TIME WILL HEAL THESE WOUNDS
Strachan believes once the dust has settled, Celtic fans will appreciate the success Lennon has had with club... just like they did with Tommy Burns
IT will come as little consolation to Neil Lennon right now but the hurt he feels at how it has all ended at Celtic puts him in esteemed company.
Billy McNeill, the man who lifted the European Cup, was twice handed his P45 by the club. Kenny Dalglish was also shown the door, as was Tommy Burns, the man who described himself as the supporter who got lucky.
In each case, time was the great healer. Once the dust clouds of anger and tumult cleared, the goals and the glory remained.
This is how Gordon Strachan believes it will also be for Lennon; defined not by the poverty of the past eight months but by the untold riches of the past two decades as player and manager.
‘Tommy Burns is probably the most loved Celtic player of all time because he was a genuine fan,’ said Strachan.
‘And when Tommy was the manager, that was his thing — about letting the fans down. And Neil picked up on that as well.
‘Tommy felt bad about this, really bad. Over the years, Tommy didn’t win the league, he won the cup and lost in a League Cup final.
‘But, when all is said and done, he is probably the most loved Celtic person of all time. And that is what is going to happen to Neil Lennon.
‘He is going to come back, people will forget this last six months and remember all the good things he has done. There will be a rebirth then.
‘That is going to happen. If you look at the history of the past 20 years, he’s been involved in most of it — the historic moments of winning things when Martin (O’Neill) was there, up to when I was there (below).
‘He was the manager when they beat Barcelona. Think about that.’
There is no shortcut to the cathartic process. When the build-up to a season has been so great and the letdown so colossal, it takes a lot of time to come to terms with it all.
‘I think what Neil will be worried about just now is what people think about him,’ Strachan told FootballPass.
‘I know he feels he has let the club down, which you kind of always get as a manager who has to move on.
‘But more so being a player, a captain, a winning captain, a winning manager.
‘You see the delight you give these people, the excitement you bring, the uplift you give to their lives.
‘But, on the other side of it, when there’s a negativity about it, you feel responsible. And what he’s done has taken it all on his own shoulders. That’s a problem for him at the moment.
‘He has had to deal with walls and obstacles all his life — which he has got over.
‘That is what has made him the man who can manage Celtic through all sorts of trouble.’
What Lennon has endured in his time in Glasgow shames the country he’s called home for 20 years. Bullets in the post, attacks on the street and on the touchline, vile graffiti.
Lesser men would have walked away and opted for a quieter, safer life for himself and his family. That was never countenanced.
‘He’s had to take some flak,’ said Strachan. ‘As a manager, a player or a captain, you put your family aside at times and that’s wrong. I know that’s wrong.
‘But that’s what he’s done for the Celtic family. I don’t care what anybody feels like at this moment, no one feels as bad as him.
‘Celtic fans in general could see he was hurting. It was hurting them to see him hurting. It’s like seeing a friend who’s hurting. There will be more about that in the coming days.’
Strachan’s own experience of leaving the post after four years in 2009 was a melting pot of emotions.
He can testify to a sense of comfort at finally knowing shelter from the storm. In time, though, there was an emptiness to his everyday life.
‘There’s relief that it stops now — this non-stop questioning of your integrity, intelligence and honesty. It’s non-stop,’ he said.
‘People are out to humiliate you. A lot of that is gone.
‘Then, after a couple of weeks, you realise you are missing your job. That becomes another phase. And after that, you get round to doing some other things.’
Strachan’s six months out of the game ended when he took charge at Middlesbrough.
Lennon’s next step is less clear. Bolton, his one and only job in England, proved to be an unhappy post. Hibs was a hand-in-glove fit for long enough but Celtic was always where his heart lay.
He turns 50 in June and has accrued enough experience and enjoyed enough success to be an attractive candidate to other clubs.
But Strachan asked: ‘Where do you go after this? It’s not easy leaving the Celtic job. Players find it’s not easy leaving a big club like this.
‘The players who left (when I was manager), no one did anything apart from Stiliyan (Petrov). It was too much of a body blow to go and do it again somewhere else.
‘Stiliyan was young enough to have the drive to do very well at Aston Villa.
‘It’s hard to see what he (Lennon) will want to do with himself. He had a shot at Bolton but didn’t enjoy that.
‘The strange thing is that, after a period of time, you miss the madness of the west of Scotland.
‘You’ve now got this normal life. How do I deal with it?
‘You wish some reporter would ask you a stupid question and you could tell them to shut up! You miss that part of it.’
However wretched this season has been, even Lennon’s harshest critics would concede the club will miss him, too.
A winner of five league titles as both a player and a manager, no figure has been more entwined with the fabric of the club this century.
‘We look at it and go: “Wow”, what a period he’s had at Celtic,’ added Strachan.
‘He’s up there with the top people that’s ever played for the club.
‘He’s managed the club, coached the club, he’s been everything.
‘He’s a brave man as well. He might have gone about in the group of lads, but he always had his own mindset.
‘When I first went into Celtic as an open book, some may have had pre-conceived ideas about what I was. He just went: “Let’s see what you’ve got and I’ll back you”.
‘He’s clever and he’s stubborn and he’s honest. I’ll forever be grateful to him.
‘I look at what he did last year (sealing a quadruple Treble)... the Barcelona night was just truly magnificent. There were grown men crying.
‘I liked these two things. And I liked the stupid manager taking him off in his last game for Celtic! That was me by the way…’