[71] What Celtic Means To Me

FIRST GAME
My father took me to Celtic Park on Saturday 16th December 1961 for my first Celtic match. It was a Scottish League Division One game against Hibernian. I was only 8 and had scored a hat-trick for my school team the day before, for which my father told me he would take me to see the Celtic as a reward. I couldn’t sleep that night and my mother laughed hysterically as I arrived at the breakfast table at 7am, fully dressed and wearing my woolly Celtic hat and scarf. My little heart was pounding as, for the first time, I saw the four huge floodlight pylons towering proudly into the grey skies as we walked along London Road. My father delivered me to the front of the old enclosure below the stand and I watched the players warm up. The top of the wall was on a level with the pitch and I was only just able to see the grass. From that vantage point the Celtic players looked like giants, and I remember being awestruck by the colour of the turf and the magic of the gleaming green and white hoops. At half-time I was in tears because Celtic were trailing 1-2. My father gave me my first macaroon bar and reassured me, “Don’t worry son. The Bhoys will do it.” He wasn’t wrong. Celtic ran out 4-3 winners and I slept easily that night, still wearing my hat and scarf and dreaming of many more trips to Paradise and beyond.

FAVOURITE GAME
Less than 4 years later, Celtic faced Dunfermline in the 1965 Scottish Cup Final. Jock Stein was the recently-appointed manager and the club had gone through a long barren spell without a trophy. On the Friday, my father came home from work with 3 tickets for the match –
my own and my younger brother Brian’s first ever Cup Final. After yet another fitful night’s sleep, we headed for Hampden on a big double-decker bus carrying what seemed like a hundred singing and cheering fans. Once again the colours and the carnival atmosphere inside the packed stadium filled me with breathless anticipation. The pipes and drums of the Cameronians added to the spectacle on a sunny April afternoon. Celtic came from behind twice to win 3-2 with a Billy McNeill header clinching it near the end. History shows that this was the win that opened the door to many years of success for the club under the managership of the late, great Mr Stein. The significance of that and the fact that it was the first time I had witnessed the large Celtic support celebrating triumphantly, make it my favourite game.

ALL-TIME CELTIC HERO
As a 9 year-old I was taken to Rugby Park for what was Jimmy Johnstone’s first game for Celtic. I grew up following the club and throughout those years, boy and man, Jinky was and always will be my all-time Celtic hero. I was truly mesmerised by his skill and ability and, as a boy and youth footballer myself, I modelled my game on the wee man. If only I had the merest fraction of his ability. Jimmy Johnstone was a true football entertainer and genius, whose sad passing has left a void in the Celtic family, and whose life as a Bhoy and ultimately the greatest ever Celt, touched the heart of every member of that global family.

ONE CELT I WISH I COULD HAVE WATCHED LIVE
My father used to regale me with fireside stories of Charlie Tully, Bobby Evans, Bertie Peacock and Willie Fernie. At the same time my grandfather would fire my imagination with similar tales about the likes of Jimmy McMenemy, Jimmy McGrory, Jimmy Delaney, Johnny Thompson and the legend that is Patsy Gallacher. No history of Celtic, whether it be in video or literary form, is complete without a chapter on Peerless Patsy. If he was half as good as my grandfather described, he must have been quite a player. If it were at all possible, Patsy Gallacher would be the one Celtic star I would love to have watched live.

CELTIC-SUPPORTING HIGHLIGHT
It has to be Lisbon 67. The whole day will live with me till I draw my last breath. At 13 I was too young to travel to Lisbon but remember watching the game on a black and white television with my family in Motherwell. The streets were virtually deserted as we watched Celtic pummel the Inter defence with wave after wave of relentless all-out attack. I will never forget the feelings of joy and unbridled emotion as we hugged each other and danced around the room at the 2 goals and then at the final whistle. The streets came to life again as Celtic fans danced and sang in celebration. Our house was soon packed with cousins, aunties, uncles and family friends and by the end of the mother of all Celtic parties, Brian and I had pockets full of tanners, shillings and ten-bob notes, gifted by happy, exuberant and benevolent revellers. All in all, a day made in heaven.

MOST DISAPPOINTING MOMENT
The defeat against Feyenoord in the 1970 European Cup Final in Milan still rankles, but the only time I have ever cried as a grown-up following a Celtic defeat was when we lost the European Cup semi-final at Celtic Park to Inter Milan on penalties a couple of years later. Dixie Deans was inconsolable as he watched his spot-kick – the first in the shoot-out – soar high over the bar, giving the Italians an initiative which they grabbed with both hands. I was equally inconsolable when the realisation hit that we would not after all, be going to another European Cup Final. It took me a long time to get over that one.

WHAT CELTIC MEANS TO ME
Ever since that cold December day in 1961, Celtic has been a huge part of my life and the lives of my extended family, including my own two sons who are season-book holders and continue a legacy that has been handed down through four generations and, God willing, through many more generations to come. I have now settled in Australia and, thanks to technology, am able to watch more or less every Celtic match live on cable television or via the internet courtesy of the club’s very own Channel 67, and usually at the most ungodly of hours. For the bigger games, I sometimes travel to the Brisbane CSC and enjoy the atmosphere in the company of a large number of ex-pat members of the Celtic family. As I celebrated Celtic’s latest SPL title in May with a champagne breakfast, I indulged in a moment of quiet reflection and imagined a small 8-year old boy standing at the front of the Parkhead enclosure, looking up at the giants in green and white, and contemplated how that little boy had grown up through the highs and the lows, the laughter and the tears, the joy and the sorrow that go hand in hand with life as a Celtic Supporter. I also remembered a telephone call to my father back in Scotland after we had lost to Rangers and then Motherwell in March. I suggested that the title was now lost. My father’s words echoed down through the years as once again he said, “Don’t worry son. The Bhoys will do it.” He wasn’t wrong.