William ‘Billy’ Mcneill

Celtic legend, leader of Lisbon Lions, Scottish internationalist

William “Billy” Mcneill MBE – Celtic footballing legend. Born: 2 March 1940 in Bellshill, North Lanarkshire. Died: 22 April 2019 in Glasgow, aged 79

Abad year for Scottish football got worse on Tuesday, with the news that Billy Mcneill, the greatest Celtic player and a true legend of the game, had lost his long and public battle with dementia.

The image of Mcneill, standing on the balcony in Lisbon’s National Stadium, holding aloft the newly minted European Cup is one of the iconic football ones. It has been replicated in bronze in front of Celtic Park, capturing as it does the greatest moment in the near 150-year history of Scotland and the Beautiful Game.

Mcneill’s club career is the stuff of legend. Born in Bellshill, the son of an Army PTO, he – apart from a short spell in England, where he went to a rugby-playing school – was a commanding centre half throughout his six years at Motherwell’s Our Lady’s High School.

He won Scotland Under-18 schoolboy honours, and his performance in a 3-0 win over England at Celtic Park in 1957, according to legend, forced the watching Jock Stein to tell Chairman Sir Robert Kelly: “We must get that boy to the club.”

Mcneill needed little persuading.he left school, worked briefly for Lanarkshire County Council, then for Stenhouse, the insurance brokers, but, still a part-timer, he made his firstteam debut against Clyde in August 1958. Celtic won.

He had to wait for his turn, since Bobby Evans was the incumbent Celtic and Scotland centre-half. However, Evans’ transfer to Chelsea in 1960 saw Mcneill take over. He was still a part-timer, as he would continue to be until, after a successful apprenticeship via the Under-23 and Scottish League teams, he made his Scotland debut, in the notorious 9-3 Wembley loss to England in 1961.

Mcneill emerged from that disaster with some credit, but, in what was to be a feature of his career, he never replicated at international level the success he would enjoy at his club. He only won 29 caps over an 11-year period, only led Scotland eight times, and was never the automatic choice for his country he was at club level.

Certainly, some injuries restricted his international appearances, but, at a time when the central defensive partnership of Mcneill and John Clark at Celtic was recognised as just about the best in the business, they were only ever picked together once, in a 2-0 defeat to USSR in 1967.

The Celtic team which Mcneill broke into was long on promise, short on silverware, and it was not until Stein was brought back as manager in February, 1965, that the club’s fortunes turned. This was a fortuitous move for Mcneill, who, disappointed at the way the club was stagnating, was contemplaing asking for a transfer.

Stein’s return altered the Scottish football landscape totally and it was a towering Mcneill header which secured a 3-2 Scottish Cup final victory over Dunfermline in 1965, ending the club’s near eight year trophy drought and signalling the start of something special.

A League and League Cup double in 1966 demonstrated how the Stein revolution had changed things, but, Scottish football had not seen anything yet. In 1967 Celtic won every competition they entered, their season capped with that iconic image of Mcneill holding aloft the European Cup, after holders Inter Milan had been totally crushed. The result might have been 2-1, the reality was, Celtic won by a mile. The legend of the Lisbon Lions was born.

The following years brought fantastic success, nine league wins in a row, other cup successes. In all, Mcneill would go on – before he quit at the top – his last act as a footballer was to lift the Scottish Cup following victory over Airdrie in 1975 – to lift a then record 23 trophies as Celtic captain.

He retired, after 789 games for the club, all those trophies and medals, a Footballer of the Year award and an MBE for his services to the game.

He took a break for some 18 months, concentrating on a burgeoning business portfolio, but Clyde persuaded him to return to the game as manager and a record of four wins and three draws in eight games as a manager, saw him lured to Aberdeen in 1977 to follow Ally Macleod, who had become the Scotland manager.

At Pittodrie, he won the League Cup, and gave Jock Wallace’s treble-winning side a terrific run for their money. He had proved himself a more than competent manager, so, when the strained relation

“Ifeveramanwas made for one club, it was Billy Mcneill and Celtic; his heart was always at Parkhead”