Latest news with #BillyMcNeill
Daily Record
14-07-2025
- Sport
- Daily Record
I'm a Rangers man but this 'ridiculous' Celtic legend blows two of my club's very best out the water
Steve Nicol says Billy McNeill was better than Rangers greats like John Greig and Alex McLeish Billy McNeill is arguably the greatest defender ever to play in Scotland – and even self professed ' Rangers man' Steve Nicol admits he can't argue with that. 'Cesar' was the captain of the Celtic Lisbon Lions team who won the European Cup in 1967, which remains the greatest accomplishment by a Scottish team in Europe to this day. Rangers and Aberdeen have had their own glories on the continental stage but it would take a miracle for anything to rival the Hoops' triumph under the great Jock Stein. One man who knows a thing or two about a European Cup is former Liverpool right-back Nicol. He won one himself at Anfield in 1984, one of ten major honours he registered throughout his 13 years in Merseyside. Nicol played 27 times for Scotland in his pomp and while his domestic career north of the border was a little more low key, spending two years at Ayr before moving south, he's never hid his allegiances as a died-in-the-wool Rangers fan. But when asked how Ibrox greats such as John Greig and Alex McLeish fair compared to McNeil, it was a no-contest in his eyes. He was asked on ESPN to start one, bench one and drop one of that iconic trio of defenders. And there was only one winner. He said: 'Listen, I am a Rangers man. But I am going to have to go with Billy McNeill to start. Big Cesar. 'He captained Celtic to the old European Cup, now the Champions League. How many times did they win the league? Nine. Ridiculous. Billy McNeill would start. 'I would have John Greig on the bench. An absolute legend at Rangers. Lifted the old Cup Winners Cup in Europe for Rangers. Won plenty of titles. 'He was the manager at Rangers, as was Billy McNeill was manager at Celtic. "As good as big Eck was, unfortunately, Billy and John just outdo him. He would agree with that.' You can get all the news you need on our dedicated Rangers and Celtic pages, and sign up to our newsletters to make sure you never miss a beat throughout the season. We're also on WhatsApp where we bring all the latest breaking news and transfer gossip directly to you phone. Join our Rangers community here and our Celtic community here.
The Guardian
27-06-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
John Clark obituary
John Clark, who has died aged 84, was a member of the Celtic team that won the European Cup in 1967, the first time the trophy was secured by a British club. Playing alongside the imperious centre-half Billy McNeill, Clark was the ultra-efficient sweeper at the heart of defence. Clark and McNeill always shared a room, and a snap taken on the morning after the triumph in Lisbon showed the two men, both from working-class backgrounds in Lanarkshire, sleeping contentedly with the greatest prize in world club football perched between their beds. It was an image that epitomised the character and camaraderie of the Celtic team, all of whom were drawn from within a 40-mile radius of the club's stadium, mostly from similar backgrounds. Throughout his life, Clark remained the same quiet, dignified figure, intensely proud of what they had achieved while unfailingly modest and understated. A profile written after the Lisbon victory noted that 'John has kept his feet on the ground because he has shunned the temptations which can come with fame in the big city', preferring to live in his home village of Chapelhall. At that time, his friend, Paddy Crerand, who had moved from Celtic to Manchester United, said: 'John Clark is a player's player because he's always thinking of the team and never plays for himself. If he's given the job, he does it without any fuss or fancy stuff.' These same characteristics continued throughout a life built around the three pillars of family, faith and football. He was loved by the supporters as a man with whom they could so easily identify; one of their own who had risen to the heights but had never left them, or Celtic, behind. His daughter, Marie, recalled an incident from childhood when her dad took her into Glasgow to buy a Christmas party dress but when she came home, it had gone. He explained there was a cleaner at Celtic Park who had no money to buy her daughter a dress. 'He told me: 'She had nothing. We can get another one.' He was doing things like that all his life. He was a kind man.' When John was 10 years old, his father, also John, was killed in a railway accident while working on the track at Watford. He had gone south for work and planned for his family to follow. His wife, Lilly, was expecting their fourth child and they returned to her native Limerick, where John went to school for a time, before coming back to Lanarkshire. In his teens, Clark signed for the semi-professional side Larkhall Thistle, a tough learning school that helped develop the physicality of his game. He soon caught the eye of Celtic, at that time developing a youth policy that was to yield such momentous results. Jock Stein, his playing career cut short by injury, was in charge of youth coaching and, McNeill later recalled: 'Suddenly, the whole thing became much more than reading your name up on the list in the dressing room. John Clark, Jim Conway [later of Norwich City] and I were particularly lucky because, like him, we lived in Lanarkshire and we used to get [Stein's] company home, listening and talking about football.' Clark made his debut against Arbroath in October 1959. It was a dismal period for Celtic and to the dismay of the young players, Stein departed from his coaching role to manage Dunfermline Athletic. His return as Celtic manager in 1965 was transformative, not least by building round the Clark-McNeill partnership. Within weeks, they had won the Scottish Cup, the club's first trophy since 1957. Thereafter, the run of success was giddy, including nine league titles in a row. Clark played 140 consecutive games and was the only ever-present in the 1966-67 season when Celtic won a 'quadruple', which included the European Cup. His career was affected thereafter by injury and he played his last Celtic game when the Lisbon Lions were reunited for a final bow in the last game of the 1970-71 season. Despite the club honours he assembled, Clark was capped only four times for Scotland; an under-representation which he shared with other Celtic players of the era. He spent two seasons with Morton before retiring as a player and soon returned to a coaching role at Celtic. When McNeill went into management, Clark was his assistant first at Aberdeen and then at Celtic. There had been some expectation that Clark would succeed as manager when McNeill left in 1983 but this did not materialise. However, he continued to serve Celtic in various roles and in 1997 became kit manager, a post he held for 20 years and addressed with characteristic diligence and efficiency. His daughter recalled: 'My dad always told us, if you are doing anything, do it properly – and that's the way he lived his life.' Players arriving at Celtic were impressed to learn that the man in charge of their kit was also the possessor of a European Cup winners' medal. To a succession of Celtic managers including Martin O'Neill, Gordon Strachan and Neil Lennon, Clark remained a valued source of footballing wisdom and experience. The current manager, Brendan Rodgers, said: 'John's continued presence at Celtic across the decades served as an absolute inspiration to so many players, managers and staff.' The Celtic chairman, Peter Lawwell, described him as 'a wonderful man who achieved so much and remained so humble'. Clark is survived by his wife, Eileen (nee Martin), whom he married in 1963, their daughter, Mairi, and son, Martin, and three grandchildren. John Clark, footballer and coach, born 13 March 1941; died 23 June 2025
Times
24-06-2025
- Sport
- Times
John Clark obituary: European Cup winner with Celtic's Lisbon Lions
May 25, 1967 is a date etched in Scottish footballing history as the day Celtic beat Inter Milan, the much-fancied Italian giants, by two goals to one at the Estadio Nacional in Lisbon to become the first British club to lift the European Cup. John 'the Brush' Clark, renowned for his unassuming but dependable performance as sweeper, was one of the 'Lisbon Lions', all born within a 30-mile radius of Glasgow, who roared for Celtic that night. Yet hours after captain Billy McNeill (obituary, April 23, 2019), known as Caesar, lifted the trophy, the Celtic pride were herded into a pokey hotel room and invited to collect their medals from the equivalent of a shoebox perched on a grubby table. 'It felt a bit demeaning,' Clark recalled. 'We had just become the champions of Europe, the first British club to do so, and the best they could do was honour us like this. It felt a bit low key.' • Celtic legend and Lisbon Lion John Clark dies aged 84 Between 1965 and 1971 Clark was not only a member of the Celtic team that triumphed in Europe but also picked up four league championships, three Scottish Cups and four League Cups. He made 316 appearances in the green-and-white hoops, including an unbroken run of 140 consecutive matches between April 1965 and September 1967 that included friendlies, a North American tour and a head-to-head with Manchester United. A quiet, mild-mannered defender known as Wee Luggy after acquiring a cauliflower ear from an accidental collision with McNeill in training, Clark hit the net for Celtic on three occasions. 'I always say that I scored the best goal ever,' he told Celtic View magazine. 'It was in a replay at Easter Road against Hibs and I beat a defender at the byline, cut in and poked the ball through Ronnie Simpson's legs and said to him, 'You couldn't get any better than that, could you?'' John Clark was born in Chapelhall, Lanarkshire, in 1941, the eldest child of John Clark, a railwayman who moved south to England for work, and his wife, Lilly. Young John was ten when one morning a letter arrived to say that his father had found a house for the family and that they would all be joining him, but on the day the letter arrived his father was killed by a train. 'He'd been working on the tracks and a signal was supposed to operate, but it never did. The train appeared from nowhere and killed him instantly,' Clark told The Herald. 'It left my mother a widow, with two young kids, and six months pregnant with another. I'll never forget that day.' The family remained in Scotland with John taking on a series of 'wee jobs' to support his mother. 'A local farmer let me sell his eggs and potatoes. I did all sorts to help bring a few bob into the house,' he told The Scotsman. He grew up supporting Celtic. 'The first major game I saw was Celtic against Clyde at Hampden in the Scottish Cup final in 1955, and Celtic lost the replay,' he told the club's website. 'When I left school, the first game I can remember was Celtic against Manchester United at Celtic Park. It took place in the afternoon because it was in our pre-floodlight days. I had just got a job, it was my first day at work and I asked if I could get away early.' By 16 he was playing for Larkhall Thistle, attracting the attention of scouts. 'Birmingham [City] asked me down for a trial and then asked me to sign,' he told The Celtic Star. 'But there was some argument between Birmingham and Larkhall about the fee. I never really got to the bottom of it but all I know is that I was not allowed to go.' Instead, he played a few games with Celtic's reserves coached by Jock Stein. By 1958 he was a fully fledged Celtic player, making his first-team match debut in a 5-0 win at Arbroath in October the next year. 'Signing for Celtic was like winning the pools,' he said, adding on another occasion that the club 'was always a way of life for me'. Having started his career at left-half he switched to sweeper beside McNeill when Stein became manager in 1965. He recalled Stein as a stickler for timekeeping. 'I remember Billy and I arriving early at St Enoch Square for the one o'clock bus to a game at Dumbarton so we took a wee stroll along Argyle Street. When we got back Jock was raging, 'What the hell time do you call this?' It was only a minute after one but we were never late for anything ever again,' he told The Scotsman. Clark also appeared for the national team on four occasions, his debut being at Hampden Park against Brazil in their 1966 World Cup warm-up game, which ended in 1-1 draw. Afterwards he was singled out for praise by Pelé, having by all accounts marked him out of the game. Many years later they had ran into each other in a lift in New York. Pelé chatted about the game, recalling how his old foe wore No 6, but after the Brazilian stepped out, Clark turned to Davie Provan, his Celtic colleague, and asked: 'Who the hell was that?' In the early 1960s he married Eileen. She survives him with their daughter Marie, whose birth was announced over the public address system at Celtic Park and who trained as a teacher, and their son Martin, also a professional footballer who played with Partick Thistle. Clark's final game for Celtic was on May 1, 1971, when Stein brought the Lisbon Lions together for a final bow in a 6-1 win against Clyde. He then moved to Morton, where on one occasion he scored an own goal, ironically in a match against Celtic in his team's 3-1 defeat. Two years later he retired from playing and returned to Celtic as reserve team coach. He went on to have various coaching and managerial roles, including at Aberdeen, Cowdenbeath, Stranraer and Clyde, but was regularly drawn back to his old club, where he was widely known as 'Mr Celtic'. Despite his unblemished record on the pitch, in 1980 he was given a two-year ban by Uefa for 'extremely grave insults to the referee' after a match against Politehnica Timisoara of Romania in the European Cup Winners' Cup. By 1997 Clark was Celtic's kit man, a position he held for more than 20 years. He could be seen by airport luggage carousels, lifting the players' bags on to carts as they stood around chatting on their phones, many of them unfamiliar with his status as a Lisbon Lion. 'I don't go about telling them,' he said in 2014. 'But the players spread the word. They will come up and ask if it's true. If they are down in my room I just show them the photograph of us with the European Cup. I'll say to them, 'There have been big changes since then but take a look at that. The thing in the middle with the big handles is the thing you'll always want to win. I won it.'' John Clark, footballer, was born on March 13, 1941. He died on June 23, 2025, aged 84
The Independent
23-06-2025
- Sport
- The Independent
Celtic legend and Lisbon Lion John Clark dies aged 84
Former Celtic defender John Clark, one of the Lisbon Lions who played in the club's European Cup win in 1967, has died aged 84. Clark, who made over 300 appearances for Celtic following his debut in 1959, spent over 40 years at the Glasgow club as player, coach, assistant manager and kit man. His finest hour was in Lisbon when the Hoops became the first British club to lift the European Cup following their victory over Inter Milan. The club added: "His love for the club was a constant throughout his life and, after leaving his role with the first team, he was able to enjoy matches from the stands at Celtic Park. He will be greatly missed by everyone at the club." Clark won four Scottish league titles, four League Cups, three Scottish Cups and one European Cup during a 13-year playing career with the Hoops before moving on to Morton in 1971. He returned to Celtic Park as coach of the reserve and youth sides before becoming former manager - and fellow Lisbon Lion - Billy McNeill's assistant, first at Aberdeen and then, in 1978, at Celtic. Clark went on to take charge of Cowdenbeath, Stranraer and Clyde before returning to Celtic Park as kit man, a role he held for nearly 20 years. Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers said: "Greatness is a word people throw around, but for John Clark, it is a very fitting tribute. "John was instrumental in delivering our greatest day ever and his achievement is forever etched in Celtic's proud history." Chairman Peter Lawwell added: "John's passing represents a massive loss to his own family and of course a huge loss to the wider Celtic family. "That famous day in Lisbon, which John was such an integral part of, changed our club forever. Ever since, each player who has passed through our club has stood on the shoulders of giants and John was certainly one of those giants. "John gave his life to Celtic both as a player and on our staff in a variety of his roles and his contribution to our great club over so many decades is immeasurable."
Daily Mail
04-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
Celtic star Payton is diagnosed with dementia aged 57
Former Celtic star Andy Payton, 57, is battling dementia. The striker has been diagnosed with early-onset form of the killer condition that has struck several footballers including Hoops legend Billy McNeill. Mr Payton who played for the Parkhead club in the 90s is convinced playing football has caused his serious health problem. He said: 'I was just experiencing the usual symptoms - forgetfulness, loss of memory and headaches, but I was n't expecting to have early onset dementia, 'It's properly frightening, you just don't know what's coming down the line. 'My partner more or less manages my day-to-day life, so I know exactly what I'm doing. where I need to be so I don't forget anything. 'The neurologist who did my scan said there are 68 tracts in the brain and 27 of mine are damaged. 'That's half the brain that's damaged. 'The neurologist said it's from football, there's no other thing it can be.' He said that during his playing career he spent hours on end practicing heading footballs. Now he has problems remembering what he's eaten just an hour before. Mr Payton added: 'It was just header, header, bang, bang, bang. 'We'd do it every day, sometimes for an hour and a half. 'I must have headed the ball about 10,000 times, hence the fact I've ended with early onset dementia at 57.' Several players from Celtic's 'Lisbon Lions' team, who won the European Cup in 1967, have been diagnosed with dementia, including Bertie Auld and Billy McNeill. The former died at 83 after being diagnosed with dementia five months before his passing, while the latter died in 2019 after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2010. Lisbon winning goal scorer Stevie Chalmers also died from the condition. In Scotland charities and loved ones have demanded more help for footie legends with dementia amid concerns they are missing out on aid available to ex-stars in England. Hundreds of families of former players battling the condition down south have benefited from a £1.5million fund set up with English Premier League cash but there is no comparable scheme here. The pleas for support came after Scotland's joint-top goal scorer Denis Law and ex-Aberdeen boss Jimmy Calderwood became the latest heroes to lose their fights with the memory-robbing disease. Battle Against Dementia charity chief Douglas McCluskey urged game bosses to find more cash - amid links between heading a football repeatedly and brain damage. He has campaigned alongside the family of former Celtic captain and manager Billy McNeill. Their Billy Against Dementia fund have raised tens of thousands of pounds via raffles, T-shirt sales, charity golf tournaments and gala dinners.
