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It didn't exactly go down well with the Fourth Estate.
Below are printed some of the juicier and more affronted comments written about the Press Conference.
Jim Traynor in particular as football mouthpiece for the odious Daily Record would go on and on about it for weeks whenever he was given a chance in the 'newspaper' and in his position as a pundit with BBC Radio Scotland. Keevins, his colleague and mouthpiece with Radio Clyde would go further and receive a banning from a third party at the next impromptu Press Conference.
Paranoid? Naw, yer just pickin' oan Celtic – Jim McBeth, The Scotsman
The Scotsman 25/03/2000
Jim McBeth
ARGUABLY the finest British footballer of his generation arrives wearing a nice jacket, a scowl and his paranoia lightly draped in green and white.
Kenny Dalglish is calm, holding it together for the moment, but, then, no-one has asked him a question yet. He is accompanied by a bleached blond member of the Celtic playing staff whose name is pronounced "reset". In the east end of Glasgow, that word, thus pronounced, generally refers to the transfer of stolen property from one person to another person.
We are all in the Gallowgate. No problem there, then. To be precise, the venue is Baird's Bar, in the Gallowgate, a stone's throw from the Holy Ground. It seems a strange venue for a press conference? All will be explained. Stay where you are.
For the moment; back to "reset". In the circumstances, the linguistic connection is apt. Mr Dalglish is, he avers, the personal victim of criminal behaviour. Ergo, the world, or more particularly the media (sections thereof) is against him… Celtic… probably his dog too… and almost certainly that gerbil he had when he was five.
Which is why he is here in a Celtic supporters' pub rather than at Parkhead; in fact, the Celtic supporters' pub.
Mr Dalglish is seeking accuracy and he does not trust us (the media) to deliver it. The break with press conference tradition is because he desires the "punters" to hear his actual words; truth from the fountainhead itself.
In this way, when we, the media, distort his comments beyond all recognition in our respective periodicals today, the "punters" will at least know the truth.
Mr Dalglish makes no secret of this motive. It would probably not occur to him that behaviour such as this could be construed as disgraceful, at worst, and insulting at best.
However, he is a former football player and is currently a manager, immersed in Celtic's epic past, ambitious present and complex future.
As a young player, he was also massively influenced by the late Celtic manager, Jock Stein, a man of stupendous talent but little charm.
Therefore, Mr Dalglish is a God; his "punters" – a faintly embarrassing and patronising word, it seems – confirm it. Good manners are not a prerequisite.
Perhaps it is the media's fault for tolerating such behaviour and accepting insults, which under other circumstances might provoke the delivery of a Govan kiss to the forehead.
Still, that is another issue.
Presently, conversely, Mr Reset – more accurately Vidar Riseth, the Norwegian defender – is oozing bemused charm.
"Eet is very important to beeeet Rangersss in every game we play with them," he says in an engaging accent, in reference to tomorrow's Old Firm derby.
Mr Dalglish says: "Yoosurawansthatjumpoanabandwagon cositsabetturstory." It is a blessing that at least one of them is speaking English.
Loosely translated, Mr Dalglish indicates that there is an anti-Celtic agenda; that the media write nonsense because "animosity" sells and we make him, in his own words, "a liar". He is anxious that truth should prevail.
"I've had press conferences in pubs before, but not with Celtic," said Mr Dalglish, who addressed reporters in a pub outside Durham when he parted company with Newcastle.
"I feel pretty comfortable. I don't know about anybody else!" he added. Pointedly.
As he speaks – or jousts -in that peculiarly aggressive manner he employs, one is suddenly enlightened.
Mr Dalglish apparently loses the plot and launches into a tirade of Milton-speak because he does not always understand the questions put to him.
After a long number of minutes pondering upon this personality trait, it is now abundantly clear. Mr Dalglish is a man who, as the recipient of "hello", replies: "Hello, whidye mean hello?"
Example. A question: "What area of the field would you believe to be the most vital in the game against Rangers?"
Answer: "The pitch!"
Even among friends, he is defensive, and he could not be more truly entrenched in the hearts of his faithful than in Baird's Bar.
To describe it as a shrine to Celtic Football Club is to suggest Lourdes might be a bit Catholic. Talking of religion.
A man, his face clearly modelled on a tangerine and who is the worse for alcohol, inquires of me: "You a Ca'fflick, by the way?"
May God and Mary, His Blessed Mother, believe me, I claimed to be a Protestant before I knew what I was doing.
Confessions are at 6pm this evening, I understand. Talking of confession.
Mr Dalglish continues in confessional mood, not as a sinner, but, naturally, as one sinned against. Even while applauding Celtic's 2-0 victory over Aberdeen in the CIS Insurance Cup last week, he is capable of a binary classification of comment.
"A lot of positive things came out of that in spite of the negativity that has been written about it."
Negativity was very little in evidence when Mr Dalglish arrived in the pub. Spontaneous applause, allied to shouts of "Kennnny", filled a bar, in which not one inch of wall space is free of club paraphernalia.
It is a cathedral dedicated to one team, where the faithful meet to adore the Godhead that is Celtic Football Club.
One die-hard reflects upon Celtic's chances of winning "the league" in language so peppered with expletives that it is unquotable.
Overcome by the emotion of the moment, he entreats the newly arrived Mr Dalglish to go "away and make sure you beat they f*****' Rangers bastards, RIGHT!"
Mr Dalglish is noncommittal, but clearly he is in sympathy with an ambition delivered with such clarity of thought.
The said gentleman turns, looks towards the gantry of the bar and inquires apropos nothing and to no-one in particular: "Hiz oany bastard actually boaght any a'that Malibu yet?"
Mr Dalglish, tidy in a light checked jacket, black shirt and black trousers, is a youthful 48-year-old with his own teeth and hair untinged by the grey of age.
His picture on the wall, appropriately situated above where he holds court, depicts the younger mop-topped "Kennnny" who took British football by storm in the Seventies and Eighties.
He is sitting on a bench behind a green table, naturally, and just below the Caravelle wall juke box, which, minutes before, had been belting out I've Been A Wild Rover.
He offered a joke: "This place has never been this busy on a Friday afternoon."
It was never going to bring the house down. However, it was a brave effort.
Mr Dalglish is not a man who usually requires to be assisted to the floor while the rest of his party attempt to remove his whirling bow-tie. Significantly, no drink appears before him.
It is perhaps just as well. He might very well be the type that gets aggressive with drink.
Of all the 35ML joints in all the world, he had to walk into this one. – Jim Traynor, The Daily Record
Daily Record 25/03/2000
JAMES TRAYNOR
THE smell of Golden Virginia hung heavily in the air above the usual brooding figures you'll find strung out along any bar in the less salubrious areas of any city.
It was one of those pubs where people go to practice a form of yoga known only to locals in places like the Gallowgate.
Men, and one or two women who look as though life has kicked them too many times, stand rigidly, hands clenched on the bar with a pint or half in between.
They stare at their drinks with such intensity you suspect they must be trying to make their glasses levitate and they can stand this way for hours. Yet, although they seem oblivious to the clamour around them as the Friday afternoon trade accelerates, they can emerge from their trance-like states instantly if their space is invaded.
Something like that happened yesterday in Bairds Bar when Kenny Dalglish walked in and took a seat in the corner of the lounge just under the Karaoke machine. Of all the 35ml joints in all the world, he had to walk into this one.
Even if you aren't exactly Armani Man you wouldn't take your wife to the Gallowgate for a pre-theatre gargle. In fact, you wouldn't take anybody else's wife there either.
Yet, according to Dalglish it's worth wandering into a place like Bairds Bar once in a while for a blether and instead of holding his usual pre-match gab inside Celtic Park, he invited the media to come and see him in the most famous – many would rather see that as infamous – Celtic pub in the country.
It was certainly a departure from the norm with Dalglish thinking aloud that it would be no bad thing for the punters to see how hacks go about their business. The game's supporters can see players train and play but are rarely given an insight into the methods of the football writer.
Nice of Kenny to be so concerned about the Fourth Estate and our relationship with the public.
Still surrounded by optics, the hacks felt at home and if the intention had been to let some of the wilder element among Celtic's support have a go at the hacks it didn't work.
Tommy Carberry's customers don't misbehave, well not while he's on the premises and, believe me, there are usually some wild-looking characters shuffling around.
In fact, Carberry has a picture poster depicting ancient Glasgow characters but they don't come close to the real things, the people who frequent his shop.
They range from the downright mean to the sharp-witted streetwise, who come up with more one-liners in normal conversation than a team of comedy writers. Strangely, there is also more passion in a place like this, where people who have little left cling to whatever is available.
The people in Bairds, like Wee Peter, Denny and Pat, tend to hold on to their team and they ask: "D'ye think the Cellic will win oan Sunday?"
They want you to answer "yes" and seem genuinely pained if you hesitate.
"C'moan, tell us James. Are you a Tim? The boays in the bar want tae know," one of them asked repeatedly."Goan, jist say ye ur, even if ye urny."
The stories of hard lives, of how their dreams were broken and their hopes shattered are written on these faces for anyone to read, but they can still smile and they continue to give Dalglish, one of their heroes, his place and the best of order.
Mostly they stood in revered silence as he spoke to the media, although one of the many wee men who flock to these places kept asking his question: "Goan, ur ye a Tim? Gonnae tell us, ye cin jist whisper it an ah'll no listen."
A Gallowgate boy himself, Carberry understands these people and a steady flow from the bar was allowed so that anyone who wanted to see Dalglish up close could.
But they were as baffled as the newspaper men who shot glances at their surroundings. A sign just above Dalglish's head read: "The VAT man has killed more men than Hitler."
Behind the Celtic manager another proclaimed: "The Time is Right."
Dalglish must hope the time is right because the same people who welcomed him into Bairds Bar yesterday won't be as warm should the final Old Firm match of this season go Rangers' way tomorrow.
If Dalglish wants to keep these people on his and Celtic's side then they must win at Ibrox and prevent Rangers from opening up a 15-point gap.
That would be embarrassing and Carberry's place might not be large enough to cope with the numbers who would be desperate to drown their sorrows.
There weren't too many in this pub yesterday who believed Celtic would win the final Old Firm contest but one old fellah, who was so slight he took up no space at all, reckoned he knew how to make Dalglish's side play better.
Pointing a nicotine-stained finger at Vidar Riseth, who had accompanied Dalglish during this walk into the real world, said: "If a few more like him would come in here on a Saturday night and see people who have lost or ruined everything breaking their hearts because the team lost they might try a bit harder."
I just had to drink to that.
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Bairds Bar Gallowgate.
Jackie,(bar staff) Holy Goalie, Big Pat, (singer) Naka, Jim, (bar staff) Jordan, (cads bhoy)
Cad, (owner) Mick, (tumbler lifter) Jarvie, (manager) Alan, ( signer shebeen) Dionne.(bar staff)
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