KEEVINS: A HERO FOR THE AGES
That cup. That man. They are indivisible. Big Billy’s legend was set in stone one day in Portugal and he will live forever in the hearts and minds of a Celtic support who still joyfully celebrate the football fairytale he starred in
BILLY McNEILL, or big Billy as he was better known by people who dispensed with his surname because legends don’t need one, was fond of saying there was a fairytale aspect to Celtic.
And he was the man most entitled to make that statement as he wrote most of the fairytales during a playing and management career that has enshrined him in club folklore.
It is right and fitting the McNeill family have asked Billy’s name be honoured in story and in song because he had a personal anthology of deeds that distinguished him and were almost lyrical in their perfection.
The story of the modernday Celtic begins in 1965 with a big Billy header to complete the scoring in a 3-2 win against Dunfermline in the Scottish Cup Final.
It was the first trophy Celtic had won since the 7-1 League Cup defeat of Rangers seven and a half years before, which must seem a bizarrely long exile from the winners’ rostrum for present-day fans used to gorging themselves on the club’s domestic success.
Ten years later, after leading Celtic to a Scottish Cup Final win over Airdrie, Billy announced his retirement.
In between there were 822 appearances for the club and the kind of high achievement which leads to a man being immortalised in stone outside the ground he had regarded as home from boyhood. That cup. That man. They were indivisible. That is why this season’s Scottish Cup Final on May 25, the most significant date in Celtic’s history, can only be subtitled the Billy McNeill Final for the Hoops fans.
If there is one image of big Billy ingrained in the minds of a generation it is of the captain standing in isolation high above the playing surface inside the Estadio Nacional in Lisbon on the day Celtic beat Inter Milan to become the first British side to win the European Cup.
It was appropriate Billy should stand there resplendent and be lionised.
I started in the newspaper business on January 5, 1970. On the next day I was dispatched to Celtic Park and told to interview big Billy outside the front door to the stadium. You could do that type of thing in those days.
The big yin came out, asked my name and proceeded to give me his undivided attention while I conducted a slightly tremulous interview. In other words he gave wet-behind-the-ears Hughie Keevins as much time and respect as he would have done my namesake, the veteran and magnificent practitioner of our trade, Hughie McIlvanney.
The captain of the Lisbon Lions was the ultimate leader of men and the best illustration of the type of person who led by example. The ball would come over and Billy would head it clear or else the ball would come over and he’d head it in.
When you walked with Billy you stood in the shadow of a giant reputation who had an awesome effect on those who met him without ever
courting celebrity.
I sat on the plane to Seville for the 2003 UEFA Cup Final between Celtic and Porto in the company of Billy and Liz.
The night before the game my son and son-in-law came to visit me at our hotel.
I introduced one star-struck in-law to Billy and as they shook hands I could sense Martin involuntarily bowing. That was the effect Billy had on a generation who had never even seen him play. The last time I saw the big man alive I was in a restaurant inside Celtic Park on a match day and he came in supported by Liz and a friend and fellow player from youth, Benny Rooney.
It was abundantly clear the ravages of Billy’s illness had taken serious hold of him but the love, care and attention lavished upon him by a devoted wife was as heartwarming to see as it was sad.
What will live on in the memory is the man who had the astonishing ability to manipulate history to suit Celtic’s demands and the club will have eternal reason to be grateful to him for that.
If the current Celtic players feel any sense of additional pressure to complete a treble Treble in his name they should stop and consider the burdens he assumed for the club’s sake.
Who would have succeeded Jock Stein, the hardest of all acts to follow, as manager and made a success of the job other than Billy?
Who would have returned to the club from managing Man City and Aston Villa to garland Celtic’s Centenary year with a league and cup Double won in the dying seconds of a Scottish Cup Final win?
There were greater players to have worn Celtic’s jersey but there was never, and never will be, a greater Celtic man than Billy McNeill. Today there is sadness at his passing but death can be the catalyst for remembering the man for whom the word legend was hopelessly inadequate.
Rest in peace Billy and thanks from the kid you spoke to at the front door of Celtic Park in January 1970. Never forgotten.
His personal anthology of deeds were almost lyrical in their perfection