“If you’re an O or a Mac, for the love of St Patrick, let me in.”
We may not have Walter Macken to stir our emotions or guide our thoughts today but one thing we do have – a manager of Celtic who is marked by neither of the above. We also have one of the finest managers in our history.
In these days when some of the old, perhaps “trivial” traditions of our club are treated with so much disdain, it is perhaps worth reflecting on what it means to be in that role.
Once, and not so very long ago, the manager of Celtic had a special status in the community of Celtic supporters. Celtic fans have always been proud to know what they stand for. Those simple but profound values need not be articulated here – anyone who requires guidance ought to do some study in order to “know your history”.
Amongst the unshakeable values was an understanding of the status of key individuals. Throughout the darkest days of the club, the supporters stood shoulder-to-shoulder with those fighting their cause on the pitch and the man on whom the role of club figurehead was bestowed.
We have no ceremonial swords with which to confer honours. Instead, we have the glory of tradition, handed down through generations, and an ethos so easily translated that it is readily adopted by those who discover Celtic as if a new bloom in a garden.
We also have won over even our most bitter opponents with the love and acceptance extended to all who seek our embrace. It was this that converted a Rangers-supporting Jock Stein to a Siegfried-like figure, embodying all the virtues that would shape our common psyche. It was this that shaped the sentiments of Daniel Fergus McGrain, Kenny Dalglish and scores of others.
When Stein replaced the greatest goal-scorer in British football history as manager, it has often been mentioned that he continued to address him as ”boss”. This was more than psychology and regard for the person. Stein understood the importance of acknowledging the status of any man who endured countless pains in order to lead a legion of people devoted to his cause. When certain individuals then failed to extend that respect to the greatest-ever Celt, a knife-wound was created, painful to the faithful, and one that would set fans against those who had enjoyed an unearned privileged status at a club they were unfit to run.
Today we have a man who has devoted himself to our cause – and done so with such skill and artistry that, given the chance, he seems likely to chisel his name into our story with such conviction that he may yet re-write the future of Celtic. How sad that he has yet to earn the unconditional love and support of the faithful.
But each day is a new one and today presents a wonderful opportunity to rediscover the loyalty (a word that we too are allowed to use) so deserved by anyone who gives his all for Celtic. We face our oldest rivals buoyed by success and with our manager facing down Scottish football’s establishment having been wronged at his finest moment by a “coward whose name is not worthy to appear here”.
But we need not write his epitaph – we can and should sing his praises from the stands of Ibrox, Hampden or Celtic Park.
Jock Stein was neither an “O” nor a “Mac” but, for the love of St Patrick, let Gordon Strachan in.
