DID YOU see that story the other day? The one that went something like this: "Celtic-minded Tony Mowbray says he's desperate to manage the Hoops". Mogga, who invented the world-famous Celtic huddle, rapped: 'I'd walk across broken Buckie bottles to get back to Paradise'."
Don't tell me this one passed you by as well: "Celtic-minded Owen Coyle says it would be the honour of a lifetime to boss the Bhoys. 'Celtic-minded Celtic supporters are the most discerning audience in the world,' blasted the man currently managing s
ome bunch of no-marks in England's cloggie north-west. 'Yes, those Celtic-minded Celts are football's true aesthetes, the game's great sophisticates. Who else would dream up such a clever nickname as Oweny?'."
Or how about this one: "Mark McGee says sorry for all the Jungle-silencing goals he scored for non-Celtic-minded Aberdeen. 'I was just doing my job,' he stormed. 'If you remember, our manager at the time was a pretty uncompromising fellow. But unlike Gordon Strachan I played for Celtic later. The fish on a Friday after training? You couldnae whack it'."
All right, I jest. None of these candidates for the job has said such things, or is ever likely to. But each of them will have his backers among the Celtic support, the same folk who no longer wanted Strachan after last Sunday, maybe didn't want him from day one. Wee Gordon, they will tell you, wasn't Celtic-minded. This is important to them, and they'll want to believe that the next man will be.
Admittedly the number may not be the majority but it's odd that you never get many other supports indicating the same kind of preference.
You never hear the phrase Rangers-minded and in all my time thirled to Easter Road, I've never heard anyone request that the manager be Hibs-minded – indeed, after Pat Stanton, John Blackley and Franck Sauzee all failed to transfer their towering achievements as players to the dugout, we're more likely to include in the job advertisement the line: "Previous Hibby experience by no means essential."
What does the term Celtic-minded mean? The club has a proud, romantic history which I respect and which any new manager would have no difficulty acknowledging, whether or not he was Scottish or Irish or Catholic. Some who insist that Celtic-minded has nothing to do with religion would argue that style-minded is a more accurate phrase, and it's true that they're the ones who expect attractive football rather than hope for it.
But the team doesn't always deliver. The legend of the Lisbon Lions is that with one exception they were all recruited from within a ten-mile radius of Parkhead. On the other hand, the reign of Celtic-minded Lou Macari was remarkable for featuring clodhoppers who could kick the ball ten miles, such as Wayne Biggins. On Radio Scotland last week, I heard a fans' rep complain that the football under Strachan could be pretty dismal, especially away from home. Maybe this supporter preferred the Martin O'Neill era, but in the team of The Human Wrecking-Ball (Bobo Balde), Thor (Johan Mjalby) and Big Bad John Hartson, even the midfielders were hulking stevedores like Alan Thompson and the purest footballer – Lubo Moravcic – couldn't get in the side. Perspiration was favoured over inspiration, haymakers over playmakers. And yet O'Neill was revered, by some because he's perceived as Celtic-minded.
All fans think their club is special – Celtic fans, I suspect, more than most. More even than the self-styled Geordie Nation and look what happened when that lot shouted first for Newcastle-minded Kevin Keegan (past it), then Newcastle-minded Alan Shearer (woefully inexperienced). But the truth is that in the modern, money-driven game, where loyalty counts for very little, no club has a divine right to anything.
Some Celtic fans were supposed to be irritated by Strachan's intolerance of the fitba meeja. Punters having sympathy for hacks? I don't believe it.
The wee, red-haired, Presbyterian grump from Edinburgh had a fine record which the new man will do well to match. Good luck to this great football institution in finding him. I'm Celtic-minded enough to say that.
The full article contains 725 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
