley's sons during the First World War; from the tragic loss of John Thomson, the Celtic goalkeeper killed at Ibrox in 1931, to the equally premature death of the Celtic player, Peter Scarff, from Tuberculosis in 1933. All were Club and personal tragedies that struck the Celtic father figure, Willie Maley, very hard indeed.

David writes of Maley's reaction to the death of John Thomson: 'But, what Maley liked was that Thomson, the boy from the Fife mining village who belonged to an obscure Protestant religious sect, had earned all that he had earned through his association with Celtic, the so-called team of Irish Catholics! Thomson could not have done it without Celtic or without Maley......but now he had been so cruelly taken away. Maley would take some time to recover.'

In fact, David frequently stresses just what the burden of leadership did to Maley, a man with the weight and responsibility of Celtic on his broad shoulders, as the Celtic manager frequently lapsed into periods of depression and melancholy, caused by tragedies, deaths, poor on-field performances, the surrounding poverty, the political upheaval and criticism of Maley's Celtic team by the supporters, frustrated by events on the pitch.

Maley was indeed a complex individual. Undoubtedly a benevolent father figure, an astute businessman, a born leader, a thoroughly charitable man and a football master-tactician for Celtic (especially for identifying players such as Quinn, Gallacher and McGrory), David also describes Maley as 'autocratic' and 'obsessed with money.' David writes: 'Financial parsimony was only one aspect of Maley's character. Another was sheer obstinacy and stubbornness, that he and only he knew what was best for Celtic, and he would decide.'

Indeed, other facets of Maley's persona will unsettle the Celtic reader, such as his pro-Empire views, his monarchism and his extreme reluctance to allow his liberalism and undoubted sensitivity, charity and philanthropy to become wholly supportive of the common man and the latter's political struggles during the period. Maley was not a socialist by any manner of means. However, throughout the book, one cannot help but realise that Maley was, then, Celtic, from foundation in 1888 to the end of his tenure in 1940.

His successes were quite phenomenal. And, one cannot help but draw parallels with another man of such massive importance to our Club - Jock Stein. This could have been said by Big Jock, but was in fact said by Maley: 'It's not his creed nor his nationality which counts - it's the man himself.'

And, the following could have been oratory delivered by Jock Stein to The Lisbon Lions, but was, in fact, Maley: 'It's an honour and a privilege to wear those green and white jerseys. These people out there (indicating the crowd) have given a lot to see you wearing those stripes (Celtic still wore green and white vertical stripes until 1903). What are you going to give back to them?'

Reading David W Potter and, in particular, in his book, 'Willie Maley - The Man Who Made Celtic', is a history lesson well worth having. David helps to reinforce, through his recounting of Celtic history and culture, exactly who we are, where we came from and what makes us Tic. Why we are a culture club, in fact! 'If You Know The History.....!' Well, David does know his, and it's a joy to read. David crystallises exactly what Willie Maley did for The Cause of Celtic. So much, in fact, that we still sing about it in the Willie Maley Song:

'Oh, they gave us Jimmy McGrory and Paul McStay,

Johnstone, Tully, Murdoch, Auld and Hay.

And most of football's greats

have passed through Parkhead's gates

To play football in the Glasgow Celtic way.'           

Charlie-And-The-Bhoys---WILLIE-MALEY

The super Swede

The son of a Swedish mother and a sea-faring father from the Cape Verde islands, Henrik Larsson's selection in the autumn of 2002 as one of the best eleven players in the history of Celtic Football Club aptly reflected the player's contribution to the Parkhead outfit since he was lured to Glasgow from Feyenoord by former mentor Wim Jansen in July 1997.

Signed for a bargain basement £650,000, Larsson overcame an inauspicious first 90 minutes for the club to become inarguably the most influential player at Celtic over the course of the following five years as the Hoops proceeded to reclaim their erstwhile dominant position in Scotland.

A product of the Helsinborg club in his native Sweden, he was a relatively late developer but once he topped the scoring charts at home, his move to a more fashionable club in Europe was inevitable.

At the age of 21 he sealed a move to Feyenoord in 1992 where the aforementioned Jansen was football director. And so began the process which would see the ace attacker gravitate to become one of the most feared strikers in Europe.

Two years after moving to Holland, Larsson made the world sit up and take note of his burgeoning talent by starring at the 1994 World Cup and helping his country claim third spot.

However soon after the ambitious goalgetter fell out of favour with Sweden manager Tommy Svensson while on the domestic Dutch front, he took Feyenoord to court to win the right to move when Jansen made him his first target as Celtic manager.

Larsson's debut for Celtic was instantly forgettable. His misplaced pass across the field 30 metres from his goal was easily intercepted by Hibs' Chic Charnley who promptly rifled the ball into the Celts' net to give the Easter Road side a 1-0 win. Celtic fans just wondered what sort of footballer Jansen had imported.

However Larsson put his Easter Road nightmare behind him to quickly become the darling of Parkhead. From supporting forward at Feyenoord, he became the main striker at Celtic and soon the goals began to flow. Larsson's scoring rate soon drew comparisons with the best ever scoring machines seen in the east end of Glasgow. Through the annals of the club, from Jimmy McGrory to Bobby Lennox, Jimmy Quinn to Brian McClair, Celtic always had prolific strikers in their midst. Inevitablly, Larsson would take his place in such a pantheon.

Despite his ability to score goals with amazing regularity, Henrik Larsson also quickly endeared himself to Celtic fans as a result of his workrate and selflessness in the last third of the field. A player's player and a manager's delight, Larsson became the most celebrated foreign player since Brian Laudrup's time across the city.

Larsson won the player of the year award in his second season, which yielded 38 goals and a new contract to boot.

Larsson was touted as Celtic's talisman and the fans loved him as much as opponents feared him.

The number of weapons in his armoury impressed all and sundry who first witnessed him in action in Scotland. The opposite of a one-trick pony. On the ground or in the air, with left or right foot, Larsson excelled. Celtic fans soon dubbed him the King of Kings.

The superbly talented Swede began season 1999-2000 in his customary style but a gruesome leg fracture suffered in a Uefa Cup tie in Lyon spelt disaster for the club that year and even cast a question mark over Larsson's footballing future.

However the 5'9" star proved his mettle time and time again and he duly fought back to play for his country in Euro 2000, scoring one particularly memorable goal against Italy when he rounded the keeper in classy style before walking the ball into the net - a carbon copy of his third goal against Kilmarnock's Gordon Marshall in the 2001 CIS Insurance Cup decider.

Though Larsson's effectiveness in one on one situations is renowned. For such a relatively small man, his ability in the air - a veritable trademark - saw him so many times almost hang in the air before directing the ball beautifully one side or another past the opposing 'keeper.

Speedy though delicate, cheeky on the field of play though courageous, Larsson was the key man for the hoops in helping Celtic deny Rangers their ten-in-a row league title successes in season 1997-98.

His 19 goals were invaluable that season as Celtic ended their agonizingly long barren spell of league title successes.

In this regard, it's worth noted that it was the Swede who got Celtic up and running with a goal in the 2nd minute in the title-clinching 2-0 win over St. Johnstone at Parkhead on May 9th '98. Overall, Larsson's form and goals that year also earned him a recall to the Swedish international squad.

By now Larsson had earned hero status among the hoops fans - his brace of goals later that year against Rangers in the Old Firm game of November 1998 cementing the mutual appreciation shared by player and fans. In the run-up to that aforementioned clash, those in the long grass were beginning to remark how the Swede had managed to go six Old Firm games

prior to that game at Celtic Park without scoring. Larsson was under a degree of pressure to prove himself against the Gers but in the 52nd and 56th minutes, he did it in style as Joseph Venglos' men swept to an emphatic 5-1 victory.

Larsson's achievement in making the best ever X1 selection in the autumn of 2002 gave the official imprimature to his legendary status.

Unlike so many of the foreigners who plied their wares in Scotland during the nineties and into the new millenium, the super Swede played with a zest and an enthusiasm which stood among other internationals from overseas. Larsson's unique blend of artistry and industry, of scoring ability and workrate, has been conspicuous in a Scottish league of ordinary home-grown footballers and foreign players deemed to be seeking one last big pay day.

Scoring his 100th goal in 135 games for Celtic on January 2nd, 2001 (during the course of a 6-0 home win over Kilmarnock) in the 53rd minute was, typically, added to with further goals in the 70th, 73rd, and 86th minutes.

But on more occasions than not, Celtic have been thankful to Larsson for solitary strikes which earned Celtic precious maximum league points, home and away, or progression in a sticky cup tie.

Famous for sticking his tongue out after bagging a goal, his achievement in winning Europe's Golden Boot award in season 2001-2002 fairly reflected his class as a prolific goalscorer. Most Celtic supporters will remember his special brace in the 6-2 win on August 26th, 2000 against Rangers at Celtic Park.

Winner of Goal of the Month on countless occasions, his goal in the 50th minute of the aforementioned Old Firm game rates as one of the best ever scored in the fixture.

Demonstrating a suitably degree of anticipation to follow up a long clearance from the Celtic box, Larsson got on the end of a Chris Sutton chest-down just inside the Rangers half of the field.

Dutchman Bert Konterman, Rangers' last defender, attempted to intercept Larsson in mid-flow but failed miserably, leaving Larsson with a run in on goal. Faced by the advancing Klos, the ace attacker disguised his intentions beautifully by feigning to side-foot the ball past the Rangers' keeper, and, instead chipped the ball over Klos and under the bar for a wonder goal.

Larsson's 50th minute strike was all the more significant in that it killed a possible Rangers comeback at birth. The blues had pulled the score back to 1-3 and were trying desperately to get back into the game. The arrival of Martin O'Neill to Parkhead in the summer of 2000 seemed to inspire Henrik Larsson (in company with his team-mates) to find an even higher gear. And his decision to sign a new contract which ensured his continuation as a Celtic player 'till 2003 was just what the green and white hordes wanted above all.

The team's spiritual leader was predictably at the heart of the club's drive to the 2000-2001 league title (bagging 50 goals in the process) and the retention of the title the following year.

Meanwhile, the mercurial Swede confounded the critics' notion that he couldn't cut it on the international front by banging in three goals as Sweden topped their group section (ahead of Argentina and England) in the 2002 World Cup.

Almost inevitably, his ongoing sparkling form and the arrival of Saint Martin co-incided with talk of an interest in the player from Man. United, among a list of other top-notch clubs as the 2002-2003 season beckoned.

But the ever-loyal Larsson pledged to honour his contract.

And the green and white part of Glasgow and further afield breathed a huge collective sigh of relief. For Kerrydale Street seldom played host to such a mercurial talent.

Honours

Team

* Third-Placed at the 1994 World Cup

* Dutch Cup: 1993-94 and 1994-95

* Scottish League (4): 1997-98, 2000-01, 2001-02, 2003-04

* Scottish League Cup : 1997-98, 2000-01

* Scottish Cup : 2000-01, 2003-04

* Runner-up in the UEFA Cup : 2002-03

* Spanish League: 2004-05, 2005-06

* Spanish Super Cup: 2005-06

* UEFA Champions League: 2005-06

Who else could we start off with than the  wee man himself

Jinky Biography

Jimmy ‘Jinky’ Johnstone, was born on the 30th September 1944 to Sarah and Mathew Johnstone.

He was born in the district of Bothwell, famous for the Battle of Bothwell Bridge (seeing off the English) and a rather atmospheric ruin of a castle often visited by the young Jinky with his school on a day-out trip. Jinky lived, with his family, upstairs at 647 Old Edinburgh Road.

Jinky enjoyed a wonderful childhood and made full use of Bothwell’s surrounding countryside and woods where he would fill his time and imagination playing all manner of games with his friends. It was to be the game of football though that would define his life and his place in history.

‘It was part of every Scottish lads life, it was total football before the term was even invented.‘Times were hard, football I guess helped us forget, kept our spirits up, gave us plenty to laugh about.’

The lads would play until their clothes were splattered with mud and their faces shining with the exhilaration. They wore Sloppy Joes, trousers and penny black shoes but a lot of lads had footware hanging off feet by the end of the day.

They would kick around a plastic, mass produced ball, until, as it often did, it would get punctured on somebody’s hedge or railings. If it wasn’t the lightweight plastic ball it was the old pump-up leather one that had an inflatable inner bladder, which, of course, would need continual inflating. Somebody was always rushing off for a foot pump to inflate the ball.

It was hard sometimes, having to stop the game, just reaching a make or break point, simply to inflate the ball. But, being hit in the face by a semi inflated leather ball wasn’t pleasant and it ruined your shots. If it wasn’t a ball being kicked around it would be anything that moved, a tin can, a stone, with a couple of jackets serving as goalposts.

As well as playing in the streets the pitches would vary tremendously. The back yard or garden or tarmac road would be converted into the site of the next round of the world cup.

Teams playing the first to 21 or even the first to 42 as the day lengthened into twilight and then darkness. It rains a lot in Scotland, yet this would not affect the games. Helter-skelter, onwards and onwards, oblivious of the conditions the total football would continue.

‘Football was no big deal, not in the way that it is now with all the hype, we all played it all the time. You would just pick up a ball and be practicing against a wall and in no time at all a team would have formed around you and yet another football match would start.’

If a game wasn’t possible then the lads would play headers. A game usually played in the back yard, sometimes with a tennis ball, the object of the game being simply having to header the ball between the posts (jumpers and assorted coats).

‘The only thing to watch out for was the owner of the occasionally nice garden. If your ball went in there you could kiss it goodbye as they would keep the ball.’

Team sizes would vary and, as the day progressed would often see drastic changes made within the sides but, every morning at the beginning of school the teams would be picked, the days playing had just begun. At the first break, 10am, the game would commence.

Play continued at the one hour lunch break and then re-commenced after school. The games were played until it was too dark to see or, if they were darting about under dim street lights, until the mothers called their boys home.

Jimmy was lucky in his local primary school, St Columba's Primary, Viewpark. Three great teachers, John Crines, Mr Milligan and Mr Travers loved the beautiful game and enthusiastically encouraged the youngsters to play. The school team was great and, at the age of nine or ten, Jimmy had already been part of a team, which had ‘lifted everything that year’.

The League Cup, the County Cup and the John Lee trophy all became St Columba’s in the years 1953-54.

Within school and under the tutelage of John Crines, Jinky would undergo trials and training a couple of times a week with at least one weekly full game played.

St. Pats was a square, wooden, building with the pitch just down the road. The lads would get kitted up in school and then walk down to the pitch, unless it was an away game.

John Crines was a stickler for discipline and turnout. The leather boots had to be polished until they shone, soles and all, before they were inspected. ‘Woe betide the boy who hadn’t put every last ounce of effort into polishing his boots.’

The strip was black and green, and the team, under John Crines’ watchful eye, was always well turned out. At last the boys got to play a ‘real game’ on a ‘real pitch’. Although St Pats had a grass pitch many schools had horrible ash pitches.

‘Sliding on one of they ash pitches was like sliding on a scrubbing brush or a pan scourer, left you red raw.’

Jinky’s Junior Secondary school, St John the Baptist at Uddingston, didn’t have as good a side as St Columba but Tommy Cassidy, the Physical Education teacher, was a friend of Celtic star Sammy Wilson and his family.

Watching the young Jinky play with all the flair and skill of a man twice his age Cassidy realised that the lad’s talents mustn’t be wasted, he got Jinky a place with Celtic.

‘We never had any aspirations then though, it was just fun, a way of life, when Celtic happened it wasn’t planned, just sort of a natural evolution.’

Jinky was 13 years old when he became a ball boy for Celtic and played his heart out for the youth team. The Daily Express soon ran a feature on him about how many medals he had won. A star was rising.

The problem for Jinky was that he wanted to actually play football.

‘It was great to be at Celtic and everthing, to see all the great players, your heroes, but we all wanted to be playing on a Saturday and that was with the Boys Guild, so I left.’

Playing in the Boys Guild Jinky played all the local parish teams in all types of conditions on all sorts of pitches and loved every minute of it. His first really memorable moment came when his team set off to play Manchester United.

‘What an adventure, all up early and on the bus and everything. We stayed with their parents and when they came up to us they stayed with ours. It was great, all great fun.’

It was whilst in Manchester that a Mr Wishbone, once an international player in his own right, now the head scout, noticed young Jinky. He happened to be standing next to Jinky’s brother Pat who, just happened to have a load of press clippings and reviews in his pocket.

Wishbone soon got talking and before the match had finished had decided that Jinky should be thinking about a future with Manchester United.

The word must have got around fast because a couple of days after his return a Mr Johnny Higgins, Celtic’s scout, came round to the house with the purpose of signing up the lad.

Asked about how that must have felt Jinky is his usual humble self.

‘Aye Dad was delighted for sure, but you see we played all the time, it was our life, the biggest part of your life and so when Johnny came round it was just sort of, ‘Oh Aye, that’s great’, and then on with the next thing.

Maybe that’s what kept my feet on the ground. I mean I look back now and think ‘bloody hell what did we achieve’, and I guess they were great things, but at the time we were just a bunch of ordinary lads.

We never bragged or talked about things, we just got out there to win, we were confident that we could take anyone on, and we did.

You’ve got to remember times was hard then, football was the biggest part of our lives, just like for the boys in Brazil and Spain, they lived in poverty like us and that’s where all of the great players come from, the streets.’

A god with a leather football at his feet

When Jock Stein returned to manage the Celtic in March 1965, he was dismayed at the poor morale among the same players whom he had enjoyed a great relationship with years previously as reserve team coach.

The erstwhile Hibs boss quickly set about beefing up the fun quotient about Celtic Park. In this respect, the great man had a willing and able assistant in ‘Jinky’ Johnstone.

As for team affairs, Stein’s first modification was to hand the late Bobby Murdoch a deep midfield role at the expense of 20-year old Jim Brogan. Murdoch’s relocation from inside right to midfield would allow him to use his tremendous passing ability to control the flow of a game for the Celts.

The new manager’s next step was to fill the position left by Brogan’s demotion to the reserves. Jimmy Johnstone filled the gap on the right wing. In two easy steps, Stein had re-established a meaningful balance in the Celtic line-up. The team would never be the same again.

“What an influence he had on me!” Johnstone said years later. “I remember playing in a reserve game at Celtic Park against Hibs just after he took over as manager. Nobody knew that Jock had come to the game until he came into the dressing room at half time. It was the first time I had seen him in there. I then happened to go to the toilet, which is separate from the dressing-room.

Stein played to Johnstone’s strengths and vice-versa. For instance, the manager insisted that all 28 of his squad players had a ball each in training.

A 6-0 win over Dutch side Go Ahead in the Cup-Winners Cup (Johnstone bagged a brace) soon after Stein’s return to the club added fuel to theory that the emphasis on working to the strengths of great ball players like Johnstone was going to pay off.

A League Cup final victory for Johnstone and company over Rangers a couple of months later in front of 107,600 cemented the value in the manager’s head of mercurial wing wizards like the fiery redhead.

Like all relationships, it didn’t always run smoothly though. Johnstone could be as stubborn as he was gifted as a footballer and that stubbornness shone through in one instance while Celtic were on a, then unprecedented, close-season tour of North America during the summer of 1966.

Celtic played a series of games against various opponents across the continent but by the time the hoops met Bayern Munich in San Francisco on June 9th, Stein had only 12 fit players left available to him.

The newly crowned British Manager of the Year had given his winger permission to fly home early to Scotland to get married. On the day before he was due to depart, Stein asked Johnstone to telephone his fiancée Agnes and tell her to postpone the wedding so that he could cover for the injured men. The request was politely refused.

Johnstone’s sometimes unreliable temperament wasn’t the only source of frustration for the Celtic management. There was also the wee man’s massive fear of flying Stein’s awareness of Johnstone’s hang-up on flying worked a treat in helping the Celts beat Red Star Belgrade of Yugoslavia in a European Cup match.

The Celtic manager promised Johnstone that he would excuse him from playing in the second leg if the winger helped create enough of a lead in the home leg in Glasgow. True to form, Johnstone played out of his skin in Glasgow, scoring twice and making three of the five goals that would render his trip abroad unnecessary.

However, if Stein was the injured party on the occasion of the aforementioned club tour to America, it was Johnstone who suffered most almost three months later when Celtic made their European Cup debut with a home tie against FC Zurich of Switzerland, the previous year’s semi-finalists.

From the outset, Johnstone was singled out for special attention by the tough Swiss side. Kicks and punches literally rained in on the diminutive winger. The game acted as a taster for Johnstone in terms of what he was in store for him on the European stage in the years that were to follow. Nevertheless, Jinky was man of the match as the Celts won 2-0.

It’s a testimony to Johnstone’s magical balance, dribbling skills and sheer athleticism that he managed to play at the highest level for over 12 years without suffering a serious injury for, at just 5ft 4in and nine-and-a-half stones, he was invariably picked upon by tough, but insecure opposition defenders.

The Viewpark born and bred outside right used his brilliant ability to turn defenders, his capacity to swerve by some dodgy tackles and his pace to create openings for himself all through his marvellous career with Celtic, which began on March 27th, 1963 (two years after he signed for the Parkhead club from Blantyre Celtic) in a match against Kilmarnock.

Dubbed the “Flying Flea” by the French press after an inspired display against Nantes in a European Cup tie, Johnstone was a God to the Celtic fans but never quite received the credit for his talent elsewhere in Britain, even after he tormented Leeds in the aggregate victory in the 1970 European Cup semi-final.

“Wee Jinky was out of this world at Elland Road,” teammate Tommy Gemmell reflected. “Terry Cooper, the Leeds left-back, must have nightmares every time somebody mentions Jimmy Johnstone because he gave him a total going over.

“Norman Hunter was shouting to Cooper, “Kick him!” Cooper turned around and said, “You come out and kick him. Hunter came out and tried to stick it on wee Jimmy. Wee Jimmy just waltzed round about him and nutmegged him.”

“Jimmy Johnstone”, his long-time team-captain Billy McNeill said, “could terrorise any defence”.

When Johnstone was in his element, bobbing, weaving, ducking and darting, he was poetry in motion and his ability to make defenders, particularly English ones, look ponderous and muscle-bound in their efforts to stymie his inventiveness and creativity, endeared him to football followers everywhere, even Rangers fans.

Jimmy Johnstone made 515 appearances for Celtic and scored 129 goals in the process. On the international front, he was only awarded 23 caps by Scotland.

Career Honours

Full Scotland international

23

European Cup winner

1

League Championship winner

9

Scottish Cup winner

4

League Cup winner

5

Scottish League caps

4

                                             R. I . P. YOU WEE MAN AND GOD BLESS