I always felt a great empathy for John Clark because the great Celtic servant and I shared tragic circumstances

Daily Record

6 days ago

He would say 'Celtic was always a way of life for me' and the club had cause to be thankful for his astonishing level of consistency
John Clark played football for Celtic in the same way he lived his life away from the game.
With the minimum of fuss.
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Eleven men were immortalised on May 25, 1967 at the Estadio Nacional in Lisbon when Celtic beat Inter Milan and became the first British club to win the European Cup.
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But "Luggy," as he was known then, was always humility personified in spite of having been granted iconic status.
The road to greatness in Portugal was nevertheless partly paved by John's immaculate defensive work while playing behind Billy McNeill at the heart of Celtic's defence.
McNeill, the captain, had a magisterial quality about him on the park.
There were also the legendary, mercurial talents such as Bertie Auld and Jimmy Johnstone in the team that Jock Stein had put together like a master craftsman.
Clark was the reliable one, never fazed and apparently gifted with a telepathic instinct for anticipating danger and getting there early enough to stop it becoming a hazard to his team's progress.
The knack he had led to him being nicknamed "The brush" by his grateful team-mates.
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"Celtic was always a way of life for me," John would say and the club had cause to be thankful for his astonishing level of consistency while playing for them at the same time.
John played 140 games in a row, in all competitions, between April 1965 and September 1967.
One of them was the Scottish Cup final win over Dunfermline which heralded the start of the modern day Celtic after having gone since 1957 without winning a major trophy.
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Towards the end of that phenomenal run came Lisbon and a place in his club's folklore.
The unassuming nature of John's personality was employed by McNeill when he accepted the task of following the hardest act of them all, Stein, in the manager's office in 1978.
Billy asked John to be his assistant and together they assembled three league titles and one win in the Scottish and League Cup finals.
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Devoid of ego and devoted to Celtic, John became, in 1997, the club's kit man. He took his responsibilities there as seriously as he had done his playing duties in Lisbon thirty years earlier.
I always felt a particular empathy with John because both of us had lost our fathers under tragic circumstances when we were 10-year-old children.
He, in turn, was always kindly disposed towards me throughout my journalistic career.
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Luggy was also Google years before it was invented.
He had an encyclopedic knowledge of statistics and could have given you the last five results for Plymouth Argyle's reserve team at the drop of a hat if you really had to know that kind of thing.
The quiet man was otherwise happy to let his educated mind and feet do the talking for him on the park and Celtic have lost one of the greatest servants they have ever had.
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Such was the esteem in which John was held by everyone at Celtic, he was visited in his final days by the club's figureheads.
Principal shareholder Dermot Desmond travelled from Ireland to pay his respects, as did Brendan Rodgers, who had known John from the time of his arrival in Glasgow for his first stint as Celtic manager.
Only three of the Lisbon Lions remain alive, Jim Craig, Bobby Lennox and Willie Wallace.
What they achieved with those who have gone before them is easily categorised as an immortal memory cherished by the Celtic supporters and symbolised by the star above the club crest on the team shirt.
The shirt that Luggy wore with distinction.