STRACHAN: DEBT I OWE MY PAL
Strachan: I was hopeless for Billy at Aberdeen but we became great pals... his gift to my son summed up the man
BILLY McNEILL was many things to many men.
European Cup winner. Lisbon Lion. Scotland international. Celtic stalwart as a player and then in the club’s centenary year their doublewinning manager. Perhaps the most humble legend Scottish football was lucky enough to call their own.
But to Gordon Strachan this colossus of a man meant more than any of that. He was a lifechanger.
“What does Billy McNeill mean to me? The man changed my life.” Strachan pondered yesterday as the world awoke to news of the great man’s passing aged 79.
For all the touching tributes and the glowing, heartfelt eulogies only a few will have felt a pain quite like Strachan’s. It was 42 years ago their worlds collided for the first time when McNeill signed Strachan for Aberdeen from Dundee. They were only together for one season at Pittodrie before McNeill returned to his spiritual home in Glasgow’s east end the following summer.
But Strachan was already indebted to him. It was a score he could never quite settle. He added: “I mean, I have always believed you make your own way in life but there is no question he was a major contributor to the way mine worked out.
“He signed me a couple of days after we got beat 6-1 – Dundee versus Queen of the South. Between him and Mike Jackson they decided to take a chance on me and take me to Aberdeen.
“From there when I went to Aberdeen I was absolutely useless and felt like I was letting him down. I mean I was seriously useless. I was one of those guys who got booed whenever his number came up!
“But Billy was very strong in the way he supported me and I have never really been able to shake this feeling I let him down.
“But here’s the thing about Billy. He then left Aberdeen for Celtic and the first time we played against them at home we beat them 4-1.
“But guess who then turned up at my door at six o’clock that night? It was Billy and his wife Liz with a gift for my son Gavin who had just been born.
“That sticks in my memory more than anything else. Here was a guy who’d just been beaten 4-1 turning up at my house to deliver a present.
“And when you consider I hadn’t played well for him it just tells you about the kind of guy you’re talking about here, the kind of family you’re talking about.” Six years later, after Strachan had left Pittodrie for Manchester United, the pair found themselves reunited in the same city with McNeill now in charge at Maine Road.
Strachan said: “I got to know him really well over our short time together at Aberdeen as when I first got there we stayed in the same guest house. We all were in the same circles with the same mutual friends. We’ve always stuck together.
“He always kept in touch and the funny thing is we bumped into each other again when he was Manchester City manager and I was at Man Utd. We used to meet up a lot during that time and that’s when we became very friendly.
“In the later years I would go and see him when he wasn’t very well. He was just the kind of guy you wanted to be around.
“He was one of these guys. When things weren’t going great he’d put an arm around your shoulder and give you reassurance. He was still doing that when I was about 55!”
By now Strachan was attempting to fill the big man’s boots as manager of McNeill’s beloved Celtic. The bond remained unbroken
He said: “During my time as Celtic
manager he was absolutely brilliant. There were a few of them who were brilliant – Bertie Auld, Bobby Lennox and Big Billy.
“There was a common sense about everything they did and said. I don’t think they were scared about anyone stepping on their legendary status. That didn’t bother them. There was a sense of reality to them.
“They also had an incredible bond these guys. If you sat between these three just talking about football it was just dynamite.
“It felt like Billy was omnipresent around the football club. We all enjoyed his presence. There are
I was seriously useless but Billy’s support was very strong
some people who can become omnipresent and you think to yourself, ‘Do us a favour’.
“But not Billy. He had this aura about him when he walked into a room. He was just such a special man and a funny, funny fella. I just thoroughly enjoyed his company.”
McNeill was often to be spotted around Celtic Park during Strachan’s time. But for such a giant of the club’s history he never seemed to cast much of a shadow.
Strachan said: “He had an incredible sense of humility about him but that was the upbringing we had in those days. It’s the same when you meet Bobby Lennox or Stevie Chalmers. It all stems from the way they were brought up and also from the team ethic they had together in those days. It wasn’t a ‘me culture’ back then it was a ‘we culture’.
“They just enjoyed sitting down and talking about football with other people, passing on their stories. And the incredible thing was you would walk into a room and find him there, sitting in a corner talking away to whoever was in his company.
“He didn’t try to take over the room though he was the most respected guy in it. That was Big Billy. He was a tremendous man.”