If they can become champions of Europe, anything is possible

But somewhere out of the darkness must come light.  My generation coincided with Celtic’s worst period.  Yet they still occupied a special place at the edge of my imagination, as a powerful, strange force that always somehow held the promise of a sense of meaning.

And now, incredibly, that promise threatens to be delivered.  So savour this moment.  Remember this place.  Remember the way it looks and sounds and smells.  Remember the way the moment feels.  Savour it when life gets tough.  Because if this can happen – if a football team that contains Catholics and Protestants, a set of players who all hail from the Glasgow area, a club set up to feed the hungry children of despised immigrants – if they can become champions of Europe, then anything is possible.

From The Road to Lisbon, a novel, published today, by Martin Greig and Charles McGarry.