ANDREAS THOM arrived in a wave of great expectation at Celtic in July 1975.
Tommy Burns had just won his first – and, sadly, only – managerial honour at the club after picking up the Scottish Cup two months earlier when the towering Pierre van Hooijdonk launched a header into the Airdrie net for the game’s solitary goal.
The future looked bright under the guidance of new supremo Fergus McCann, Celtic Park was getting a much-needed facelift and the sun was shining when Thom made his first appearance in the green and white hoops, a 1-1 draw with Kevin Keegan’s attractive Newcastle United side in a pre-season friendly.
Celtic paid a record £2.2million to bring the versatile forward from Bayer Leverkusen to underline the club’s new-found ambition.
BY THE LEFT…£2.2million Andreas Thom in action for Celtic.
Alas, Burns had made way by the time Thom won his first medal at the club when Wim Jansen was in the dug-out to lead Celtic to a 3-0 League Cup Final triumph over Dundee United in November 1997 with Marc Rieper, Henrik Larsson and Craig Burley on target.
He played 15 league games that season which earned him a medal when the club won their first title in a decade and prevented Rangers’ bid for 10 in a row.
However, Thom had already left Parkhead at the turn of the year to join Hertha Berlin by the time Larsson and Harald Brattbaak had claimed the goals in a 2-0 triumph over St Johnstone in the east end of Glasgow in May 1998 to lift the crown.
The player spent four years at Hertha before retiring at the age of 36.
On a historic note, Thom became the first East German to sign for a Bundesliga club when he left Dinamo Berlin to join Bayer Leverkusen for a transfer fee of £900,000 on December 16 1989.
He spent five years with the team before arriving in Scotland. Thom made 70 appearances for Celtic and scored 15 goals before returning to his homeland.
West Germany legend Franz Beckenbauer once claimed that he thought Thom was the most complete player he had ever seen.
* TOMORROW: Don’t miss the adventures of another former Celt in CQN’s EXCLUSIVE series.
