Managers | Manager Pics | Matches: 1999 – 2000
Personal
Fullname: John Charles Bryan Barnes
aka: John Barnes, ‘Barnesy’, Barnsie, Branes (‘Brains’)
Born: 7 November 1963
Birthplace: Kingston, Jamaica
Height 1.80 m (5 ft 11 in)
Manager: 10 June 1999 – 10 Feb 2000
Succeeding: Jozef Venglos
Successor: Kenny Dalglish / Martin O’Neill
Manager 1999 – 2000
| “It’s not important what happened at Celtic.” John Barnes on his failed tenure as Manager (2000) |
John Barnes was announced as Head Coach [i.e. manager] of Celtic on 10th June 1999. In one notable landmark, John Barnes had become the first black or non-white person to manage one of the premier clubs in Scotland, and for Celtic it was an honour to have this historic milestone in the club’s proud egalitarian history. Actually it was one of the first anywhere amongst the major clubs in European football.
The story of his impending appointment had been reported in the press, but it still came as a considerable surprise given that it was the former England international winger’s first managerial job in football. After the failure of Liam Brady in the early 1990s it was never expected that a Celtic board would make a similar decision to once again appoint a novice manager in charge of the first team.
One key difference was that Kenny Dalglish was taking a position at Celtic as Director of Football, and the choice of Barnes as ‘Head Coach‘ was clearly his, the two having been together at Liverpool, with Kenny Dalglish expected to act as the mentor. The Chairman had admitted it was a ‘high risk’ appointment, but Kenny Dalglish’s involvement was hoped to provide some comfort and support to Barnes.
There were some dissenting voices from sections of the support on this experimental set-up, but counter to what many claim now, Barnes’ appointment was generally very warmly received by most of the support albeit. For those with concerns this was alleviated in part by Kenny Dalglish’s involvement. The partnership was cringingly tagged as ‘The Dream Team‘.
As a player, he was regarded to be more intelligent than the average player (no mean feat some may argue), and he was regularly seen to be learning and talking about the game, building up his knowledge and understanding about football tactics. So this boded well. On the other hand, combined with his success as a player it all ened up going a little too much to his head, and too often he could come over as aloof, arrogant and narcissistic. At Celtic, he was to come down to earth with a bump.
By July, new signings Olivier Tebily, Stilian Petrov, Eyal Berkovic, Dmitri Kharine, Bobby Petta and the mercurial Stephane Bonnes had been secured. Berkovic’s signing from West Ham broke the Scottish transfer fee record, at £5.75m. Early results, despite a loss at Tannadice in the third league game, were very promising but there were some misgivings about the new coach’s 4-2-2-2 formation, as well as murmurings about the role that Craig Burley could be expected to play in the new system. Both the misgivings and murmurings proved well-founded when the team lost key matches to Motherwell, Lyon and Rangers in the autumn, and Craig Burley was sold to Derby County (against the then wishes of the support).
Compounding the gloom was the loss of Henrik Larsson due to a severe leg break in the first leg match in Lyon, an injury which was to keep him out for the rest of the season. Barnes moved quickly to secure ex-Arsenal legend Ian Wright as a short-term replacement, but it was a measure which did not pay off, as the ageing Wright struggled to cope with the pace of the Scottish game. Worse was that Ian Wright was deemed to be taking the role little seriously which was embarrassing to say the least to see someone so well paid pay so much lip service to the fans on the terraces.
Celtic maintained interest in the league championship race with a 1-1 draw at Parkhead against Rangers just prior to the winter break. During that time, John Barnes made another big money signing, Rafael Scheidt from Brazil, but the player would not really feature much due first to a sudden bout of appendicitis and then later an injury. The whole episode with Rafael became one of the most comical and tragic signings in the club’s history, which led even the highly regarded “When Saturday Comes” football fanzine/magazine to pen many years later a long article on the whole experience titled “The Curious Case of Rafael Scheidt“.
Some claim that Raphael Scheidt wasn’t really too bad a player but he didn’t even play enough games for the rest of the support to be able to judge if that was true, and in many ways this failed transfer is the lasting impression that highlighted Barnes’ reign as manager.
Of the number of other signings John Barnes made, none of them were unqualified successes in his time as manager. Eyal Berkovic was a bluechip signing but ended up creating internally at Celtic numerous divisions and enemies that there is no comparison. John Barnes’ biggest signing was actually making things far worse, and it didn’t bode well.
Didn’t help that John Barnes tried to implement a 4-2-2-2 system that was supposedly based on Latin American style tactics, being very overly attacking/aggressive without using wingers. The whole idea neither suited the players or the rest of the coaching staff. It was a failure and just further added to the problems at the club. The basis of the formation relies on using fast attacking full-backs up the wings, and they maybe ten-a-penny in Brazil but Barnes did not have the personnel at hand for this in his squad in Scotland. It clearly demonstrated that he was not very pragmatic.
In fairness, the use of attacking full-backs (“wing–backs“) did become an increasingly common sight over the next decade in football (and had been pioneered in part at Celtic in the past), but Barnes can’t necessarily be seen as ahead of his time as it was already better used elsewhere (such as in France) in different tactical guises. He didn’t know how to apply it properly and pick the right men for it (or know who to bring in). A cynic could fairly argue that John Barnes just saw or heard about it, and it just looked like a clever idea to use to make him look learned. The fact this formation has little been seen since at any notable club says it all, but some credit for at least experimenting.
Celtic returned from the winter break with some hopes that Celtic could push Rangers for the league title, who were admittedly fielding possibly their strongest side in their history. But those hopes suffered major set-backs with dropped points at Kilmarnock in the first league match after the winter shutdown, followed by a very discouraging loss at home to Hearts after Celtic had been leading 2-0. That last defeat more than any other finally put his general support from the terraces into the red.
Three days later John Barnes’ team crashed disastrously at home against First Division (second tier) Inverness Caledonian Thistle (8th February 2000), regarded as one of the worst cup results in the club’s history (if not the worst). Rumours of dressing room strife were rife, and later were confirmed to be fact. These incidents were revealing markedly John Barnes poor man-management skills, and his obtuse manner was creating a negative environment that was generating dissent.
The following day, John Barnes was summarily fired (along with Eric Black and Terry McDermott), despite assurances earlier in the season from senior management that he would be given plenty of time to prove himself. It was no surprise, and few (if any) actually sympathised at the time.
Kenny Dalglish stepped in as interim boss and it was more of the same underwhelming performances to the end of the season.
In retrospect, John Barnes was simply in over his head and a managerial role came to encompass far more required than the skill-set he had at the time, not that he seemed to realise or appreciate this.
His ‘mentor‘ has to take the flak for not assisting more but the buck stops with Barnes, and his arrogance and his early streak of hubris was to be Barnes’ downfall in his short reign far sooner than even the most sceptical commentator on the appointment could have predicted. From early on, insiders were already complaining of his aloofness.
When a manager has players of the calibre of Lubo, Lambert, Viduka, Berkovic, Petrov (admittedly not yet proven) and Larsson (until his injury) in their side, then he should hardly fail so badly. Yet he did.
Post-Celtic
After the disaster of his reign at Celtic it wasn’t until 2008 that he finally earned another managerial job, and that was as the manager of the Jamaican national side where he actually achieved some success in a ridiculously easy environment, going on to defeat Grenada in the final of the 2008 Caribbean Cup. It was very short lived (just 6 months), and he then moved onto Tranmere Rovers as the manager, citing he wanted a chance at club management again. As at Celtic and the Jamaican national side, his stint was again brief and he was fired after a very poor run. This time there was no way he could talk his way out of it. He simply didn’t have the ability to be a manager at a competitive level in the senior game.
In an interview in 2012, he tried to paint that partially he wasn’t given as much time in his roles possibly attributable to racism (in football & society in general). With respect to his time at Celtic, that allegation was ridiculous, offensive and completely untrue, which he should have clearly stated. He was given full support from the off and was given one of the most liberal and generous spending budgets provided to any manager ever at the club. A hugely supportive board backed him to the hilt (financially as much else), so where is the evidence they never did? In a later interview with the Guardian (October 2021), he finally clearly acknowledged issues at Celtic were NOT to do with his race.
The support were generous despite concerns over his inexperience and showed patience with him till it unravelled. His abysmal post-Celtic managerial record reflects that the board made the correct decision to cut their losses on him at Celtic (a role for which he was well paid). Former Celtic managers Lou Macari (before him) and Tony Mowbray (years later) had similarly short tenures before being axed for poor records in charge, so John Barnes’ argument doesn’t stand up against the evidence.
Simply, he continued to not be able to see the woods for the trees when it came to his own managerial record, all down to his own sheer arrogance. He had inherited the deflection tactics as commonly used by his mentor Kenny Dalglish (for whom similar tactics backfired whilst as Liverpool manager years later). Trying to deflect attention from his own managerial performance in the manner Barnes has done reflected poorly on him not Celtic or others. He was simply deluded. In years to come he was a common go to for the media on various topics. However, he had a habit to be contrarian and that seemed to frustrate many, including former sympathisers within the Liverpool support and even beyond.
He remarked in one later address that “It’s not important what happened at Celtic” but in retrospect it very much did for both his career and reputation.
In an interview in 2020 with online Celtic fan media outlet “A Celtic State of Mind“, he finally conceded he wasn’t good enough when Celtic manager, but it was a car crash of an interview. Still arrogant and deflecting any blame away from himself, he kept referring to “unconscious bias” as a shield to any argument countering his own.
There has been to date a very serious issue with respect to the under-representation of non-white managers in football, and that is something that needs to be addressed, but John Barnes cannot use that to explain his own managerial failures. He was given a great opportunity at Celtic, and the failure was all of his own making. He came over as bitter & sore from his inability to make a mark in the game beyond his playing days as well as feeling a sense of egotistical self-entitlement. In his case, a bit of humility was needed but sadly that was going to pass him by.
Regardless, all the best to him and we do wish him good fortune. It was a real baptism of fire at Celtic and it was not an easy time. He squandered his opportunities but he is still a popular figure in football’s crony media circles. So through his connections, he carved out an easy living on reality TV programmes and side-show football analysis.
Managerial Career at Celtic
Scottish Premier League
| Home | Away | Total | |||||||||||||||||||||
| SEASON | P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts | P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts | P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts | ||
| 1999-00 |
9 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 30 | 7 | 19 | 11 | 7 | 1 | 3 | 26 | 13 | 22 | 20 | 13 | 2 | 5 | 56 | 20 | 41 |
Domestic Cups
| LEAGUE CUP | SCOTTISH CUP | ||||||||||||
| SEASON | P | W | D | L | F | A | P | W | D | L | F | A | |
| 1999-00 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
UEFA Cup
| UEFA Cup | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Home | Away | Total | ||||||||||||||||||
| SEASON | P | W | D | L | F | A | P | W | D | L | F | A | P | W | D | L | F | A | ||
| 1999-00 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 1 | 6 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 13 | 2 |
Total Competitive
| SEASON | P | W | D | L | F | A |
| 1999-00 |
29 | 19 | 2 | 8 | 75 | 25 |
Major Transfers In:
Eyal Berkovic (West Ham £5.75m);
Stilian Petrov (CSKA Sofia £2m);
Dmitri Kharine (Chelsea free);
Olivier Tebily (Sheff Utd £1.25m);
Bobby Petta (Ipswich free);
Rafael Scheidt (Gremio £5.6m)
Major Transfers Out:
Simon Donnelly and Phil O’Donnell (Sheffield Wed, both free);
Craig Burley (Derby County £3m)
Quotes & Anecdotes
“I think John didn’t really know what it meant to be at Celtic.”
Henrik Larsson on John Barnes (2007)
“It’s the hardest job in Britain because of the expectancy of everyone connected with Celtic.”
John Barnes
‘John is the first team coach and is responsible for everything connected with the first team. He will pick the team, he will take the training sessions and he will have total control over the pool of players. I won’t be interfering with that. When it comes to identifying players he might want to bring into the club, or even players he decides should be leaving, then, again, he will put the names forward and then we shall have talks on how to go into the transfer market. I shall work with him on that aspect and then the negotiations regarding salaries or fees will be worked out by the finance people at the club.’
Kenny Dalglish (Jun 1999)
‘It is good that I have someone with Kenny’s experience around and, if I need advice, I know he will be there. But the responsibility for the first team is mine and I shall be talking to Eric Black soon to take on board his assessments of the playing staff. I have seen the team, I watched some of the derby games last season, but I know that have to familiarise myself with all of them. Once I have done that, we shall start to identify areas of the team which might need strengthening and that’s when Kenny and I will talk.’
John Barnes (Jun 1999)
‘Appointing John Barnes is a high risk, but, hopefully, not too high a risk. We have put in place an enormous insurance policy in the shape of Kenny Dalglish. We want this management team to grow with Celtic. What we now have is a team in place for the next five, six, seven years.’
Celtic Chairman Allan Macdonald (Jun 1999)
“Barnes does not help his own image with an affected smartness which impresses as mere pseudo-intelligence, accompanied by the supercilious posturing once favoured by the “boxer”, Chris Eubank (anyone who knows anything about the fight game will recall that he wasn’t very good, either). Whenever Barnes answers a pre- or post-match question with one of his own, it is clearly intended somehow to highlight the inferior knowledge or competence of the interrogator. Instead, he succeeds simply in making himself appear infantile and implausible, his replies at times as unfathomable as the spiel of an old-time, travelling snake oil salesman. In essence, Barnes, like his team, tends to lack substance.”
Respected journalist Glenn Gibbons on John Barnes (2000)
“I always look forward not back. It’s not important what happened at Celtic.”
John Barnes immediately set about getting back into management by addressing the Oxford Union (2000).
‘It was just an accident waiting to happen.”
John Barnes on the 3-1 defeat to Inv Caley in 2000, speaking in 2002
“What it told me is this: my whole philosophy about football was to worry about what happens on the pitch with the players. But increasingly these days you have to know more about the men you are working for. Your bosses impact on you far more than what is going on on the field.
“If they don’t support you, you are in trouble. At Celtic they were not with me. They wanted Kenny Dalglish, they didn’t want me.”
Barnes had already been subjected to criticism when Celtic lost Henrik Larsson and Paul Lambert to injury. The problems escalated swiftly.
“Player power took over because they started talking to the board of directors about things,” he laments. “There is definitely too much player power. Only Alex Ferguson is immune to it. Players aren’t accountable for their performances. When you are in a comfort zone where you know that if you lose the manager is going to get it, there is not the same pressure to give everything.”
John Barnes on his time at Celtic, interview with the Observer (2008)
“I can’t really feel that sorry for John Barnes. He had a fixed idea about team tactics and brought a lot of the problems on himself. It was common knowledge the players weren’t comfortable and the supporters were clearly unhappy. Celtic fans have been brought up on a diet of attacking football, glamorous football – but that’s not what we were getting.”
Secretary of the Association of Celtic Supporters Clubs Peter Rafferty
“Celtic is a difficult club for anyone to either play at or be involved with in management at any level. As Mr Barnes put it at his press conference, to ‘cut his teeth’ into management at Celtic was an almost impossible task from the beginning.”
Former director Brian Dempsey to BBC Scotland back (2000)
“Everybody wished it had worked a lot better but that wasn’t because there was a problem with my role or John’s role. It didn’t work because we didn’t win enough games. Henrik Larsson breaking his leg early that season didn’t help either.”
Kenny Dalglish on his managerial time at Celtic (2017)
“People say I wasn’t qualified for the job in the first place, but I was equally as qualified as Kenny Dalglish had been when he took over at Liverpool or Bryan Robson when he took over at Middlesbrough.
“People say I was a failure. And the defeat by Caly was really bad. But when I was sacked, there was only one permanent manager who had a better win percentage than me and that was Jock Stein.
“Black managers have to be more successful than white managers. People say I have been a failure as a manager. I disagree with the assessment, but fair enough.”
John Barnes clearly illustrating his delusions and deflection tactics (2017), link
“People call me stubborn/arrogant before even knowing me….”
Then goes in the same interview later: “You’ll never change my mind ever!”
John Barnes (2020)
“I prefer to talk about it generally because my time at Celtic had nothing to do with race. It had to do with the fact that the English don’t know much about Scottish football.
“I was a first-time manager and the perception, which is media indoctrination, is that my time was a disaster. On a 65% win rate? After Jock Stein I had the largest percentage of wins than any other first-time manager at Celtic … in the history of Celtic managers, as far as win percentages goes, I’m the fourth or fifth best manager. But I had problems from the beginning and knew it wouldn’t last. I prefer to talk about the general absence of black managers today.”
John Barnes on his time at Celtic to the Guardian (Oct 2021)
“That was actually in pre-season in Norway. But we went to Portugal on the winter break as well. And that was when we first started working with him. We were sitting there, Tommy [Johnson], Craig [Burley] and [Alan] Stubbsy were all in Norway and in a wee coffee shop. Tommy Johnson was sitting with a cup of Coca Cola and John, the manager, took a drink of it to see if it was alcohol, which it wasn’t, but he kind of lost them straight away from pre-season.”
Jackie McNamara revealed an incident between the ex-Hoops boss and key first-team players pre-season; example demonstrating John Barnes got off on wrong foot with all (2023)
Notes
- In July 1999, Celtic defeated Newcastle 2-0 in a friendly, which possibly was the first time that two opposing managers of clubs in the UK (in the top tiers) were black. Albeit this was a friendly, but still a notable landmark.
Pictures
Interview
Articles
Stiliyan Petrov on Celtic dressing room chaos under John Barnes as fights and cliques made settling in hard
Petrov arrived at Parkhead as a 19-year-old and encountered a dressing room that the manage that little control over.
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Sport
ByRoss Pilcher
14:08, 27 MAR 2023
Stylian Petrov during a charity match between Liverpool Legends and Celtic Legends at Anfield
Stiliyan Petrov struggled to settle into life at Celtic due to the dressing room chaos that reigned under John Barnes.
The Bulgarian arrived at Parkhead as a fresh faced 19-year-old under the Liverpool legend, but his time in charge was a turbulent one that ended after a shock Scottish Cup defeat to Inverness Caledonian Thistle. As a young recent arrival who spoke little English, Petrov struggled to make much sense of what was going on.
But he knew enough to realise that all was not well, with fights breaking out regularly and clear cliques forming amongst the squad and Barnes had little control over the big characters. He told FourFourTwo: “I couldn’t understand much of what was going on, due to the language barrier, but there was always fighting I could see little cliques and problems. He couldn’t control the powerful characters. It was John’s first job since retiring as a player, and a big one for him.
“The team was winning, but we had many internal issues. The players weren’t giving everything for him. Sometimes a job can come a bit too early for someone, but that doesn’t mean they’re a bad manager.”
Things improved for the club and Petrov himself after Martin O’Neill came in, leading the Hoops to a Treble in his first season. Petrov added: “He was clear about what he wanted. He took the players he needed from the previous era – the ones with character, fire and quality – and built his own team.
“He brought in Alan Thompson, Chris Sutton, Neil Lennon, Bobo Balde, Joos Valgaeren – huge players for us. Martin knew how to build a team of warriors. We didn’t fear anyone; we played Barcelona, Lyon and Liverpool, and we weren’t scared. Teams feared us when they came to Celtic Park. We had such togetherness and we had winners, and we were hungry for success.”