God help Benfica if Celtic are inspired by Estadio Nacional

Years before Celtic Quick News I was at an event with ten of the Lisbon Lions in attendance, before playing football later that evening.  They say you should never meet your heroes but ‘they’ never met the Lions.  Bobby Murdoch asked about my job and spoke about his wife’s job, showing the kind of interest in people, and pride in his own family, which was refreshing from a football legend.

Jinky was Jinky; irrepressible.  He was last to arrive and as he walked into the room looked at his team mates with a cheeky grin, “Am I in trouble again?”  Bertie Auld told me we should have signed Kenny Miller (this was years before we did) but Tommy Gemmell, who knew a thing or two about scoring a great goal, said “Every goal I’ve ever seen was a great goal”.  Tommy was a full back who scored cracking goals in two European Cup finals but his point was simple, when they hit the back of the net, they’re all great goals.  Listening to him talk made you want to go get kick a football.

That night I was absolutely buzzing, I went out and played the best game in my life.  Sharing in the achievements of the Lions had a profound effect, I knew I would play well, even before kick-off.

This morning Neil Lennon took his players to Estadio Nacional, yesterday telling a media conference, “We will train at the stadium again in the morning and let these players have a feel of what is a special piece of history for our club”.

God help Benfica tonight if the spirit of that great old stadium seeps into the pours of the Celtic players today. Let me at them!

Delighted Downfall has finally been reviewed!  Positively too, you’ll not be surprised to learn.

Orders are now open for the very first CQN Annual, get it here!

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