It was good bad tackle
MICHAEL GANNON
From Back Page withering putdown as he labelled the challenge as child’s play.
And he insisted Shinnie put the boot in because he lacked the ability to keep up with him on the pitch.
The Hoops favourite – who yesterday scooped the Ladbrokes Player of the Year award – said: “The ankle’s fine. It takes more than that to keep me down.
“Was it a bad tackle? No, it was a Graeme Shinnie tackle. It sums him up really.
“He was saying that he got close to the ball. But I watched it back and it is kind of a little boy’s tackle – waiting until I was past him.
“My pace obviously done him in his prime and I got past him.
“What goes around, comes around? Yeah, I’m not the one with 15 bookings this season.
“We had a nice wee chat afterwards. Graeme runs about, he tackles, stuff like that.
“He has not got great quality but he does the best he possibly can.
“It’s the only thing he can probably do to try and stop us – to try and make a bad tackle. To be fair on him, it was a good bad tackle.”
Brown insisted the challenge wasn’t going to rule him out of Saturday’s Scottish Cup Final against Motherwell though as the Hoops look to land back-to-back trebles.
He said: “I felt it quite high up at the time. I was thinking ‘thank goodness I still wear those grandad shinnies that come all the way around and protect everything!’.
“It wasn’t too bad. I have had worse.”
Brown shrugged off the Shinnie shocker and is adamant he has no fears going against a Steelmen side with a tough reputation.
He said: “We’ve played Motherwell quite a lot this season so we know how they play, they are physical but they’re fair.
“They use their bodies and they don’t lunge in to tackles or do stupid challenges.
“When you watch them they are very direct that way but that’s how their team is shaped out and everyone knows their job.
“We like the physical battle. We’ve got that in our locker as well.”
Brown can make history by claiming his 14th trophy as Celtic captain – to move closer to club legend Billy McNeill’s incredible record haul of 23.
He said: “Just now I’m enjoying my football, picking up trophies. It’s all about getting this club on the map, getting in the Champions League, winning leagues.”
Brown is determined to get both hands on the Scottish Cup after a calamity with the Premiership trophy.
The captain blamed his injured hand and said: “Well I did drop the league one on my head, so there’s a good chance I’ll be able to lift this one.
“Here’s hoping!” IT might be a decade since the devastating loss of Tommy Burns but Brendan Rodgers insists the much-loved club legend’s legacy will always live on.
This is a poignant week for the Celtic boss. He got his hands on the Premiership trophy as the curtain came down on the season last Sunday and the Scottish Cup Final awaits on Saturday.
But the memory of Burns has never been far away with the memorial service on the eve of the Aberdeen game, where supporters held banners hailing their hero ahead of the 10th anniversary of his death yesterday.
Rodgers worshipped Burns the player at Parkhead as a fan and soaked up every second with Burns the coach when he was an aspiring manager at Reading and he knows the special place the club hero holds in Celtic history as well as the present and future.
He said: “When you look at the legacy and look at what someone leaves – you can look all throughout Celtic and look at the players he has influenced, the staff members he influenced, work behind the scenes, the academy here, the drive to get the best facilities he could.
“His impact as a player as well. But for me legacy is also about the feeling that you give people when you are gone or not there.
“And every time you think of Tommy the feeling is always a great one.
“What he was as a man gives you that inspiration really to become the man that he was.
“It’s 10 years which has flown by but he is in our thoughts.
“You see his pictures up here on the wall for the players and staff to look at every day. You see the smiles and he is one memory that will never be forgotten.”
Everyone associated with Celtic has their own memories of Burns. It might have been cheering him on from the Jungle, playing alongside him in the side or under him as a boss, or being brought in to a youth system he put in to place when he returned to the club he loved.
Rodgers has his own experience to lean on.
He said: “Tommy was a huge part of my life when I was a young player growing up and playing in England from the age of 16.
“He was at Celtic as a player from 1975 to 1989 and it was a real pivotal time for me as a supporter. He was a lynchpin of m.gannon@dailyrecord.co.uk the team. Tommy had a big influence on me as a player but later on when he got in to coaching and eventually came to Reading he was an influence on me as I was starting out.
“He was only there a year but he had a huge impact because of his aura, intensity and his work as a manager.
“I also saw the struggles management can bring. Yet it never changed him one bit.
“He was too good for Reading, that was the reality. His football brain was more aligned to work with top players, giving them a way of working.
“The legacy for me was, although I didn’t know him as well as other people might have, he made a huge impact in my life and getting the chance to know him was fantastic.”
Rodgers always has an eye on the future but he also clings dearly to the past.
Burns’ history at Celtic is in with the bricks at Parkhead and Lennoxtown and the manager also keeps other legends close.
He said: “It’s critical for me. You always need that link. Whatever club I’ve been at I’ve always had that link with the past and players who have an affinity with the club.
“We have the likes of Danny McGrain and John Clark here. They know what it feels like. Those guys give you a little bit of gold dust every single day.
“You speak to them for five minutes and it’s always words of wisdom. It’s important.
“The club is littered with great players and legends from the past and it’s important they are very much part of the future as well.”
Even though he’s sadly not around, the same goes for Burns.
Rodgers has retained close