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Fullname: Peter Grant
aka: Pointer, Pope
Born: 30 August 1965
Birthplace: Bellshill, Scotland
Signed: 27 July 1982 (turned pro from youths)
Left: 22 August 1997
Position: Midfielder
First game: Rangers 0-1 away 21 April 1984 league
Last game: Saint Johnstone away 1-0 27 August 1997 league cup
First goal: Airdrie away 4-0 27 August 1984 league cup
Last goal: Raith Rovers home 4-1 4 May 1996 league
Internationals: Scotland
International Caps: 2 caps
International Goals: 0
Biog
Paul McStay, Celtic’s captain and Grant’s lifelong friend.
Peter Grant was a die-hard Celtic fan who displayed his pride in the club like a badge of honour.
The Bellshill-born Bhoy was a schoolboy signing for the Hoops and turned professional with the club in July 1982, having like many before him worked his way through the Celtic Boys Club winning numerous awards there. The blonde midfielder made his first team debut as an 18-year-old in a 1-0 defeat at Ibrox in a league clash on 21st April 1984.
A tenacious ball winner, if limited when in possession, it took Peter Grant a couple of seasons to really establish himself as a regular first team starter, being in competition with the likes of Paul McStay and Murdo MacLeod for a central midfield slot.
His greatest season in the Hoops came in the club’s memorable Centenary season (1987-88). With MacLeod now moved on to Germany, Grant slotted into the central midfield beside the outstanding McStay and the pair formed a formidable partnership. Grant revelled in his role as ball winner, with McStay using his superb vision and peerless passing ability to destroy defences.
But Peter Grant was also showing glimpses that there was more to his game than being a midfield work-horse. He looked much more comfortable and confident on the ball and his play was neat and effective. He also scored one of the most memorable goals of that ‘Double’ winning campaign with a 30-yard howitzer past a stunned Andy Goram as Celtic beat Hibs 2-0 at Easter Road.
A broken foot a month before the end of the season couldn’t ruin what had been a great campaign for the player. Scotland caps and a Scottish Cup winners medal followed during the next term but those waiting for Grant to continue his progress would be disappointed. Grant’s form and confidence dipped as Celtic seemed to stagger from one crisis to another.
Despite transfer talk his passion and commitment remained although those attributes could not disguise the failings in his game. A string of trophyless seasons at Celtic under Liam Brady and Lou Macari hurt Grant as much as it did any other Celtic fan, so it was a sweet moment for both player and supporters when the Hoops ended their barren run by lifting the Scottish Cup of 1995. The 1-0 final victory was no classic but Peter Grant was outstanding. Despite carrying an injury he played through the pain barrier and was at his tigerish best.
The shock League Cup final defeat to Raith Rovers was fresh in the memory and Grant more than anyone else ensured there would be no repeat of that debacle. His part in the Scottish Cup victory in 1995 cannot be overstated, he was everywhere on that pitch, hunting down every lost ball, giving his all and busting a gut. Some even dubbed the match as the “Peter Grant Final” afterwards. He deserved the plaudits and praise.
That magnificent performance would be his last significant contribution to the Hoops cause.
He was awarded a Testimonial against Bayern Munich on 22 January 1997 which was much deserved, especially after all the years and the mayhem in the barren trophy days of the early 1990s.
He would depart during season 1997-98 for Norwich but he was back at Parkhead for the last game of the season when the Bhoys would clinch the title and end Rangers’ bid for 10-in-a-row. It would have been fitting if he was still at the club when Celtic won the league title, but maybe it was his departure with that of others that led to the fresh outlook that led to the title victory.
What must be said added about Peter Grant is his absolute love for the club. He never hid it, and could express it too often (in the papers etc) which for whatever reason won him the novel nickname from the fans of ‘The Pope‘. However, he was better known by the support as ‘The Pointer‘ mainly due to his knack for telling colleagues what to do and where to go by pointing all the time, nickname was all in humour.
The support loved him but no doubts that despite their love for him and his for the club & support, the truth was that he was not a great player. His enthusiasm and work-rate papered over some of the cracks, but when it all came together he was more than worth more than his weight in gold.
One episode clearly illustrates the good & bad side to Peter Grant’s commitment to Celtic. In a match on 17th March 1991 against Rangers, since dubbed the St Patrick’s Day massacre, Peter Grant conceded a free-kick not far outside our box which earned him a yellow card. Adrenaline, stupidity or whatever else then led him to not hold his place in the wall and he charged down the free-kick which earned him a second yellow and thus a red card. Worse was that it was early in the game when this occurred. Luckily, some Rangers players got sent off later and Celtic won out the day.
However, it was Peter Grant’s over-enthusiasm & blind-love that got him the daft red card. In general, this genuine love for the club he had could blind him in his decision making and remove the level headedness sometimes needed. On a number of occasions, his commitment was really valued and did make a positive difference (such as the 1995 Scottish Cup final), but other times it was a handicap to himself.
Overall, he may not have had the great natural talent or skill as many other midfield players we have had in our ranks, but you need a mix in a squad. Peter Grant never hid and despite not convincing all the supporters (and he had plenty of critics on the playing front) he never let anyone get to him and ploughed on. Winning the ball, playing a role similar to a holding midfielder were his best aspects, and he did his best.
Must add that the club were badly managed for a large spell in his time at the club. After, the centenary season, McNeill was in decline and Liam Brady was a poor coach, whilst Lou Macari was a disaster (with Peter Grant openly berating Macari straight after his sacking). In that environment, few if any players are going to develop well to their full potential. In that sense, Peter Grant suffered as much as did some of the more illustrious names the club have had in the midfield (like Collins & McStay).
Regardless, the support is lucky to have had someone like him in Celtic’s ranks. He’ll always be a Celtic man and the support will always respect him, and it is something he has taken very much to heart:
“One of the greatest things for me after all these years is that I’m still remembered as ‘Peter Grant of Celtic’.”
Post-Playing Career
Grant would later become a coach at Bournemouth and West Ham and had an unsuccessful spell as manager of his old club Norwich. Grant then joined West Bromwich Albion as first-team coach, joining forces with former team-mate and then manager Tony Mowbray. After an unsuccessful season in the Premier League, Grant left the Baggies to make an emotional return with newly-appointed Celtic manager Tony Mowbray to Paradise at the start of the 2009-10 season.
It was a very disappointing and unsuccessful stint for Celtic, and Grant got it in the neck as much as all else. Stories abounded that Peter Grant had difficulty with popular coach Neil Lennon, and this never helped his case publicly . When Tony Mowbray resigned from Celtic on 25th March 2010, Peter Grant followed. It was a sad end for Grant. He is 100% committed to Celtic and loves the club, and his failure again is something that he will likely have taken hard.
Sometimes it just doesn’t work out. Tommy Burns was similarly a died in the wool Celtic fanatic but was an unsuccessful manager for Celtic. Peter Grant knew him very well and can recognise that also. For all Peter Grant’s efforts at Celtic, as both a player and as a coach, he has deserved to achieve much more at the club, and some ways he has not matched what he could have or deserved to. No matter what, he will always remain a true Celt at heart and the support will always remember that.
He moved on to become first team coach at Birmingham City under ex-Motherwell, Hibernian and Rangers manager Alex McLeish and moved with McLeish to Aston Villa in 2011. Both were sacked after one season and moved on to Nottingham Forest in December 2012. In June 2014, Peter Grant took up a role as first team coach at Fulham changing to Professional Development / U21 coach in September. He continued to play a part in development at Fulham over the next few years.
A proud moment for Peter Grant came when he watched his son play for Falkirk in the Scottish Cup final in 2015 and see him score, but sadly he could not emulate his father as Falkirk lost 2-1. Still a great emotional family moment.
Peter Grant was appointed Alloa Athletic manager in 2019, and then moved to Dunfermline in 2021 for a short but unsuccessful spell there.
He was reportedly part of a proposed coaching team to work with Eddie Howe who was a prime candidate to take over as manager at Celtic in 2021, but it all fell through, and Ange Postecoglou was named as the Celtic manager. The rest as they say is history.
We wish him very well, a popular figure from the Celtic annals.
Playing Career
| Club | From | To | Fee | League | Scottish/FA Cup | League cup | Other | ||||
| Bournemouth | 01/07/2000 | 01/07/2002 | Free | 14 (1) | 0 | 0 (0) | 0 | 2 (0) | 0 | 1 (0) | 0 |
| Reading | 20/08/1999 | 01/07/2000 | Free | 27 (2) | 1 | 0 (4) | 0 | 3 (0) | 0 | 2 (0) | 0 |
| Norwich | 22/08/1997 | 20/08/1999 | £200,000 | 64 (4) | 3 | 2 (0) | 0 | 4 (1) | 0 | 0 (0) | 0 |
| Celtic | 27/07/1982 | 22/08/1997 | Youth | 361 (1) | 15 | 34 (4) | 1 | 40 (3) | 3 | 27 (0) | 1 |
| Totals | £200,000 | 466 (8) | 19 | 36 (8) | 1 | 49 (4) | 3 | 30 (0) | 1 | ||
| goals / game | 0.04 | 0.02 | 0.05 | 0.03 | |||||||
| Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | ||||
Honours with Celtic
Scottish League Championship
Scottish Cup
Pictures
Articles
Testimonial Match
Quote
“He has a commitment to the club that is second to none.”
Paul McStay, Celtic’s captain and Grant’s lifelong friend.
“One of the greatest things for me after all these years is that I’m still remembered as ‘Peter Grant of Celtic’.”
Peter Grant
“I remember Paul McStay saying to Krankl, in very clear English, ‘ You’re a cheat’. The bottle had landed 20 yards away from their player.”
Peter Grant, 2003, on the Rapid Vienna fiasco. Krankl was Vienna’s captain.
“I don’t remember any fist fights when I was at Celtic, but there is always aggression when you have Peter Grant in your team!”
Pierre Van Hooijdonk, Feb 09
“I never ever kissed the badge because you never knew what might happen, the next day you could’ve been away.”
Peter Grant (2018)
“Scoring the winning goal in that final and seeing the joy and happiness of the fans and players made me realise how important it was for Celtic after six years without a trophy.
“I remember everything about the goal. A ball was kicked away and it ended up at the feet of Tosh McKinlay who put an early cross in towards the back post. I jumped just a little bit higher than my opponent and headed a diagonal header into the ground and it went into the far corner.
“The moment when I really realised what it all meant was when the game finished and I saw Paul McStay and Peter Grant, two real Celtic men, crying on the pitch and hugging each other for 10 or 15 minutes, that´s when I realised what this club meant.”
Pierre Van Hooijdonk (May 2013)
“You leave Celtic but Celtic never leaves you!”
Peter Grant (May 2021)
“If you looked around the dressing room and Peter Grant was in your side, then we knew we were okay!”
Tosh McKinlay (2024)
The Celtic manager Tommy Burns was going round the room before a Celtic v Rangers giving prep talks, and comes to Peter Grant:
Tommy Burns: “Gascoigne, first five minutes, put him out the game!” [likely to everyone’s shock]
Peter Grant: “But Boss, I might get sent aff!”
Tommy Burns: “Don’t worry Granty, they’ll miss him more than we’ll miss you!” [cue lots of laughter follows]
Tosh McKinlay recalling the story to ACSOM (2024)
Anecdote
“On the night Celtic won the league against Dundee in the Centenary season, Peter Grant, leg in a stookie, came down to London to the No.1 supporters dance. He stayed all night, got photos taken, got on stage and sang a song (for which some tosspot grassed on him, probably the only person in the entire place that night who didn’t enjoy the old Jungle standards). There are players today who would have used any excuse not to be there…Won the league? Feck it, I’m not going. Broken leg? Feck it, I’m not going. Grant could quite easily have not turned up, but he knows the importance of the fans to the club, unlike today’s primadonnas who get pissed off playing on bumpy old Barrowfield and then pissed off driving so far to leafy Lennoxtown. You could count on the finger of one finger those who would do what Grant did. Too many of today’s ‘superstars’ don’t have a clue what makes the club tick.”
TC67 of KStreet Forum
The “fish phobia” myth
During team-mate Paolo Di Canio’s first preseason tour with Celtic, the madcap Italian recalled how he baited Peter Grant, his new captain.
Di Canio recalled: “By sheer chance, I discovered Peter had a phobia about fish. I decided to exploit it for my own amusement.”
So one night, he sneaked down to the hotel kitchen and found a huge, fresh salmon head.
Di Canio put the head in a plastic bag, went back up to the room where Grant was lying down and tossed the fish casually on the bed.
Grant ran to the other side of the room, yelling and staring at the salmon with terror. Di Canio pretended to play dumb even though it dawned that Grant’s horror wasn’t an act and eventually started chasing him around the room with the fish until Grant found sanctuary by locking himself in the bathroom, from where he shouted ‘Di Canio, you’re a f***ing madman’.
Di Canio was laughing so much there were tears in his eyes but when he realised Grant wasn’t prepared to come out of the bathroom, he tried a different tactic, insisting he’d got rid of the fish while actually having hid it under Grant’s duvet. When Grant was persuaded the room had been cleared, he went to his bed, pulled back the duvet and “let out a blood-curdling cry”.
“He was so shocked, he just lay there, breathing really fast. Eventually I got rid of the fish but it was a while before Peter spoke to me again. Despite this incident, we became very good mates.”
HOWEVER, the ghost-writer of Di Canio’s book took some artistic license with the above story as Peter Grant explains:
“I’m aware of what Paolo wrote [in his autobiography] but the truth of the matter was that it was more like a shark’s head he’d put in my bed. I think most people would have been a bit startled by it. But I don’t have a fish phobia, I’ve got no problem with fish at all.”
So there you go… the story is a load of pollocks!