I wasn’t engaged in Celtic politics 20 years ago, never attended the Celts for Change meetings and I wasn’t there to hear ‘The rebels have won!’ in person, but it was clear the Celtic Movement had achieved a remarkable revolution.
The old board’s biggest failing was its lack of strategy. 20 years on Fergus McCann rightly receives the plaudits for putting his money where his mouth was but until that very week he was merely one cog in the machine. Celts for Change were the advance party, others, such as McCann and John Keane were the generals, playing a critical role in the revolution, while the circa 30,000 fans who came forward to buy season tickets and shares were the foot soldiers who did the heavy lifting.
It cost £620 to participate in the subsequent share issue. People borrowed money in order to do their bit – in order to help Celtic, while others clubbed together to raise the target amount. This was an era when credit was even less pervasive as it has been in recent years. Thousands ‘did without’ to make this happen, and no one knew this more than Fergus.
The Revolution came 20 years after Jock Stein’s world record nine-in-a-row, but the intervening period brought obscurity in Europe, only once did we progress beyond Christmas and that was after overcoming Dundalk and Partizan Tirana. Six league titles were won.
The 20 years since have produced nine titles, with another in the oven, while former directors of former clubs are talking about the prospect of Celtic winning 10-in-a-row. We’ve had Seville, and lots of genuinely great achievements in the Champions League. It has been a fantastic two decades.
The one thing Fergus drove most thoroughly was his vision of the club’s social mission. Bhoys against Bigotry and Celtic Charity were launched and put squarely in the middle of who we are as a club. The renamed Celtic Foundation has grown and now engages thousands of fans each year in outstanding feats of generosity. If we are not ‘just another club’ this is the reason. If you’re not involved, get involved.
Over the years I’ve heard talk about a monument to Fergus, which would be entirely inappropriate, the man is a low-profile pragmatist, but we’re overlooking the biggest monument in sport. When he took over as managing director, Celtic Park was a magnificent football arena but fit only for our memories. We needed a safe, all-seater stadium. He raised £14m at a share issue, built the biggest football stadium in Britain apart from the decrepit Wembley, and left five years later with the club around £2.5m in debt.
It was an economic miracle which still beggars belief. I cannot explain how on earth this was achieved.
So Fergus, take a bow, you were years ahead of your time; ruthlessly uncompromising, just when we needed the same, but to those who only wanted to do their bit, without a wish for credit or glory, treat yourself this Pancake Tuesday, you deserve it. Every goal since is down to you.
Congratulations to Peter Lawwell on his appointment to the executive board of the European Club Association (ECA), alongside Bayern’s Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, Milan’s Umberto Gandini, Ajax’ van der Sar and Ivan Gazidis of Arsenal; a heavy-hitting team. The appointment reflects not only on Peter Lawwell but on the fans and everyone who makes the club what it is.
Celtic are the club who more than any other in Europe have been disenfranchised by the drift of football success away from meritocracy to TV markets. Denied access to the TV markets neighbours enjoy, their status will inevitably decline further compared to those in other territories.
Do the ECA care? They will now. If football is to continue its 150 year tradition as a meritocratic sport, structural change must come. Celtic have been promoting this message consistently for years, so the ECA know who they have invited into the room. Let’s get on with it.
Seville, The Celtic Movement, launches this month.
“The long walk home from the game was memorable for the incredible reaction we got from the locals. They applauded each of us as we walked past their homes in recognition of what took place in their city throughout the day. Things like this don’t happen but that day was different. Seville, like Lisbon, will always remember Celtic.”
Order yours below:
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Paul67
Ah ‘Bhoys against Bigotry’ Not all Fergus’s visions were popular (but he knew what was right) I seem to remember singing this wee ditty with great gusto at the time !
‘Bhoys Against Bigotry’
If you come from Belfast Town, Derry City, County Down
The Calton, Tullygally, or from Bray
you can come along and see ‘Bhoys against Bhigotry’
but don’t you sing ‘Boys of the Old Brigade’
Fergus has said no, those tunes will have to go
these Rebel songs no longer can be played
so we’ve made our self’s a pact, to polish up our act
so don’t you sing ‘Boys of the Old Brigade’
You can sing of big Jock Brown, against the Famine and the Crown
‘The Fields of Athenry’ just makes the grade
you can sing ‘Glen Daly’s’ tone and ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’
but don’t you sing ‘Boys of the Old Brigade’
The campaign’s under way, P*** Mc***n has had a say
a loyalist through and through it has been said
he has made a lot of cash, as he hides his Orange Sash
and he doesn’t know ‘Boys of the Old Brigade’
So it’s no more ‘Crossmaglen’, ‘Up the Ra’, or ‘Fenian Men’
‘Sean South of Garryowen’ must not be played
‘The Broad Black Brimmer’ has to go, ‘Take it Down’ and ‘Say Hello’
and don’t you sing ‘Boys of the Old Brigade’
So children, Mums and Dads, do not sing ‘Where are the Lads’
who stood with me when history was made
and don’t sing old ‘Gradh Mo Croidhe’ and how you long to see
to see the ‘Boys of the Old Brigade’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVvzehTNXhs
paddy turner
12:42 on 4 March, 2014
CFC & relationships with the Police…..
Food for thought…….Ronnie Hawthorne……..
——–
And there in a nutshell is one of the major reasons (indirectly and directly) for the drop in attendances.
MT
Was that for me mate???
None of my books give the attendances, and don’t take this as gospel, because we all why not, but this gives and indication:
Average attendances
SwanseaBhoy
Not surprisingly I don’t think those figures have been calculated even if they could be accurately, given that the estimated attendance at Celtic Park was 18,000 on a bad day
and 36,000 on a very good day.
I’d stake my reputation *ahem* that league crowds were nowhere near the 59,207 regularly maintained after Fergus McCann, and up to Tony Mowbray.
weeminger – would love to see that if you can recall the site/source.
kitalba – Even allowing for ‘deflation’ by the then Custodians, 29,000 to watch that team against better quality opposition in Scotland makes the current attendances appear fairly healthy at 30,000ish albeit 40 odd thousand are paying with loads not turning up. It’s an interesting point to mull over.
SwanseaBhoy
What ever happened to the “lift me ower” Gates…….
We now have Parent & Child ST’s…..for which we have to pay £50 for the weans…
Could we no just squeeze them in…….???
Memories of the Rangers end at Janefield Street……standing alongside a crowd of young yins….”lift me ower mister”…………..
Paddy T
I paid my own small but personal tribute to the great man on Saturday by wearing my battered bunnet to the game. I drew a lot of strange looks though. The only thing I can think of is that many people were wondering how such a young handsome fella like me can carry off the bunnet in the style and grace.
Bunnets will be all the rage this spring in London, New York, Paris and Carmyllie.
Hail Hail Fergus McCann
Hamiltontim yes stupid phone txt.
Eurochamp67,12.17
Splitter! As one of the frontforthejudeanpeopleCSC,I think your just a “Naughty Bhoy”
A Tim by any other name is still a Tim:))
i`vegotyourbackCSC
MT
Meeting starts at 7pm. I definitely won’t make it, I have pancakes to make :-)
kit – brilliant site, even if we need to allow for a degree of innacuracy, deliberate or otherwise, from the records.
BSR – I agree, and kitalba’s link would tend to back your thoughts up. Every empty seat at every game I go to pains me but maybe 30,000 – 35,000 is our base and I should stop worrying so much about it.
Back to Work
SwanseaBhoy
A Ceiler Gonof Rust Says Hail Hail Big Fraser
You’re Brian Quinn & I claim my prize……..
Paddy T
Paul67,
I note with interest that 20 years ago today, Brian Dempsey, who was a well known face around Celtic Park back then, was the man who uttered the words ‘the game is over, the rebels have won’ at the front door of Celtic Park, but very quickly after that he disappeared from the scene.
To this day Fergus never mentions his name or gives his involvement any credit whatsoever in any press statement.
Do you know why Paul67, what happened there?
Paddy T , I know. It’s a shame that the kids don’t get in for free –
I still remember , almost 4 years ago , when you made the offer to sponsor a child’s ticket for a family that maybe couldn’t afford it.
That was the remark that sparked The Kano Foundation and over 2000 kids have been ‘lifted over’ and into the bestest stadium in the world – Hail Hail
Maybe Celtic could look to have a pay gate on match days where a parent can bring up to 2 kids in free of charge (or even a nominal £1) – you know , i think I’ll take that back to Celtic .
Sanna
For European games you can go here and flick up and down the tables and believe it or not.
European Competition games
Re Killie tickets
Killie have let Celtic deal with all the away tickets for the game next week
Celtic are only selling them to season ticket holders
With the decline in the number of season ticket holders at Celtic park, is it a financially viable now for clubs who give us large amounts of tickets to allow this model to continue?
With a smaller and smaller pool of fans who are allowed to buy tickets (ie only season book holders), we will greatly struggle to sell tickets for places like Rugby Park and Fir Park, which means less money for these clubs
In the past these clubs have sold some tickets themselves directly to Celtic fans, but post-Fir Park it seems Killie didn’t want to do that
I reckon we will be lucky to sell 5000 tickets for next Friday, and i think im being overly generous with that figure
If Killie sold some directly to Celtic fans, most likely non-season book holders then I reckon we could see maybe 7000 fans there – an extra 2000 at £26 a pop, against a perceived risk of a Fir Park repeat (which wont happen obviously)
Or better still, why do celtic not allow season book holders to buy more than 1 ticket, which would effectively pass the responsibility onto them
It seems that restricting the numbers who will be able to attend the game is financially daft in this climate – i can nunderstand it from celtics point of veiw, not from killies though
Anyway, with all the empty seats, that will give me more room to plank my large carry out and fireworks, and means i wont be in much danger of treading on someones toes with my new seat wrecking boots that i have bought
nice one
Champions League 2012/2013
You should take a moment to flick up and down the years, it tells a story, actually, it tells a few stories. (Res 12?)
Tojo
Brian Dempsey has a book which gives his side of everything. A good read but it is a total haigography. No great fall out as I remember, just a difference of opinon on certain aspects going forward. I think at the time you were either with Fergus 100% or oot on your Erchie.
ACGR
Fholk around you saying “That bunnet suits him,hides most of his face”
The McCann Takeover by David Low and Francis Shennan (but no index)
HT cheers mate. Enjoy the pancakes.
HH
KTF
celtic in the 90s
If you have a sofa – hide behind it now, because here comes season 93-94. The year of bucket seats in the Jungle, Lou Macari and, of course, Wayne ‘Bertie’ Biggins. And if those three haven’t got you reaching for the pills then read on…
On the Friday February 25th the board called a press conference. This was to be a dramatic announcement. Cambuslang was a reality. David Smith, Patrick Nally and Kevin Kelly faced the media to deliver one of the most astonishing addresses ever given to the Scottish football press. In a pronouncement to match the ‘Unsinkable’ tag applied to Titanic, Smith told an incredulous press pack that the funding for Cambuslang was in place thanks to a London-based company called Gefinor. There was to be a share issue which would finally allow fans to buy shares. The board, we were being led to believe, had come through against all the odds and these plans for our Brave New Celtic World would be ratified at an EGM.
Smith’s posture during all this was something to behold – sitting with his arms folded as tight as they could get, his delivery was determined to the point of contemptuous. Patrick Nally was his usual bombastic self while Kevin Kelly, meanwhile, sat with the best ‘I’m a very powerful business man’ look that he could muster.
Everyone knew it was a complete fairy story. Worse yet, it took about an hour to prove it. Gefinor were contacted. They denied all knowledge of finding money to give to the Celtic board. Superstadia, the company who were to design the new stadium, knew nothing about it, although they were adamant that they would be building it. Their high powered, moving and shaking offices looked like some kind of dodgy taxi rank. The whole plan was ridiculed on the evening news programmes. It was to be the last misjudgement of the Kelly/White/Grant regime.
The following Tuesday Gefinor officially stated that they had nothing to do with the Celtic plans. They had held talks with Stadivarious, but nothing was agreed, or signed. An executive for the bank said that they were, ‘Shocked by the announcement of a deal’. It was all going seriously wrong for the board now.
Wednesday March 2nd was one of the strangest days Celtic Park has ever seen. The Celts for Change pressure group had declared an official boycott of the game. They were pretty confident that fewer than 10,000 people would attend. The board disagreed. Celts for Change stationed someone at every turnstile; they would compile their own attendance figure. When released the figures would differ by 2,000. But by then attendance figures were the last thing on the mind of the board members. The Bank of Scotland had received a request for payment from Middlesborough. They wanted the money they were owed for Willie Falconer. The bank refused.
They contacted the board demanding an immediate meeting regarding the level of debt at the club. In attendance for the board were Kevin Kelly, Tom Grant, James Farrell and Jack McGinn. The Bank put the club’s financial position to the assembled directors. They sat in stunned silence. What the bank was telling them bore little resemblance to what they had been told by David Smith. Basically the bank was ready to call in the receivers. Michael Kelly later said he thought this was a bluff by the bank!
Immediately after the meeting the bank released a statement saying that the club was in, ‘Immediate and dire peril of being put into receivership.’ An indication of how badly the club had been managed was the value of Celtic’s net assets – one sixtieth of Rangers’ value; even Thistle were valued at four times Celtic’s worth!
Kevin Kelly called for the resignations of David Smith, and Chris White on the basis that they had misled the board regarding the financial situation. He announced that the club had entered negotiations with Brain Dempsey and Fergus McCann over the future of the club.
A TV crew found David Smith at Glasgow airport; he was on his way to Celtic Park, and still trying to talk his way out of it. Things had been fine, he maintained, until the first 10 minutes of the New Year Old Firm game and the cup defeat by Motherwell.
Smith and Chris White departed, selling their shares to McCann for a tidy sum, and Michael Kelly seethed off into the distance. Having sold his shares as well he was under the impression his cousin Kevin would sell too, and was deeply unhappy at Kevin’s decision to stay. Mind you, we were all a bit gutted that Kev was still there.
Michael Kelly would later describe the removal of the old board as, ‘The dirty campaign, conceived in vengeance, born in deceit.’ That may well have been the case, but the fact was that the family dynasty that had controlled the club for nearly a century had constituted nothing more than a gravy train for those lucky enough to be part of it. The members of those families considered the money that people like you and I paid to see Celtic to be their money. Anyone who dared try and ask for more was cast out, branded as greedy, unworthy of the Celtic jersey. And the worst part of it was that for too many years than we’d like to mention we all believed it. They fed us a mountain of garbage about the honour of wearing the jersey being worth more than money, and it was swallowed whole. Players like Dalglish and Nicholas were pilloried because they knew their worth and weren’t prepared to let themselves be short changed so that the directors could eat in the best places, and live in best houses on the strength of the talent of others
. The situation was summed up in the leader article of NTV 48; ‘All we are left to do is regret the lost opportunities, the lost five years, the hundreds and thousands of pounds that could have been invested in the club instead of being wasted if these tiny, frightened men had, just once, put Celtic first.’
Five years? Try ninety.
By the end of Friday the 4th of March Celtic had a new team at the helm. The car park at Celtic Park was filled with jubilant fans, one of them yelling at the top of his voice the newspaper headline for the day – McCann’s the Man!
The Bunnet had dunnit. Fergus McCann was the CEO, Dominic Keane was a director, Michael MacDonald (stepson of Gerald Weisfeld) was also now a director. Curiously, the man who had been at the forefront of the whole thing, Brian Dempsey, was not. He claimed to have no interest in returning to the Celtic Board, although he would be investing a substantial sum in the club. However this money never appeared, and Dempsey’s relationship with McCann quickly soured.There are many rumours why this happened, most of them libellous. Suffice to say that McCann decided not to move the club from Parkhead, and Brian Dempsey’s land in the Robroyston area remained undeveloped.
The next day the team took to the field at McDairmid Park. It was only seventeen weeks since our last visit there, but in that time we’d gone through four managers and two boards. The ground was packed out with jubilant Celtic fans with many more watching from vantage points outside the ground. To signal a real change the team actually won an away fixture. Paul Byrne scored the first goal of the new era in the first minute, and that was enough to win the game.
We followed that with a 0:0 at Easter Road, noteworthy only for the first appearance as a substitute of a youngster called Simon Donnelly.
In between those fixtures we saw the departure from Celtic Park of the man, the myth, the legend that was Wayne Biggins. Having scored the grand total of zero goals for the team, Macari somehow managed to convince Joe Jordan to part with a sum of money for this most worthless of players.
The first home game under McCann saw Celtic Park hold its biggest non-Old Firm crowd for several years. Over 36,000 turned up to give the Bunnet an indication of what kind of support Celtic could get. Unfortunately the team gave a performance that underlined why some of those 36,000 had been staying away in the first place. A truly terrible performance ended with a 1:0 defeat.
Our next home game, a 2:1 win against Raith (Donnelly scoring both) was four days later, was played in front of 20,000 fewer spectators. Clearly it would take more than a better looking balance sheet to get people back through the Celtic Park turnstiles.
above is taken from NTV
Re attendances
I think it has something to do with the definition of a fan. I work with Manchester United fans from Milton Keynes and London. I know Manchester United fans from Leeds etc.
Being a fan is not about going to games anymore. Its as much about watching games on live telly. Which a lot of Celtic fans would rather do than go to the game in bad weather
hoopy-do
13:05 on 4 March, 2014
STH always get 1st shout then it will go to supporters registered with Celtic ie supporters who have bought tickets before but not a STH it’s the norm
hun skelper
so they will actually sell them to fans who are registered on the system but not STH – I knew they done that for home tickets but didnt know they done it for away tickets as well which i thought were much more tightly dished out
ThomtheTim 18 12 yesterday This was the only part of your blog on which I would like to comment .Only the support of clubs other than Celtic, who forced their chairmen to act with some integrity, stopped them gaining outright victory in their Phoenixing.
There was only one reason why? PL didn’t get where he is and stay as long by not knowing how to gauge his customers and his competitors
No other club could afford to reduce the price of season tickets. Job done!!
Any protest would have been trampled in the rush!!.
Smart Peter.
tusker
SwanseaBhoy rooting for Fearless Wee Oscar Knox
12:57 on
4 March, 2014
kit – brilliant site, even if we need to allow for a degree of innacuracy, deliberate or otherwise, from the records.
BSR – I agree, and kitalba’s link would tend to back your thoughts up. Every empty seat at every game I go to pains me but maybe 30,000 – 35,000 is our base and I should stop worrying so much about it.
========================
I don’t worry about it. Whilst important in match atmosphere terms and certainly in a big game when the team needs lifted (when big crowds do turn up) the bottom line is are we making enough money to pay the standard of player we will pay money to watch whether at the game or on a screen?
We are, and with some very sellable assets if we do not qualify for the CL this coming season (but I think we will if minimum disruption in the summer) we can look forward to another two years at least of good quality football.
Oh the football, the reason I watch football or go to matches.
I thought there was some excellent stuff played on Saturday, warmly applauded and appreciated in a very civil atmosphere. Very entertaining but cold up in the rafters, (the reason I bugger off to Spain.
All that matters at the end of the day is keeping the income streams at a level that enables good quality professional footballers to be developed, recruited and paid to entertain us.
Without that the Celtic supporters have no fulcrum.
I believe the burden of meeting that cost has to be carried across the support as a whole. Too much weight is placed on those attending or even not attending but still buying a SB ticket or even more than one SB.
Without them (and I marvel at and salute their passion and level of support – how many miles did you used to travel every home game?) I would have nothing to watch as suits my circumstances.
Stop worrying, the universe is unfolding as it should. :)
Wayne Biggins, the false #9.
Years ahead of his time.
Swansea Bhoy re Celtic attendances during the 9 in a row. I have taken a look first of all at our average league attendance during 1966/67 season. 17 home games played, average attendance: 34,700
hoopy-do
13:31 on 4 March, 2014
Yh they’ll sell them if your registered because they have your details HH
You should go to http://www.worldfootball.net and scroll up and down the years and the competitions and it won’t take you long to determine how well Celtic are supported in European Competition and pro-rata they are probably the best supported team in the world.
Our attendance figures fall drastically for domestic league games and especially domestic cup games.
I heard Aberdeen are taking 25 thousand to Parkhead for their next cup game. If that is true, in the numbers there is a story. Good luck to Aberdeen in their next cup game, I hope they go on and win it.
kitalba
12:29 on
4 March, 2014
Even the head of FoCUS won’t come out and decry the singing of TBOTOB or the ROH as sectarian or illegal, because he can’t; because it’s not.
Even Celtic shy away from putting a label on songs, they leave the choice to you. But they won’t ever defend you your rights when you are accosted for their buck-passing.
Instead they will victimise a minority of the support to what end? To whose agenda? Whether you condone the singing of the songs or not you can’t condone the vacuum of leadership and courage.
Afraid you are hitting a brick wall with around 50%on here.Their blinkered view prohibits them from seeing anything wrong with any aspect of Celtic.The heartbreaking thing for me and others is that the club are driving fans away.
The attendances in the 60s,70s,80s,were if you remember,always a joke among our own support.It used to hover somewhere between,27,000-29,000,as reported in the MSM of those times.Anyone at the games will tell you that the attendance was around the 40-45,000 mark.A lot more than half full.
Fergus did wonders,and brought thousands of “Sleeping”fans back to Celtic Park.Its not too long ago that 50,000,plus was normal.There are many reasons why attendances have fallen,but for so many to disregard the feelings of thousands of other fans,who are grossly unhappy at what is happening in our game,the seeming lack of resistance to it,by Celtic,is nothing more than hiding heads in the sand.There is a general malaise running through the support,and putting your fingers in your ears and whistling(A non rebel tune)will do nothing to remedy it.When will we all start to worry?.When we reach the 20,000 mark?.
We will not be able to blame Xmas for that.Maybe Easter.
-tojo-
12:58 on 4 March, 2014
Paul67,
…and what about the incredible contribution David Low made..!!??
hoopy-do
13:05 on 4 March, 2014
Kilmarnock have never had a policy of selling directly to Celtic supporters. Well not knowingly anyway :-)
Hearts, Hibs, St Johnstone and St Mirren have operated this policy in recent years but since the Blitzkrieg at Fir Park all away tickets are now controlled by Celtic themselves.
hoopy-do
13:31 on 4 March, 2014
It will be STH first then what ever is left goes to registered supporters HH
setting free the bears supports Res. 12 & Oscar Knox
12:20 on 4 March
Haven’t posted for a long time but just wanted to say What a magnificent, inspiring story in your link and wonderfully written by the BBC World Service writer Vibeke Venema.
Hard to credit that Mr. Muruganantham has to share a planet with Paddy Power.
Anyway thanks again, you’ve made my year.
Would anyone agree that Phil and Alex T predictions of imminent Administration may not be accurate? Looks to me like somebody gave them a huge body swerve. Hope i am wrong.