Before I pay tribute to Billy McNeill on the anniversary of when he delivered the Scottish League in our Centenary Season 32 years ago and a day after the anniversary of his passing. I would like to extend my condolences to the McNeill and McCombe family who are mourning the recent loss of Billy’s grandson Matthew.

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This morning and all day yesterday a quick look at social media reminded me of how loved and respected Billy was by the Celtic fans. There are lovely tributes and some cracking photos with Billy and I look forward to reading more tributes to Billy from his former team mates and those who played under him during both his stints as manager and especially the stories getting shared by Celtic fans over the next few days.

I was lucky enough to meet Billy on a number of occasions. If memory serves me right I first met him when he was Man City manager in the mid- eighties when I was a young teenager and part of a boxing team taking part in a tournament over there.

I would later meet him again in the late-eighties when once again I was boxing, this time in Glasgow. He always had time for the fans.

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The first time I got to have a conversation with him was at a drinks reception at the NAFCSC gala dinner in Las Vegas back in 2000 and over the the years he would be a regular at the convention and I was lucky enough to spend a week in his company at a convention in Windsor Canada where we were entertained by a young Kevin Bridges.

In 2009 I had the pleasure of picking BIlly and Tommy Gemmell up at Dublin Airport and taking them to LMFM radio station for an Interview, before lunch in Scholars Hotel in Drogheda.

That night they were in Duleek as guests of St. Margaret’s CSC and the following day they shared their memories with us at a lunch in Drogheda.

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The lunch was held upstairs in Tommy Hanrattys bar which is spitting distance from my house and I passed the pub while out walking the dog early this morning, the name of the bar has changed but the memories from that day will be treasured by all who were lucky enough to attend.

A year ago when the news broke that Billy had sadly passed away I was so glad that we had so many platforms of media available to enjoy the legacy and greatness of King Billy as tributes flooded in.

On TV last year after his sad passing we had tributes from his teammates, opponents, fans and the players who he had managed. Every emotion was expressed, John Clarke was hurting when he spoke, Charlie Nicholas was tearful and Bertie Auld broke into song.

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On radio, along with tributes, old interviews with Billy were revisited, in the Newspapers tributes were paid by journalists, in the days and weeks that followed the mainstream football publications and the Celtic fanzines all paid tribute as did the online bloggers from various fan websites who contributed many words as they paid their own tributes.

Billy lifting trophies, scoring goals, managing winning Celtic teams and interviews were all plucked from the vaults of YouTube and shared on all social media platforms

Social Media also gave everybody from the Celtic family and beyond including numerous football clubs a chance to pay homage to this giant of a man.

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Facebook gave everybody an opportunity to share a picture and story of when they met Billy among all their friends. To me these were special and showed just how many supporters functions Billy had attended and how close he was to the ordinary fan on the street. He lived our dreams and made those dreams come true on so many occasions.

Over the years I have had the pleasure of interviewing many of the players who played with him and also those who played for him. At recent Celtic AM events in Malone’s strikers Frank McAvennie, Joe Miller and Frank McGarvie all spoke about their former Gaffer.

Billy may have been a Legend and a Celtic Icon but he was also a husband, a father and a grandfather and it cannot have been easy for those closest to him to see him suffer from Dementia.

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To the Celtic family he was everything rolled into one, the player who would play for nobody else but his beloved Celtic, joining the club in 1958 and retiring from football and the Hoops jersey in 1975. He was our 9IAR captain who would conquer Europe and all before him in Scotland.

He was our manager, guiding the team to a dramatic 4-2 win with 10 men to clinch the league, he was the returning Leader to lead us to a Centenary double, he was the Ambassador a true footballing statesman.

His statue on the Celtic Way at the stadium will be an everlasting reminder of what he achieved at Celtic for generations to come and soon the locals of Bellshill will also have a statue to remind them of their local hero who would conquer Europe.

Hail Hail Cesar

Forever Our Leader

Andrew started More than 90 Minutes in 2001. He has written for numerous publications and online about Celtic. One of his essays featured in Celtic Minded 2 and he is a former newspaper columnist with the Daily Ireland and the man behind celticfanzine.com. He is host of Celtic AM pre-match events at Malone’s in Glasgow on match days and follows Celtic Home & Away. He is a season ticket holder for Celtic FC and the Republic of Ireland. He is also P.R.O. of St. Margaret’s CSC, a member of the Celtic Trust and the Celtic Graves Association.

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It’s a year on from the death of my friend and teammate Billy McNeill after a long battle with Alzheimer’s. Billy never shouted and bawled in the dressing room before games. That was always Big Jock who did that. Billy’s shouting on the park came more from a positional and encouragement point of view.

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He was a great Captain and leader and commended great respect from all his teammates. I’ve known Billy since we played against each other in our early teens in the Boys Guild leagues and then going on to sign for Celtic within a year or each other.

It’s also fair to say that he was involved in the two moments that really changed Celtics history. His winning headed goal in the 1965 Scottish Cup Final from a Charlie Gallagher corner was the start of a Golden Era under Jock Stein. His last minute headed winner, also from a Charlie Gallagher corner in the European Cup, was the springboard for going on to win the big cup.

I have great memories my time playing with a great player, leader and friend. It was a fitting tribute last season when Celtic went on to win an historic Treble Treble on the historic date of the 25th May.

John Fallon has been writing for this Celtic fanzine since 2002. The original Holy Goalie has won every honour with Celtic and played his part in the greatest ever era in the history of the famous Glasgow Celtic. John is ever present at Celtic games home and away and at Celtic supporters functions.

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1920 is a hundred years ago. Like 2020, it was a strange time. The world was upset, in chaos, disorder and tumult. A better world was possibly emerging, but it didn’t necessarily look like that at the time

The main definition of the age remained the Great War. It had been over for more than a year now but its effects were everywhere. Injured men, sometime hideously so, war widows, orphans, disorientated people – and this was in the country which was reputed to have won! Glasgow had been hit hard. Being Glasgow, it was fighting back, but it was a struggle.

The economy had been devastated. Rebuilding would take a long time. The men who had survived the war were by early 1920 now more or less, all home – but so often there wasn’t a job for them. This was no “land fit for heroes to live in”. The slums were still there – the filth, the overcrowding, the squalor – the very things that had made it so superficially attractive in 1914 for young men to “join up” to get away from, but now having seen the hell of war, the same young men (other than those who were left lying in France) came back to see the same hovels.

And there was the ‘flu, called for xenophobic reasons the Spanish flu but it had affected everyone throughout the world. It was now well past its peak but it was still there and still causing havoc.

And Celtic supporters had their added source of angst. It was called Ireland, a bleeding sore throughout the Victorian ages, and now reaching its violent and bloody conclusion. Following their sweeping victory in the 1918 General Election, Sinn Fein had refused to sit in Westminster and had set up their own Dail in Dublin, declaring themselves a sovereign nation.

This had not gone down at all well in London, and 1919 had seen much bloodshed all over the island of Ireland. But there was now a sinister development when “ex-servicemen” and convicts were being invited to join an auxiliary force to supplement the Royal Irish Constabulary. They were the men who would in time become known as the Black and Tans, from March 1920 onwards they began to arrive in Ireland. They were the men who had enjoyed the violence of the Great War, and they wanted more!

All these factors were very much alive as season 1919/1920 approached its conclusion. This was the season in which the “boy wonder” Tommy McInally made his appearance. The team had won the Glasgow Cup in the autumn, but Maley had made the bad mistake of not playing McInally against Rangers in the quarter final of the Scottish Cup, and Celtic had gone down 0-1. But there was still the League to play for. Celtic were the more sparkling team with better players, but Rangers had the consistency and the ability to grind out result

Several things strike one about the match reports of spring 1920. One was Celtic’s inability to put out a settled forward line. In Patsy Gallacher and Tommy McInally, they had the best two forwards in the business, but they didn’t always function together well, and were both prone to injury problems, the occasional suspension and “temperamental clashes” either with each other or with Willie Maley.

In addition, it was now believed (wrongly as it turned out) that Jimmy McMenemy was finished. Yet in spite of all that, form was good. Six games in a row were won and won well between mid March and mid April, and a belief grew that Celtic could repeat last year’s League championship success.

The other thing that was apparent was that the crowd were boisterous, numerous but not always very well behaved with reports of bottle throwing and other disturbances at away grounds. And so many of the culprits were young men – lacking in so many cases the father

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Prior to 1966, the Scottish League and Celtic were hardly on speaking terms! Since the Second World War, the League had been won only in 1954. What was even more disturbing was that only in 1955 were Celtic even second in the Scottish League. In other words, we were never even close! But 1966 changed all that and changed it for ever.

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We now went into a phase in which no-one other than Celtic won the League – nine long years of plenty after so many years of famine. And it was all about Jock Stein! A remarkable fact was that not a single one of the nine-in-row was clinched at Celtic Park – Fir Park, Ibrox, Dunfermline, Kilmarnock, Tynecastle, Hampden, Bayview, Easter Road and Brockville – but never Celtic Park, although it would have been Celtic Park in 1971 had Celtic not temporarily been playing at Hampden.

1965-66 Celtic 34-57, Rangers 34-55. A close race, possibly even the closest of the nine with Celtic behind at one point in early 1966 after defeats at Aberdeen, Hearts and Stirling Albion. Things looked bad after losing to Liverpool in the Cup Winners Cup, and then to Rangers in the Scottish Cup final, but the team rallied to beat Morton in the third last game at Cappielow, then Celtic won a very difficult fixture against Dunfermline at Parkhead before finishing it off at Motherwell on May 7.

1966-67 Celtic 34-58, Rangers 34-55. Won at Ibrox in the rain in a 2-2 draw on May 6 in a curious game which saw one spectacular goal and one scrappy one for each side. But Celtic had blown up badly to Dundee United at Parkhead on the Wednesday night (and some of us wondered whether this was all just so that we could win it at Ibrox – we had another game at Kilmarnock in any case) and in fact this race was not as close as it sounds, but full marks to Rangers for staying with the Lisbon Lions for so long!

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1967-68 Celtic 34-63, Rangers 34-61. Phew! The tightest race of them all, and a tribute to the magical powers of Jock Stein who could take points off Rangers, even when Celtic were not playing them! Celtic looked down and out after they could only draw to Rangers at Parkhead at the New Year. Two points behind, and no other chance to play Rangers! But enter Stein and the mind games. Celtic started to play some brilliant football, and somehow or other in the face of it, Rangers creaked, creaked and eventually cracked. A point dropped at Dundee United, another at Morton, a cowardly withdrawal from the Glasgow Cup which won them few friends (they were afraid of Celtic!), and then on the last day, insisting on playing their game in opposition to the Scottish Cup final. And they blew up against Aberdeen! Celtic then went to Dunfermline on the Wednesday night, more or less Champions unless they lost 16-0, and in front of a huge crowd duly won 2-1.

1968-69 Celtic 34 – 54, Rangers 34 – 49. In spite of losing both games to Rangers, Celtic emerged triumphant as the more consistent side throughout the season. Celtic had a lot of other commitments this season, winning a domestic treble and going down to AC Milan in the European Cup quarter final, but won the League on Tuesday April 22 when Rangers lost to Dundee at Dens Park.

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1969-70 Celtic 34 – 57, Rangers 34 – 45.  The easiest win of the lot. The League was won as early as March 28 with a 0-0 draw at Tynecastle, allowing Celtic time to concentrate on other matters. Rangers were at sixes and sevens throughout the season, sacked Davie White as manager and appointed Willie Waddell, but were never close to challenging Celtic

1970-71 Celtic 34- 56, Aberdeen 34-54. For a change it was Eddie Turnbull’s Aberdeen who challenged Celtic this year, but Celtic drew the key game 1-1 at Pittodrie on April 17, and eventually won the League on April 29 when they beat Ayr United at Hampden. This was a new emerging Celtic side, following the major disappointment of losing last season’s European Cup final to Feyenoord.

1971-72 Celtic 34-60, Aberdeen 34-50. Again Aberdeen chased hard, until they made the astonishing decision in February when they were still in the race, to sell Martin Buchan to Manchester United! It was like Winston Churchill selling the spitfires in the middle of the Battle of Britain! Celtic could hardly believe their luck, and won their 7^th title on April 15^th at Methil against East Fife. Celtic had now surpassed the achievement of their Edwardian predecessors who “only” managed six League Championships in a row.

1972-73 Celtic 34-57, Rangers 34-56. Close! A strong Rangers team fought hard this season, and Celtic were a little off the boil, particularly in midwinter. It all came down to the last day of the League season at Easter Road, but Celtic won 3-0 against a strong Hibs team to win the League for the 8^th year in a row. It was a hard-working and determined, rather than a brilliant Celtic side.

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1973-74 Celtic 34-53, Hibs 34-49. A strange season with games played on Sundays for the first time ever, but Celtic won fairly easily by four points over Hibs who challenged well all season. The League was won at Brockville with a game or two to spare, but again it was admitted that Celtic were not as good as they had been in the past, and a strong challenge might cause them problems. But they had established themselves as the “natural” champions of Scotland, and had created the agreeable habit of psyching out opponents, including Rangers!

Season 1974/75 was in every sense an ugly season. It was an age of dreadful fashions in clothes, ubiquitous straggly long unkempt hair, inflation getting out of control, normally docile people like teachers and dustbin men on strike, and a Celtic team that could only be described as “ordinary” (even though they did win back some pride by capturing the two domestic trophies. Nevertheless they exited Europe meekly in October, and as early as January it was apparent that the League challenge was evaporating. A 3-0 defeat at Ibrox told its own story, and it was followed by a dreadful 3-2 defeat at Parkhead by Motherwell, and there was no way back after that.

Only three players could be said to have played regularly in all nine seasons – Billy McNeill, Bobby Lennox and Jimmy Johnstone. It was a wonderful achievement.

Born in 1948, David Potter first saw Celtic at Dens Park, Dundee in March 29. It was a 3-5 defeat, which equipped him admirably for the horrors of the early 1960’s. He had “followed” Celtic for a few years before that and recalls having been called upon to impersonate Jock Stein and receive the family silver teapot which had to do for the Scottish Cup as it was presented on April 24 1954, after he and his father had spent a nerve wracking afternoon listening to the radio!  Since then, he has “followed” every Celtic game with bated breath, and has written extensively about the club in magazines and books. His favorite team was that of 1969 (which he rates marginally better than 1967) and his favorite player was Henrik Larsson.

His ambition for Celtic is for them to keep on winning silver in Scotland and to be something in Europe once again. His other interests are cricket and drama. He is 70, a retired teacher of Classical Languages, married with three children and five grandchildren. He now travels on the Joseph Rafferty bus from Kirkcaldy. He also loves Forfar Athletic.

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Growing Up A Celtic Fan?

I was brought up in a family of Celtic fans, my father and brothers all supported Celtic, The first game I can remember was against Cylde in the 1947/48 season and that’s when I got the bug for Celtic and it has never left me.

Joining Celtic?

I joined Celtic officially in December 1958. I started off my underage football journey as a centre forward and then moved into midfield as an under age player and only started playing in goals when I was in my late teens.  

Who signed you at Celtic?

I was signed by the great Jimmy McGrory, he was a complete gentleman but not that much of a manager I’m afraid.

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Settling In?

I found settling in easy and it was not bad because of my previous experience training with players as part of the Kelly Kids.

Team-mates?

Big Billy (McNeill) , (Luggi) John Clark, Charlie Gallagher, (chopper) Bobby Murdoch, Bobby Carroll and John Divers were really good mates from the Kelly Kids and the Crabbit One, Paddy Crerand, he would fight with his shadow if things went wrong.

Nights Out ?

We did not have many nights out I am afraid, we were under constant watch back in those days. Celtic fans would report to the boss if you went into a bar. I walked into a bar with my mates from the street and asked for a half pint of shandy. I must have been 18 going on 19, the barman asked, “Are you the boy who signed for Celtic?” I shrugged my shoulders, stuck out my chest and proudly looked at mates and said YES and he just looked at me and said “See that door you came in well get the f**k out before your kicked out”

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1965 Cup Final?

1965  Cup Final well that’s the year everything started when we won the Scottish cup that year, Jock Stein came back as Celtic manager and the rest is history, We went on to win leagues, cups, doing trebles along the way and winning the big cup in Lisbon.

Your Greatest performance between the sticks?

It is difficult to single out one game. I loved the experience of playing in Madrid (see highlights footage of the game below and John pulling off  two great saves)  Both League and Scottish Cup finals I played in (2 Scottish Cup Finals & 3 League Cup Finals) all were special and also playing in the World Club Final against Racing Club. 

I treasured every game I played for Celtic.

Leaving Celtic?

I was heartbroken leaving Celtic against my wishes but before I knew it I was a Motherwell player.

John Fallon was in Coversation with Andrew Milne, Read John’s Column in every issue of More than 90 Minutes.

Andrew started More than 90 Minutes in 2001. He has written for numerous publications and online about Celtic. One of his essays featured in Celtic Minded 2 and he is a former newspaper columnist with the Daily Ireland and the man behind celticfanzine.com. He is host of Celtic AM pre-match events at Malone’s in Glasgow on match days and follows Celtic Home & Away. He is a season ticket holder for Celtic FC and the Republic of Ireland. He is also P.R.O. of St. Margaret’s CSC, a member of the Celtic Trust and the Celtic Graves Association.

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The approach of Easter in 1916 probably did not mean much to the average Celtic supporter in Glasgow. The only real difference was that Easter Monday (April 24) would be a Holiday (a rare event in wartime Britain) and that Celtic would be playing Third Lanark, after they had played Hearts on the Saturday. Not that it really mattered of course, for Celtic, thanks to their heroics the week before against Raith Rovers and Motherwell (two victories on the one day!), were now League Champions for the third year in a row!

Possible because the League race was over, the game against Hearts at Celtic Park did not attract a great crowd. 5,000 was not a huge attendance, even allowing for the fact that war-time transport was not great, and in the event they did not miss very much. Hearts were struggling to get a decent side together and had to recruit a player or two from other teams, but today Shaw, McNair and Dodds; Young, Johnstone and McMaster; McAtee, Gallacher, O’Kane, McMenemy and Browning failed to make any impression on the Hearts defence.

It was rather an anti-climax, and there were only 4,000 at Celtic Park on Easter Monday to see a local derby against Third Lanark. The only change for Celtic was McGregor for McNair, but this time it was a far better performance. After going down to an early goal from ex-Celt Dave McLean now playing for Third Lanark, Patsy Gallacher equalised and then in the latter stages of the game, Joe O’Kane scored a hat-trick, and Celtic provided some happiness for their fans by winning 4-1.

While this was going on in Glasgow, other more significant events were taking place in Dublin. St Stephen’s Green and the GPO were seized by Sinn Feiners of the Citizen Army and the Republican Brotherhood. Oddly enough, (well, maybe not, given wartime censorship) these events were not mentioned in the Scottish Press on the Tuesday morning. Tuesday’s Courier and Glasgow Herald contain mentions of Roger Casement’s arrest for gun running, but nothing about the actual rebellion. That had to wait until Wednesday! Clearly, the British Government had been hoping that it would all go away. But “go away” it didn’t, and the “terrible beauty” was born.

Most Celtic supporters probably didn’t realise the significance of the Easter rebellion until years later. They were convinced however that their team in 1916 was virtually unbeatable!

DAVID POTTER