Politicians - A Lot Of Hot Air To Little Effect

I APPRECIATE, when it comes to 21^st century politicians, we are dealing with a fairly rum bunch, particularly in the United Kingdom. We've got the worst Prime Minister in living memory – arguably ever; a Leader of the Opposition who only got the job because his predecessor was too left wing for the powers-that-be in the party of the left, and the guy who now has the job was seen as the least-worst of a poor lot. We need not bother ourselves with the Liberal Party and when it comes to Holyrood – jings, crivvens, help ma Boab – to coin a phrase.

We've got a First Minster, supposedly from a pro-Independence party who is less-willing to mention Independence than Basil Fawlty would mention the War in front of German guests. The Scottish Tories are led by a linesman, Scottish Labour by a total chancer, the Liberals by a hauf-wit, who took over from a quarter-wit, while the Greens, led by cauld kail personified. Aye, we're in a raw state.

But, last week a leading Scottish politician, John Swinney, plumbed new depths, when he called on Scottish football fans to not go to games to prevent the further spread of Covid.

Brave call John, but, you're mainly dealing with Celtic fans here, and they have a complete mind of their own – they barely ever listen to their own club's high heid yins, with whom they are mostly at war.

Mind you, I think Swinney only still has a job, because he knows where the bodies are buried, could probably do for Sturgeon in her efforts to get rid of Alex Salmond, and keeping a big job, rather than any talent, is his price for staying.

To my mind, there is no question, but that Scottish football needs root and branch reform, would be better for a winter shut-down, and, while I will readily concede, the Scottish Government has handled Covid a Hell of a lot better than that bunch of hooks, crooks and comic singers down in that there London, I would like to think they could have done better.

Instead of relying on a better nature which those he was addressing do not possess, I think if Swinney wants to get involved in Scottish fitba, he should start by telling the time-servers along the sixth floor corridor to sort things out – or no more government assistance or funding. That might get them working.

WHEN I WAS “on the tools” covering football as my main sports-writing interest, I dubbed myself: “the only neutral in Ayrshire,” since I covered Kilmarnock one week – Ayr United the next. I had my own 'phone lines and regular press box seats at both grounds – although very-occasionally one of the Glasgow A team would have to be decanted when sent out to “the sticks.”

These were good days, and I made some very-good friends among the staff and regulars at both grounds. So, while my Kilmarnock bromance goes back to the 1950s and Andy Kerr, Bertie Black & Co, I have fond memories too of the days of Ally MacLeod and the likes of Templeton, Walker and Sludden at Somerset Park.

Therefore, it gars me greet to see both clubs looking for new managers at this time of year. The Honest Men are flirting with the Scottish Championship relegation zone, and while KIllie are three places higher, and 14 points better off in the same division – that's not where I and the rest of the Kilmarnock Army want our side to be.

Both boards therefore have big decisions to make, choices which they need to get right, before hopeful pushes for higher and better things in the New Year.

IT'S A RUNNING joke in Scottish football at the moment – that referees have been , in the event of a match being goalless, told to keep playing until Celtic score. At least with Rangers, the old certainties still accrue – we keep playing till Rangers get a penalty.

I gather the referee at Paisley the other night is in deep doo-dah, since he only played six minutes over time. Of course, if football was run properly, and the playing field was indeed level, we would have 90 minutes “ball in play.” The clock would stop every time the ball went out of play, or the referee blew his whistle. Time keeping would be out of the hands of the referee, there would be a highly-visible game clock in every ground, and there would be no arguments.

Well, there still would be, this is Scotland after all.

THE GUARDIAN this week published their list of the 100 top footballers in the world – 11 of them were English.

So, if they're that good, how come they couldn't beat Scotland, a nation which didn't have a single player nominated? Yes, you read that right, the likes of Trent Alexander-Arnold of Liverpool and Jack Grealish of Aston Villa are in there, but, their superior team mates, Scots Andrew Robertson and John McGinn don't get a mention.

TARBOLTON, or Tarbouton in the local lingo is one of these strange Ayrshire mining villages of legend. It used to fit Donald Finlay QC's description of his own birthplace in Fife: “eight thousand of a population – four surnames.”

Tarbolton is a bit more cosmopolitan these days. It also has its share of sporting icons: Tommy Gemmell 1, the under-capped, cultured St Mirren inside forward of the 1950s was from the village, as was former European boxing champion Evan Armstrong, and the great former Scotland rugby captain and British Lions icon Ian 'Mighty Mouse' McLauchlan.

Today's top trumps in Tarbolton sporting icons is Kris Boyd, who its perhaps fair to say, causes Celtic more bother from his press seat than he ever did when scoring goals for Kilmarnock, Rangers and Scotland.

Boydie's every utterance seems to drive a large section of the Celtic Family to a frenzy. He regularly gives Chris Sutton lessons in the gentle art of the wind-up. I can see Boydie having a long and lucrative media career.

FINALLY, Ayrshire Junior Football, and in particular Cumnock Juniors lost a legend just before Christmas, with the death of Jim 'Buller' Reid, from the effects of Covid. Coming as it did, hard on the heels of the death of Billy 'Bongo” Smith, this was a very-rough double blow to a club which is not having a stellar season.

  

While Bongo worked his magic on the park, then off it as a brilliant coach, Buller was never more than a fan, a committed one at that. He was also one of life's natural comedians, a talent he put to good use around the working men's clubs of Ayrshire and beyond.

If your club was financially-stretched, or if you wished to raise some money for a good cause, all you had to do was have a word with Buller, and he would put together a show, with his gang of fellow entertainers: Buller and Friends, and a good turn-out and a healthy financial return was assured.

He graduated to the after-dinner-speaking circuit, and it was well-known in Ayrshire, that if Buller was speaking at the likes of a Sportsman's Dinner, one or two of the supposed big-names from Glasgow would excuse themselves – they didn't like to be shown up by a guy, whose day job was as janitor of a primary school.

Some of Buller's best one-liners were honed, off the cuff, watching his beloved Cumnock. Allan Crow, long-serving Editor of The Fife Free Press and one of the leading writers on ice hockey, still gets red-faced when reminded how, as a young tyro with the Cumnock Chronicle, as he walked to his spot at Townhead Park, he was greeted by Buller calling: “Oh look, it's Lord Affleck,” a reference to what Buller viewed as a pro-Talbot slant to Mr Crow's football reports.

Buller and I went back to pre-primary school days, when he and his parents lived in “The Dandy Raw” in Lugar. This gave Buller the right to be highly-critical of my writings, a right he pursued with gusto. The Reids were re-located to Cumnock, where he fell-in with a bad crowd at Townhead Park.

Buller was never President of Cumnock, he should have been, but, back then Cumnock went further than the other Ayrshire clubs. Every one elected the Village Idiot to the committee, but, as I repeatedly told Buller, only Cumnock would elect the VI President, so, as one of the sharpest minds around the club, he was never going to get the job.

Worse public speakers and entertainers have been awarded MBEs. OBEs. CBEs and yes knighthoods, without ever raising the sums of money for good causes, and entertaining the public as well as Buller did.

He was a truly great guy, who will be sadly missed in Ayrshire and beyond. My sympathies are with his family at this terrible time.

In a recent blog post, I referred to Ally McCoist as “A National Treasure,” well, by the same measurement. Jim Reid was an East Ayrshire Treasure, we should cherish his memory.

National Treasures Occasionally Upset The Nation

NATIONAL TREASURE is an English construct – a title given to the likes of Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, Delia Smith, Mary Berry, Joanna Lumley, French and Saunders, Bobby Charlton, Ian Botham, or Ian McKellen, to name but a few.Generally, the status is conferred on someone acceptable to 'Middle England' who has been around for years.

It's not a status we Jocks pay much attention to, for the simple reason, anyone who enjoys some success up here, usually, and who can blame them, fucks off to warmer climes, if only to escape that great Scottish antidote to success and getting 'A Big heid': “Him, Ah kent his faither.”

 

But, if we ever felt the need to have Tartan National Treasures, well, Ally McCoist would probably be in there alongside the likes of Sir Billy Connolly, Denis Law, Kenny Dalglish and Allan Wells. However, he did himself no favours with his all-too-brief cameo appearance on SPOTY on Sunday night. His over-view of the Scottish Football Year was definitely only for Bluenose consumption, no mention of how the feats of the national team, under Stevie Clarke have lifted all our spirits; he passed-over his old club St Johnstone's cup successes as quickly as he could.

It was almost as if somebody in the BBC Sport Head Office in Manchester sent out instructions: “Get Coisty to do 30 seconds, if only to shut-up the Sweaties.”

I suppose we will have to wait for Independence before we get a half-decent review of the Scottish Sporting Year, in football or any other sport; we cannot expect the District Commissioners at Pacific Quay to do anything likely to upset the higher-ups in Manchester or London.

Still, seeing Jen Beattie win The Helen Rollason Award was an unexpected pleasure, JR's daughter thoroughly deserves the praise for her very-public battle against Breast Cancer.

CONGRATULATIONS to Celtic on winning their 20^th League Cup. The romantics among us were probably hoping managerless Hibernian could upset the hot favourites, but, this was one Christmas fairy story which was always unlikely.

Japanese striker Kyogo Furuhashi was again Celtic's main man, although, as is now seemingly his norm, he upset a lot of people with his well-known propensity for going to ground at the flimsiest excuse. Quite honestly, I don't think the likes of Jock Stein or Billy McNeill would have put-up with his “simulation”. He might be the worst offender, but, he is not alone in modern football – every club seems to have a player who wants to be Tom Daley.

You sort of wonder what Kyogo would have done if faced with a John Greig, or (in the interests of balance) a Tommy Gemmell – guys who had no time for divers, whose attitude to them (although there were fewer about in the 1960s and 1970s) was: “Here Son, Ah'll gie ye somethin' tae dive aboot.”.

ONE OF my class-mates at “The Academy,” as we called our seat of learning in East Ayrshire, to differentiate it from inferior Academies in Ayr, Kilmarnock, Glasgow and Edinburgh dropped me his annual Christmas message over the weekend.

Jimmy achieved his life's ambition in his teens, when he pulled on Auchinleck Talbot's black and gold stripes, at a time when the 'Bot winning a corner set-off massive celebrations. These were the fallow years BWK, before Willie Knox arrived to set the standards now being maintained and even surpassed by Tucker Sloan.

Having played for Talbot, Jimmy turned to rugby, and, the minute his NCB apprenticeship was over, he headed south, to University. Today, retired, he lives in the West Sussex stockbroker belt in some comfort and relies on the likes of me to keep him informed on events back home.

I had to inform him that Talbot will be entertaining Hearts in a televised Scottish Cup tie in the New Year. Like many Ayrshire Exiles, he has difficulty getting his head round this, but, he is learning.

Going to Fortress Beechwood will be a difficult experience for some of the Hearts players. In fact, I think even Craig Gordon will find it an interesting afternoon.

Even for Craig Gordon, Beechwood Park will be a whole new experience
 

When I heard the draw, I was reminded of a story told me by a former Rangers player, who, as a young tyro at Ibrox, was sent down to Beechwood to play in a testimonial.

This was back in the days when shorts were short, and, as he came out to warm-up he was greeted by two of the Auchinleck equivalents of a 'Cougar' or 'MILF', who invited him to: “Come ower here Son, an' gie's a feel o' yer gnadgers.” It is an encounter which left a mental scar w3hich still hurst today, 30 years or more on. Craig Gordon, you have been fore-warned.

I HOPE all those perennial critics of Scottish referees were watching the highlights, if not the live broadcast, of Sunday's game between Liverpool and Tottenham. If so, I trust they will shut-up after what looked to me like two absolute howlers from match official Paul Tierney.

Other than the extension of the particular SFA bye-law 1690-1888 whereby: a “red card offence” is not a”red card offence” when it is committed by the Rangers or Celtic captain has been introduced in England, and re-worded to read “the England captain” I can see no reason why Harry Kane stayed on the park following that potential leg-breaker assault on Andy Robertson.

I can see some justification for the Robertson red card for his tackle on Emerson Royal, but, for me that was, at worst, a yellow card.

The Final Whistle For Bongo

THESE ARE sad days for those of us I the wide Ayrshire football family. We have lost one of our Elders, with the passing of Billy “Bongo” Smith MBE. Bongo had been battling Cancer for some time, always with a smile on his face, but, a bout of pneumonia on top of his Cancer has done for him, and Ayrshire football is the poorer for his passing.

Like Me, Bongo had the best-possible start to his football career, with Lugar Primary School, where we came under the influence of a real fanatic about the game, Headmaster Alex Rowan. Wee Alex produced a stream of terrific players, many of whom, from such a small school, would win Schoolboy honours or go on into the senior game: Andy Kerr, Bertie Black, John McTurk, Hugh Neil and Bongo, to name but a few. Many more had good junior careers, with Lugar Boswell Thistle and other teams.

At Cumnock Academy, Bongo came under the influence of another of the legends of schools football – Charlie Wilson. Here he captained the first Cumnock Academy side to win the Ayrshire Cup. He won Scottish youth honours and went senior, with Preston North End and Sheffield United, where he played in the old First Division – which is now the English Premiership.

But, it was back home, in the juniors with Cumnock, that Bongo really made his mark, firstly as a player with the Townhead Park outfit, but, more-importantly back at his old school, where he rose to become Head Janitor.

He gave sterling service to Ayr United as a youth coach, where he worked with several managers, including Ally MacLeod, Willie McLean, George Caldwell and George Burley; the latter two had followed him as successful Academy players and captains.

At the school, he worked closely with Deputy Rector and Director of Football John Hunter to keep the school's production line of young talent moving. The pair didn't necessarily see eye-to-eye, as shortly before he died, John Hunter, uncle of billionaire philanthropist Sir Tom Hunter explained.

“In one team we had, well even a blind man could see that Craig Burley was going to make it right to the top – he was, even at 15, an absolute thoroughbred. But, there was this other kid who barely got off the bench, I didn't see what he had to offer, which was hard for me, since we both came from New Cumnock.

“I didn't rate him at all, but Bongo saw something and kept insisting – that boy will make it, So, I am absolutely delighted to say, I was wrong and Bongo was right about Billy Dodds.”

Bongo's service to the school and to football there and in the wider Ayrshire area saw him made MBE by The Queen. He knew everybody and everything about the game in God's County.

I remember one Saturday, while I was covering a game at Somerset Park, we heard of a bit of bother at a Lugar v Dalry game at Rosebank Park. We looked at each other and said, as one: “Peachy!” a reference to a notorious Lugar supporter and committee-man.

We were later assured, Peachy had not been involved, but, on the Monday, I was down at the school on behalf of the Cumnock Chronicle, and as usual, my first stop was the Janitor's station to see Bongo.

While we were speaking a Sixth Year pupil, Lachlan Miller, who was then playing for Lugar, came past, so, we asked him: “What happened on Saturday?” His response had us both laughing, as he began: “Well, Peachy...”

He got no further as we both burst out laughing.

The rock of Bongo's life was wife Eppie. Theirs was the schoolboy and schoolgirl romance which would last a life time. They were the Posh and Becks of Cumnock Academy – Billy captaining the football team, Eppie the hockey and netball teams. Eppie had a long career as a teacher, Billy had his janitorial duties so, between them, they touched the lives of a couple of generations of local kids.

Billy's father “Wuggie” was a respected boxing trainer and also the trainer for the great Lugar team which reached the Junior Cup Final in 1956. His elder brother Robert is one of the stalwart of grass roots motor sport in Scotland. A family then which gave a lot to sport both locally and in the wider community.

Bongo was also a key member of the Ayrshire Former Professionals football team, which raised a lot of money for charity. That team was choc-a-bloc with legends: Eric Caldow, Bertie Black, Bobby Lennox, Sanny McAnespie, junior legends such as Wilie Frew and Bongo, they entertained thousands and had a ball doing so.

Bongo loved football and gave it his best shot. But, he could be critical of the modern game. I remember one aside as he passed the press box during a “draw nae fitba” one Saturday.

“That's so bad, I could play centre midfield out there wearing a lum hat and a claw-hammer jacket and never break sweat,” he said.

Rest in Peace Bongo, you were a credit to your district and your family. You will be missed, because they don't make them like you any more..

God's Job Just Got Harder - Managing The Heavenly Scottish Team

IT IS a sad fact of life, every winter there is a cull of our elderly and sick. Certainly last year, and again this year, Covid has increased this toll, but, in the past week – although as far as I know the pandemic was not an issue in either case – Scottish football lost two of its most-distinguished senior citizens, with the death of Bertie Auld and Doug Cowie.

DOUG COWIE, at the time of his death, aged 95, was Scotland's oldest living football internationalist. He was also a Dundee legend; he spent 16 seasons at Dens Park, playing 446 first-team games and scoring 24 goals. Some rate him as the Dee's Gretest Player; that, of course, is an opinion that will be debated. Certainly, however, he's on the short leet with his team mates from different Dundee sides, Billy Steel and Alan Gilzean.

Doug was an Aberdonian. Dee manager George Anderson spotted him playing for junior side Aberdeen St Clement's, while working as an apprentice riveter in the John Lewis shipyard in the Granite City and took the 19 year old to Dens in 1945, beating Aberdeen to his signing.

Back then he was a centre-half, making his Dundee debut against Stirling Albion, in the club's first League Cup tie, in February, 1946. It actually took him a couple of seasons to become a first-team regular, but, his timing in this respect was good, as the Dundee side he broke into would become one of the best in the club's history.

Steel was, of course, a superstar. A Scotland regular, who would command many millions in today's transfer market. Cowie was part of a stellar half-back line with Tommy Gallagher and Alfie Boyd, while later-on the likes of Bill Brown would come in to strengthen the team.

He helped Dundee win the League Cup in 1951, beating Rangers in the final, before defending it successfully against Kilmarnock in 1952. There were near-misses too, such as in the 1948-49 season, when, had Dundee not “frozen” on the final day at Falkirk, and drawn rather than lost, they would have denied Rangers that first Scottish treble.

There was further disappointment in the 1952 Scottish Cup Final, when in the first half, Dundee did everything but score, before Motherwell roared back to beat them in the second.

By this time, Cowie had switched to playing left-half, but, it was at centre-half that he won his only Scotland B cap, in a 2-2 Easter Road draw with England, in March, 1953. The Scotland B team that day was a star-studded one: Ronnie Simpson; Jock Aird, John Hewie (in his first trip to Scotland), Tommy Docherty, Doug Cowie, Hug Kelly, Jackie Henderson, Willie Moir, Jimmy Bonthrone, Ian McMillan and Albert Morrison. Every player, except Bonthrone and West Brom's Morrison, would win a full cap for Scotland.

Less than a month later, Doug won the first of an eventual 20 Scotland caps, when he lined-up at left-half in the bi-annual visit to Wembley. The match finished 2-2, courtesy of “Last-Minute Lawrie Reilly's famous late goal.

The Scotland team of the time was chosen by the SFA's Selection Committee. This meant a lot of horse-trading and occasionally change for change's sake. But, Cowie's 20 caps came in 39 internationals, which given the competition at the time, speaks volumes for his consistency of play.

Twenty caps was a lot for those days. Of his contemporaries in the Scotland shirt only the true greats: Tommy Younger, George Young, Sammy Cox, Tommy Docherty, Bobby Evans, Lawrie Reilly, Steel, Billy Liddell and later Eric Caldow and Bobby Collins, earned more caps. Cowie is right up there with some legends.

He is also in a club of two, with Celtic's Willie Fernie, in that he played for Scotland in two World Cup final tournaments, in Switzerland in 1954 and Sweden four years later. His final Scotland cap came in the 2-3 loss to Paraguay in Sweden, after which, he was replaced by another legend – Dave Mackay.

With Dundee he played under three managers, Anderson, who signed him, ex-Ragners' centre forward Willie Thornton and the great Bob Shankly. He was club captain under all three.

Steel had a reputation for having little time for less-talented team mates and a sharp tongue. He did however admit: “Big Doug can play a bit.”

Football is a cyclical business and in 1961, Shankly, feeling the 34-year-old Cowie was too old, released him, then annoyed Doug by almost immediately signing the 37-year-old Gordon Smith, a move which paved the way for Dundee's League win at the end of the 1961-62 season.

He moved on to play out his career with Morton, before having a short spell as Raith Rovers manager, before completing his time in football with spells coaching back at Morton and, down the road at Tannadice, from where he finally got out of football to live quietly in his adopted Dundee, in a house a long free-kick away from Dens Park.

But, Dundee remembered Doug Cowie. The club named one of their first hospitality lounges after him, it is now the Players' Lounge; and when the club inaugurated its Hall of Fame, he was inducted, as a legend, in 2009.

His death, in Ninewells Hospital, was announced shortly before Dundee met Motherwell on Saturday at Dens, and fittingly, The Scotsman's Alan Pattullo – a life-long Dee fan, was in the press box to wrap his match report around memories of Doug Cowie.

DOUGLAS COWIE – 5 May, 1926 – 26 November, 2021

BERTIE AULD's release from final years blighted by Dementia was a blessing to his family and friends. It also meant a further clearing of the ranks of the surviving Lisbon Lions. Only Jim Craig, John Clark, Willie Wallace and Bobby Lennox of the XI in Lisbon in 1967 now survive.

Auld was the creative heart of that illustrious team. What a central midfield core: Bobby Murdoch and Bertie Auld. Bertie described himself in his autobiography, which benefitted from the ghost-writing flair of big Alex Gordon, as: “A Bhoy from Maryhill.” Maybe so, but, as a boy he admitted to being a Jags' fan, before finding his way to Celtic Park, via Maryhill Harp, in 1955. He was loaned-out to Dumbarton to gain some experience, before making his first-team debut for Celtic in a Glasgow Merchants' Charity Cup loss to Rangers, in May, 1957.

The following season, he was in the team at the start of the season, but, he missed the 7-1 “Hampden in the sun” League Cup Final win over Rangers that autumn – he was not happy about this.

In those days he was a winger, and often the target for Scottish football's “hammer throwers.” The likes of Jimmy Johnstone would get up after being fouled and set about his revenge by embarrassing his assailant, not Bertie, if kicked, he kicked back, thus becoming familiar with the disciplinary committee room at the SFA's Park Gardens HQ.

But, there was no doubt, the bhoy could play and when Scotland embarked on an end-of-season mini-tour of Europe in May, 1959, Bertie was capped against The Netherlands, in Amsterdam, in a game which Scotland won 2-1. A second cap followed, against Portugal, in Lisbon, five days later. A third cap followed, against Wales, that November, but, as far as Scotland recognition was concerned, that was that for Bertie.

In 1961, unhappy by Celtic's failure to win things, and with Sir Robert Kelly increasingly upset by Bertie's disciplinary issues, when Birmingham City happened along and offered £15,000 for his services, Bertie was allowed to decamp to the Second City.

This was a mini-Golden Age for the Blues, who won the League Cup, qualified for the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, where, for the second successive they reached the final, but lost to Roma in a bad-tempered, two-legged final.

Disciplinary problems continued to haunt Bertie in Birmingham. He was sent off against Fulham for thumping England captain Johnny Haynes, then decking another Fulham player who ran to confront him. But, he was evolving from an out-and-out winger to a midfield playmaker and when, in January, 1965, Sean Fallon persuaded Kelly to give Bertie a second chance, he returned to Celtic Park, just in time to be back in the team when Jock Stein arrived.

He had matured, but, one suspects he knew what Stein might do if he stepped out of line too-often. The Scottish Cup win over Dunfermline in 1965 got the Stein era properly under way. Billy McNeill's headed winner is perhaps THE defining moment of that victory, but, his two goals were crucial in a Man-of-the-match performance which has had that final ever since, regarded as: “Bertie Auld's Match.”

The rest is history. The Murdoch-Auld midfield alliance was born, as was the legend of the Lisbon Lions. More than one of the team has said Bertie initiating a chorus of “The Celtic Song” in the tunnel pre-game, did much to upset the hitherto all-conquering Inter side, as did his control and range of passing from midfield during the actual 90 minutes.

Mind you, success did not entirely wash over Bertie's disciplinary issues. He was sent off during the famour Alfredo di Stefano Testimonial in Madrid and, famously, when a referee who hadn't so-much lost the plot as never had it in the first place, sent him off during the “Kicking Match” against Racing Club, in Montevideo in 1968, Bertie simply refused to leave the field.

Perhaps his last true hurrah was in the “Battle of Britain”European Cup semi-final against Leeds United in 1970. Celtic shocked the English champions by winning the first leg at Elland Road 1-0, Leeds squared the game early on in the second leg, in front of what is still a European record crowd of 136,000 at Hampden, before the Murdoch/Auld midfield axis got the better of the much-vaunted Leeds pairing of Billy Bremner and Johnny Giles, and Celtic won 2-1.

Sadly, there would be no second European Cup win as the under-rated Feyenoord side won 2-1.

A sixth straight league title win in 1971 saw the end of Auld's second term at Celtic. He moved to Hibs to play out his career, before turning to managership, with Partick Thistle and Hibs.

After football he was for a time a barman, along with old team mate Willie O'Neill in that well-known Celtic fans' howf, Baird's Bar. There was a spell as a taxi driver, both occupations which gave plenty of chances for Bertie's wise-cracking one-liners.

He was always welcome in the corporate seats at Celtic Park, or commenting on Celtic TV. The Celtic Family saw him as one of their own, who had had the talent and luck to play for the jersey.

His Dementia diagnosis was revealed in June, 2021 and just last week, his passing also. His funeral cortege paid a final visit to Celtic Park to allow the Celtic Family to say farewell to one of their legends.

ROBERT AULD – 23 March, 1938 – 14 November, 2021.