THE GREAT BILLY McNEILL DIES AT 79
Sir Alex leads the tributes for the great Billy McNeill
The image the name Billy McNeill immediately provokes is not of him lifting the european Cup in 1967 — the first British footballer to do so — but of him leading out the Celtic team two hours earlier.
There is McNeill at the front of 11 lads from Glasgow the great Inter Milan side of the 1960s confidently expected to defeat.
Tall, chiselled and assured, McNeill looked every inch the leader his colleagues, his manager Jock Stein and Celtic fans knew he was.
They called him ‘Cesar’, and although that was a reference to the Ratpack film Oceans 11 — like Cesar Romero’s character, McNeill had a car — on that day in Lisbon, McNeill was an imperious Caesar in an amphitheatre.
Inter had won two of the previous three finals and were regarded as the best in europe. They had beaten reigning champions Real Madrid in the last eight and went 1-0 ahead against Celtic after just seven minutes.
Past the hour mark, Inter were still leading. Then Tommy Gemmell equalised and, with six minutes to go, Stevie Chalmers scored Celtic’s winner.
McNeill, 27, held aloft the famous trophy — one year before Bobby Charlton for Manchester United, 10 years before emlyn hughes for Liverpool. More than that, McNeill became the first northern european to lift the Cup, Celtic being the first club outside Spain, Portugal or Italy to win it.
Bill Shankly called Stein ‘immortal’ after the match. Sadly, men such as Shankly, Stein and McNeill are also flesh and blood.
McNeill died on Monday night aged 79. he had been afflicted with dementia and was known to be unwell. Still, his death was a shock. It was followed by a torrent of appreciation, love and respect.
Sir Alex Ferguson, a former Rangers centre forward, said: ‘he was a giant in Scottish football, a man with an incredible presence. he was also a truly good man and will be a loss to everyone who knew him. Farewell Cesar.’
Statistics do McNeill justice. he made 822 appearances for Celtic from 1957 to 1975. Alongside the european Cup he won nine Scottish league titles, seven Scottish Cups and six League Cups. he earned 29 Scotland caps.
It might have been two european Cups. In 1970 McNeill led Celtic to another final, against Feyenoord in Milan. Celtic had defeated Leeds in the semi-final, the second leg being played at hampden Park in front of 136,000. They led in the final via another goal from Gemmell but lost 2-1 in extra time.
The next season Celtic lost to Ajax in the last eight despite beating Johan Cruyff’s team 1-0 at Parkhead. This was the calibre of McNeill’s Celtic.
McNeill was 17 when he joined Celtic, but it was not until Stein arrived as manager near the end of the 1964-65 season that the club began to flourish. McNeill won nothing pre-Stein.
In 1965 Celtic finished eighth in Scotland, but they did win the Scottish Cup, not long after Stein took up his post, McNeill scoring the winner against Dunfermline in the final. In Stein’s first full season Celtic claimed the club’s first league title for 12 years and a first appearance in the european Cup.
McNeill retired from playing in 1975 and two years later became Clyde manager. he was then at Aberdeen prior to Ferguson.
McNeill left Pittodrie to rejoin Celtic as Stein’s successor. Celtic regained the title in his first season and won it twice more in the next four years.
But Celtic’s penny-pinching was a growing frustration and when the club sold Charlie Nicholas to Arsenal in 1983, McNeill moved to manage Manchester City — a Second Division club. They missed out on promotion by one place in McNeill’s first season but went up in 1985. City stayed up, but at the start of 1986-87 McNeill switched to Aston Villa.
Villa, like McNeill, were former european Cup winners, but just four years after Villa’s triumph they were in sharp decline. McNeill was appointed after a 6-0 defeat by Nottingham Forest.
he was unable to stop Villa being relegated, bottom of the table, and as City also went down that season, McNeill experienced a unique double relegation.
he returned to Celtic and oversaw more triumphs, but in 1991 the unthinkable happened and Celtic sacked Cesar.
It took a while for anger to fade. Four years ago, however, the club erected a statue of McNeill outside Parkhead. he is, of course, holding the european Cup.
Celtic as a club gathered there yesterday and tears flowed. ‘I don’t mind crying for Billy,’ said an anguished Nicholas. he was not alone. As Sir Alex Ferguson said, farewell Cesar.