What Neil Lennon told ex-Celtic star Paddy McCourt about the ordeal of having bullets sent to him in post
WARNING SHOT What Neil Lennon told ex-Celtic star Paddy McCourt about the ordeal of having bullets sent to him in post
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FORMER Celtic winger Paddy McCourt has opened up on the moment he was sent bullets in the post - and how his manager Neil Lennon helped him through it.
Lennon was in his first spell as Hoops manager when he was the target of a similar attack in January 2011.
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Paddy McCourt in action during his time at Celtic
Credit: Kenny Ramsay - The Sun Glasgow
Just days later McCourt, from Derry in Northern Ireland, was on the receiving end of a similar sick threat.
A third Northern Irishman at the club at that time, Niall McGinn, was also targeted.
The envelope addressed to McCourt was found by staff at a Royal Mail sorting office in the east end of Glasgow on January 12 2011.
He admits that Lennon's calmness in the face of the threats helped him too stay calm, particularly given his family were panicking.
What made them even more worried was the fact they were back in Ireland at the time, with the bullets having been sent from a Northern Ireland postcode.
Speaking on the Let Me Be Frank podcast, McCourt said: "At the time Lenny was the manager and he'd obviously suffered pretty high profile incidents like that before.
"So having him there I had the ability to speak to him about it and his experiences on it, and you know he was pretty calm with it.
"That helped me become calm with it and you know, it was just one of them things.
"Thankfully it was a bit of a storm in a tea cup and nothing ever came from it and it seemed to disappeared pretty quickly.
"But I think what he said was strange, you know, it was a strange thing to happen.
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"And it was difficult at the time because my family were still obviously back in Ireland like my mum, my brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews.
"My mum was pretty worried and stuff, but, as I say, thankfully it went away quite as it came."
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