McCarra, Kevin – The Celtic Wiki

Details

Name: Kevin McCarra
Ref: Respected pioneering Glaswegian sports journalist who was also an avid Celtic fan
Born: 1 Feb 1958
Died: 24 Oct 2020

Biog

“Celtic is a tale of adventure, success, failure, exasperation and hope that will never cease to unfold”
Kevin McCarra

Kevin McCarra was a highly respected man who helped to change the face of football journalism for the better. Don’t just take our word for it, esteemed journalist Jonathan Wilson called him “[a] pioneer who changed football journalism“.

Kevin McCarra was a proud Glaswegian and highly decent man, who helped to shape the face of the game in print, and additionally having been raised Catholic, he helped to break down some sectarian barriers when covering Scottish football was reviewed. He wrote for all the major titles, and more than deserved the respected & accolades he received.

He was also a keen Celtic fan, and wrote a wonderful book on Celtic in 2012 titled “Celtic: A Biography in Nine Lives” which we’d highly recommend to all for the detail, writing, originality and sheer love of the club.

Sadly he passed away in 2020 from Alzheimers disease. RIP.

His writing and legacy lives on.

Quotes

“No one ever wrote about the Celtic with such love, knowledge, authority, grace, and elegance. It is a commonplace to say that when someone dies he was a “nice man”. Kevin turned that most essential quality of being human into an art. And he never even knew he did it. ”
Peter Broughan on Twitter

“Thought a lot about Kevin last night. His and my generation were the first in scotland not really chained by the “catholics need not apply” dogma. And boy did we grasp that with both hands eh! Those pesky religious schools churned out talented kids like Kevin. ”
RP Mitchell (@RPMComo on Twitter)

Books

Celtic: A Biography in Nive Lives by Kevin McCarra
‘One Afternoon in Lisbon’ by Kevin McCarra

Articles

Kevin McCarra 1958-2020

-http://footballwriters.co.uk/editorial/kevin-mccarra-1958-2020/

We at the FWA are saddened that our dear friend and colleague Kevin McCarra has passed away at the age of 62. Kevin was a much-loved member, friend and colleague. His good friend Philippe Auclair has written this tribute to the former Guardian football correspondent.

“There are few things which are harder to write than a tribute to a friend who has just died. I knew Kevin was desperately ill, but somehow hoped against hope that he’d pull through one more time. Then the phone rang late on Saturday night, and as soon as I saw who was calling, I knew. We’d lost Kevin.

Jonathan Wilson has written, quite beautifully, about our mutual friend in the Guardian, and I won’t attempt to tread the same path myself. The overwhelming response to Jonathan’s piece told its own story: Kevin held a very special place in people’s hearts.

He owed this unique place – beyond the circle of friends who adored him, beyond the Celtic family which has lost one of its most cherished members – to his prowess as a writer, or, more accurately, to the uniqueness of his writing. For Kevin wrote like an angel, but not just in the sense we usually mean when we say this. He had the economy of style, the lightness of touch and the elegance you’d expect from an admirer of David Lacey’s journalism, as well as a remarkable ability to detect and fan away the faintest whiff of cliché; but what made Kevin’s gift unique is that he never used it to mock, belittle or hurt anyone, whilst still conveying the passion he had for the game and not once reneging on his beliefs and his contempt for those who betrayed what he held to be right for football – and for society.

His readers could feel this. They instinctively knew that his passionate, yet measured voice was the voice of a kind man, and they were right: kindness was the defining trait of his character. Many of the other virtues he demonstrated in his life and in his work sprang from it. When the news of his death was made public on social media on Sunday, people who’d met him on just a few occasions spoke of how he’d always been considerate, attentive to them, polite to a fault (if such a thing is possible), humble and helpful. These were other ways to say this simple thing: he was the kindest of men. He could be as sharp as anyone, and as funny too; but not once did I hear him being cruel.

There was a certain otherwordliness about Kevin, which is the first thing which attracted me to him when we met in the press box for the first time, some twenty years ago, and which went well beyond his legendary incapacity to master anything to do with computers. Kevin stood out in a way only Kevin could. Maybe he still felt a certain bemusement at having become the Guardian’s football correspondent, the position he’d dreamt of long before he moved from Glasgow to London. He did not fit in, yet he did. He remained a fan to the last (attending home games at Partick Thistle until his condition made it impossible for him to bear crowds), but could not found guilty of one-eyedness. He was a celebrant in the church of Celtic FC, but was never blind to the dangers of sectarism.

These are not contradictions. These are the characteristics of a good man. This is how I will remember him. And when I miss him, which will be often, and for a long time, and I’m hit by his absence a bit harder than usual, I’ll play Curtis Mayfield’s version of the Carpenters’ We’ve Only Just Begun, a favourite of his, and will give thanks to have called a friend the lovely man who brought this song and so much else in my life, as he did bring so much else in the life of so many others.”

KEVIN McCARRA: POET IN A PRESS BOX

-https://www.celticquicknews.co.uk/kevin-mccarra-poet-in-a-press-box/

By CQN Magazine on 26th October 2020 Latest News

KEVIN McCARRA, a gentleman blessed with a range of prose envied by so many of his profession, passed away on Saturday at the age of 62.

This truly gifted and marvellously innovative writer was a football correspondent whose words illuminated the sports pages of Scotland on Sunday, the Sunday Times, London Times and the Guardian. He was also the author of two excellent Celtic books, ‘One Afternoon in Lisbon’ and ‘Celtic: A Biography in Nine Lives’.

McCarra finally succumbed at the weekend after an arduous and courageous battle against the awful disease of Alzheimer’s.

Celtic book author Alex Gordon recalls a “a lovely human being”. He says: “Kevin was a complete one-off. He really didn’t belong in the dog-eat-dog world of newspapers alongside snarling hacks and their willingness to savage players for a simple mistake.

“He gatecrashed the weary, often-jaundiced world of hackneyed football match reporting. Other scribes would be scribbling furiously of last-minute winners, dodgy refereeing decisions, Man of the Match heroics while Kevin was looking at the 90 minutes from a completely different perspective.

“And you better believe it would be the most artistic, readable and entertaining account of what we had all witnessed.

“I don’t recall too many poets in a press box.

“Kevin was a perfectionist. I remember an autumn afternoon at Fir Park in the early nineties where Motherwell were playing Celtic, the club closest to his heart although there was also a fondness for Partick Thistle. I was sports editor of the Sunday Mail at the time, but I had a rare Saturday off. I had gone to the game with the newspaper’s chief sportswriter Don Morrison. We took our place in the cramped press box and Kevin was sitting at my right.

“Don, who had given me a lift to the ground, told me he would be heading straight back to the office immediately after the game. I was in no rush and Kevin very kindly offered to drive me back into Glasgow after he had written his report. I accepted his invitation.

“On that particular afternoon, I realised why Kevin had earned the reputation as such a perfectionist. The ground was empty, seagulls were landing and the Motherwell ground staff were eagerly awaiting the opportunity to put down tarpaulins in the stand, including the reporters’ area.

“Kevin’s newspaper at the time, I think it was the SOS, had a later deadline than most in the industry and my chum was going to use up every single minute to polish his report.

“Nothing would hurry Kevin that day. The ground staff were making loud noises about ‘having to be home by midnight’, but if Kevin was listening – which I doubt as he was absorbed in his words – he took no notice.

“I can’t remember the exact time Kevin reread his essay for the umpeenth time before he hit the send button. I think he actually got a round of applause from the Motherwell employees. Kevin simply smiled back. He hadn’t intended to keep them from the pub or wherever they were heading that evening.

“It was just the way he was; a perfectionist. No other word to describe Kevin McCarra.

“Rest In Peace, my old friend.”

Kevin McCarra obituary

Football writer for the Guardian, Times and Scotland on Sunday who was able to turn match reports into works of art

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/oct/25/kevin-mccarra-obituaryEwan Murray

@mrewanmurray

Sun 25 Oct 2020 18.34 GMT

Last modified on Mon 26 Oct 2020 13.13 GMT

Kevin McCarra, who has died aged 62 of Alzheimer’s disease, was football correspondent for the Guardian from 2002 to 2012 and prior to that a football writer for the Times, Sunday Times and Scotland on Sunday. One of Scotland’s finest sportswriting exports, he was blessed with original thinking, a deep and genuine understanding of football, and an extraordinary talent for phraseology that allowed him to turn what might otherwise have been mundane match reports into works of art.

He was born in Glasgow, the youngest of three children, and grew up in Clarkston, on the outskirts of the city. His mother, Adele, was a pharmacist who later went into science teaching, and his father, Joe, was also a teacher.

Having attended Holyrood secondary school in Glasgow, Kevin took a degree in Scottish literature at Glasgow University, becoming heavily involved in the Third Eye Centre, a contemporary arts venue. At that stage lecture halls looked to be his natural domain, and after graduation he enrolled for a PhD.

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However, an invitation from the Third Eye Centre to curate an exhibition about Scottish football was followed by a commission to write a book entitled A Pictorial History of Scottish Football, which was published in 1984. In turn that led to writing work with Scottish Field magazine. Kevin’s deft touch and sharp observations quickly caught the eye of the newly established Scotland on Sunday, which in 1988 took him on as a staff writer – and the PhD was ditched.

When the entrepreneur Fergus McCann saved Celtic football club in 1994 Kevin was at the forefront of reporting on the story and shortly afterwards he accepted a move to the Times, initially as Scottish football correspondent but later covering English matches after the direct intervention of the newspaper’s editor prevented a move to the Scotsman.

It was at the Times during one particularly raucous European football night at Ibrox that Kevin dictated to the copytaker down the phone that the Rangers manager Walter Smith had “returned to his previous central defensive pairing of Richard Gough and Gordan Petric” – only to find the phrase rendered into “tedious central defensive pairing” when it appeared in the paper the following morning.

There was, however, never any prospect of Smith, Petric, Gough or anyone else in the football world becoming angry with Kevin. Similarly, even in such a tribal environment as Glasgow, where support for either half of the Old Firm is generally kept under wraps, he had no fear of revealing his lifelong allegiance to Celtic, as even Rangers fans knew he would not allow that to cloud the judgment in his work. His writing was of sufficiently high quality and balance to render such thoughts redundant.

Deepest condolences to the family of journalist and author Kevin McCarra from everyone at Celtic FC #YNWA pic.twitter.com/Mm2bv72DT1

— Celtic Football Club (@CelticFC) October 25, 2020

In 2002 he succeeded David Lacey as the main footballing writer at the Guardian, moving with his wife, Susan Stewart, an investment banker, whom he had married in 1986, to Stoke Newington in north London.

During his time at the Guardian Kevin was a constant source of support to other journalists, both established and aspiring. Self-deprecating about the scale of his own talent, he felt uncomfortable at receiving so many emails from inquisitive teenagers keen on pursuing a life in the sports media. He regarded his own route as too unorthodox to be helpful and was perhaps unaware that even just a return communication from someone of his standing – which he always gave – would nonetheless be gratefully received.

Support was not reserved for the young: in the late 2000s, when Hugh MacDonald, then a sportswriter with the Herald in Glasgow, arrived in London to preview a Champions League tie involving Arsenal, Kevin drove him to the club’s rural pre-match press conference and then back to his hotel. It only emerged later, and by accident, that all of this took place on Kevin’s day off.

He also allowed me to stay in his home after being instrumental in arranging some work experience at the Guardian. Many years later a ticking off arrived by email for my use of “plethora” in relation to opportunities missed during a football match. True to the word’s definition, which relates to a larger amount of something than is needed, he reminded me that “teams cannot create too many chances”. If such a note had arrived from any other journalist, ego would have led to annoyance, but from Kevin it produced only a smile. In an industry where cynicism is embedded, he stood out for his kind, gracious and graceful approach. No one had a bad word to say about him, and that spoke volumes.

In 2012 his book Celtic: A Biography in Nine Lives was published; he had written several others over the years, mainly about Scottish football and beginning with One Afternoon in Lisbon (co-written with Pat Woods in 1988) about Celtic’s European Cup glory in 1967.

In 2012 he left the Guardian to return to Glasgow. Susan gave up her job and spent more and more of her time helping him as his health deteriorated. Season tickets at Partick Thistle and Celtic allowed for plenty of football to be watched, and there were trips, too, to Venice, their favourite city – but nothing like the time for travel that they had planned.

He is survived by Susan and his brother, John.

Kevin James McCarra, journalist, born 1 February 1958; died 24 October 2020

Kevin McCarra: a pioneer who changed football journalism

The former Guardian football correspondent, who has died aged 62, was crisp, prescient and transformative in his writing

Jonathan Wilson

@jonawils

Sun 25 Oct 2020 15.44 GMT

Last modified on Mon 26 Oct 2020 10.06 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/oct/25/kevin-mccarra-a-pioneer-who-changed-football-journalism-former-guardian-football-correspondent-dies

It was around about 1990, long before journalists had mobile phones. Kevin McCarra, the former football correspondent of the Guardian who died from Alzheimer’s disease on Saturday aged 62, was travelling from Glasgow to cover a game at Easter Road for Scotland on Sunday when his train got stuck somewhere near Falkirk. Time passed. It became clear Kevin wasn’t going to make kick-off. Still the train didn’t move. He wasn’t going to make half-time, either.

Unable to contact his desk but knowing they had a space to fill and needed copy, he composed a piece about being on the train with frustrated fans, filed when he was finally able to disembark and somehow produced something true and insightful, and far more memorable than anything that had been written at the game itself.

It was a moment of improvised unorthodoxy typical of Scotland on Sunday at the time. It was a bright, fresh paper, fizzing with imagination in every section. Kevin’s role was vital. In the era of Fever Pitch, fanzines and Italian football on Channel 4, Kevin was one of those who transformed football journalism. Out went the jaded hackery of old, and in came a far more literary sensibility.

Kevin had been doing a PhD placing the 15th-century Scottish poet Robert Henryson in his European context when an arts centre where he worked part-time asked him to put on an exhibition about Scottish football. That led to him being commissioned to co-produce A Pictorial History of Scottish Football, published in 1984. He wrote it on an Amstrad PCW using the deeply unintuitive Locoscript. As anybody who sat near him during a game knew, it was the last thing to do with computers he ever really mastered. “Technology is a word we only use when it goes wrong,” he would say; he used it a lot.

The contacts made during his research led to further writing opportunities. As disillusionment with academia set in, Kevin became a regular in Scottish Field before being invited to join Scotland on Sunday when it launched in 1988. He also co-founded the Mariscat Press, publishing poetry editions including Edwin Morgan’s 1984 work Sonnets from Scotland.

Kevin later worked for the Sunday Times and the Times before succeeding David Lacey as the Guardian’s football correspondent after the 2002 World Cup. It was his dream job. He even took a pay cut to move, although only because he misremembered his salary during negotiations (characteristically – practicalities were never a forte).

It was Lacey he most admired and Lacey whose prose his most resembled, crisp and free of cliche, capable of summing up a game with deceptive economy. Looking back at old pieces now what is striking is both his prescience and the unusual cadences of his writing.

He was rarely controversial, although there was the incident after a friendly against Spain in 2007 when the England manager Steve McClaren referred to the upcoming Euro 2008 qualifier in Israel as “the real bull”, apparently a laboured bullfighting analogy. Kevin, taking his turn with transcription, was understandably mystified and decided McClaren had said “rainbow”, leading to McClaren being mocked up on the back of the tabloids with George, Zippy and Bungle. With somebody else, it might have created major issues, but McClaren and everybody at the Football Association knew that with Kevin it would have been an honest mishearing, no mischief intended; there was never any malice to either him or his writing.

The affection in which he was held became clear during Euro 2016, when he went missing in Avignon. The football community rallied to appeal for help and the following day he was found, confused and dehydrated, by an England fan who had seen his photo on Twitter.

Kevin never savaged anybody, remembered always the person behind the mistake he might be describing. Only once did a manager ever really lose his rag with him, and that was, of all people, Tommy Burns, who had been taught by his father. “I can’t believe Joe McCarra’s boy could write those things,” he hissed, pinning Kevin against the wall, before the preposterousness of the situation overcame the pair of them. It was Burns’s No 10 Kevin later had on the back of his Celtic shirt.

He co-wrote a book on Celtic’s 1967 European Cup win and there was a sense he never enjoyed anything quite so much: Kevin was a famously terrible footballer – so bad that after he’d reluctantly agreed to make up the numbers for a team at Glasgow university, he was quickly subbed off as his teammates decided they would be better playing with 10 – but he enthusiastically acted out the key moments of that campaign as recreated for him by Jimmy Johnstone in his living room.

Some journalists end up covering football because it’s where they are shunted, some do it because it’s a job; Kevin did it because he loved football. That perhaps came through most obviously in his broadcast work. Kevin was one of the original regular guests on Football Weekly and a huge part of its early success.

Deepest condolences to the family of journalist and author Kevin McCarra from everyone at Celtic FC #YNWA pic.twitter.com/Mm2bv72DT1

— Celtic Football Club (@CelticFC) October 25, 2020

After leaving the Guardian in 2012, Kevin returned to Glasgow and wrote another book, telling the history of Celtic through the biographies of nine key figures. Long after illness struck, he kept going to Parkhead and Partick Thistle. He was, as his friend Philippe Auclair put it, “a gentle fanatic”, obsessed by Celtic but never partisan.

He was unashamedly erudite, but also had great warmth. He was a pioneer who changed Scottish football journalism but, most fundamentally, he was a thoroughly nice man.

Kevin McCarra: Tributes paid to much-admired former sports journalist

Tributes have been paid to Kevin McCarra, the much-admired former football correspondent, who has died aged 62 of Alzheimer’s disease.

By Matthew Elder

Sunday, 25th October 2020, 6:34 pm

https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/kevin-mccarra-tributes-paid-much-admired-former-sports-journalist-3014686

Regarded as a pioneer in his field, Kevin began writing about Scottish football for Scotland on Sunday when it was launched in 1988 and was key member of staff in the paper’s formative years.

He had come to the paper’s attention after producing an exhibition about the game for the Third Eye Centre in Glasgow which led to him writing a book, A Pictorial History of Scottish Football, published in 1984.

His time at Scotland on Sunday saw him become one of the foremost voices on the game in this country and, alongside Graham Spiers, he elevated SoS’s football coverage to an extremely high level.

He left in 1995 to work for the Sunday Times and the Times before succeeding David Lacey as the Guardian’s football correspondent after the 2002 World Cup, spending almost a decade with the paper.

Stuart Bathgate, who worked with him on the SoS sports desk, remembers him as a gifted and treasured colleague.

“He was well respected and very well liked. In a bitchy industry he was an angelic presence. He was studious and serious but with a sense of humour and a popular touch.

“He never tried too hard to entertain with his writing but his knowledge and ability to express it shone through. He was the master of the telling phrase stated simply.

“He lived quietly and was happiest with his wife Susan and reading books.”

In a heartfelt message posted on Twitter, Kevin’s wife, Susan Stewart, said: “My beloved husband Kevin McCarra died peacefully last night.

“I am devastated to have lost him, and lucky to have wonderful memories of our life together. I’m so grateful to our family and friends, and all in the NHS and social care worlds, who supported us in Kevin’s illness.”

Tributes have poured in from across the sports journalism world with former SoS sports editor Kevin McKenna posting: “Devastated about the death of my friend, Kevin McCarra. He was a good, kind and gentle man and the finest football writer Scotland has produced since Hugh McIlvanney and John Rafferty. God rest him.”

Mark Atkinson, the current specialist football editor at Scotsman Publications, added: “Kevin McCarra was one of my go-to sports journalists when growing up and starting off in this industry. He wrote with authority, clarity and elegance and you could tell he had a deep affinity for football.

“The number of glowing tributes paid to him by former colleagues show just how high a regard he is held in, not just as a writer but as a person.

“Everyone at Scotsman Publications offers their condolences to his family and loved ones at this time.”

Kevin was a proud Celtic fan but never let that get in the way of his professional work. The Parkhead club paid its own respects, tweeting: “Deepest condolences to the family of journalist and author Kevin McCarra from everyone at Celtic FC.”

Obituary: Kevin McCarra, Scottish football writer

Kevin James McCarra, journalist. Born: February 1 1958; Died: October 24 2020, aged 62

By Alan Pattullo

Wednesday, 4th November 2020, 7:00 am

https://www.scotsman.com/news/people/obituary-kevin-mccarra-scottish-football-writer-3022277

It does not happen so much now, if at all, but there were days when Scottish football reporters were sent to cover English football matches on a fairly regular basis. On such occasions, it was always a bonus to spy a friendly, recognisable face sitting in the press box pews. Andrew Smith can vouch for this. Sent down to Old Trafford by Scotland on Sunday (SoS) to report on a meeting between Manchester United and Leeds United, he was understandably keen to give as colourful an account of the match as possible in order to justify the miles travelled.

United had come out to a tune Smith was desperate to identify to augment his report and he spent the opening minutes of the match bobbing from colleague to colleague to see if anyone knew the title. No one did. When an increasingly anguished Smith got to Kevin McCarra, his fellow Glaswegian as well as erstwhile SoS scribe, a gentle voice told him to relax. “Just write what you see, Andrew,” McCarra advised.

The trouble was, McCarra always tended to “see” more clearly than pretty much everyone else in the press box. Or so it seemed, judging from his output. He might as well have carried a surgeon’s scalpel in his satchel for there were few others who carved out words with such precision. Not that there was ever any hint of it being a torturous process. Reading his reports in the following day’s paper –whether in SoS, the Sunday Times, the Times, or, latterly, the Guardian – was an enjoyably effortless pursuit. With his understated, elegant command of prose, he could turn match reports involving such unpromising ingredients as no goals into art forms.

Take this intro from a 0-0 draw between Celtic and Rangers from 1993: “Even the unexpected can be drab,” writes McCarra in SoS. “Old Firm meetings may produce ill-feeling and anxiety in vast quantities, but they will usually provide you with a goal or two as well. This was the first time in nine years that Celtic and Rangers have been scoreless against one another. The surprise was tedious.”

He could tell the story of a game in 900 words like few others and rarely used the post-match comments from managers and players as a crutch. Indeed, in the same Old Firm match report, rather than cram in paragraphs of often meaningless quotes, he simply notes there was “modest contentment from both managers”. He trusted his own analysis. Crucially, so did the reader. Later in the above dispatch from Parkhead, he reflects how, “at its best, football resembles a good conversation. It flows easily and everyone has their say.”

McCarra, who has died aged 62 of Alzheimer’s disease, did as much as anyone to ensure SoS became an essential part of the newspaper scene so soon after its launch in 1988. After graduating from Glasgow University with a degree in Scottish literature, McCarra worked for a spell at an arts centre in Glasgow and was asked to curate an exhibition about Scottish football. A subsequent commission to write a well-regarded book on the game, 1984’s A Pictorial History of Scottish Football, led, aged 30, to a staff job at SoS.

Fellow Scot Patrick Barclay, a former chief football writer at the Sunday Telegraph and the Times, believes this comparatively late introduction to journalism was beneficial. “He had a longer ‘fan’ background and that maybe made him a bit less cynical than some of the others in the press box,” he said.

Although a keen Celtic supporter who never forgot how it felt to be a fan, McCarra brought reasoned, equable reporting to the pages at a time when Rangers were the dominant force in Scottish football.

“Kevin filed one of his immaculate match reports, and I stuck on a headline, one I thought was clever and which might have been a bit saucier than was usual at the time,” recalled former SoS sports editor Kevin McKenna this week. “Kevin waited about a week before saying, in that quiet, professorial way that he had, ‘Kevin, I just thought that was a bit inappropriate…’ ”

It was never McCarra’s style to be provocative for the sake of it. Writing baubles tend to be distributed around those with a yen for sensationalism. That was not McCarra’s way and he might have suffered for it in terms of awards. The widespread respect he garnered was its own reward. He was quiet and learned without ever being over earnest.

One of his early nicknames in the press box was “The Brain”. He proved that there was no need to be part of the pack to prosper. You could be yourself, follow your own path and still be popular and well respected. This proved to be just as true south of the Border, where the tributes paid to McCarra so far have been every bit as heartfelt as has been the case in Scotland.

Beneath one piece by football writer Jonathan Wilson on the Guardian’s website there are more than 300 comments from readers praising McCarra’s work, with some even recalling personal experiences of his generosity.

McCarra moved to London in 2002 to succeed David Lacey as the chief football writer at the Guardian. He and his wife Susan based themselves in Stoke Newington. There have been several accounts of McCarra driving reporters home from games despite the journey taking him well out of his own way back to north London. On one occasion he offered Hugh MacDonald, down from Glasgow to report on an Arsenal match for the Herald, a lift to the club’s rural training base outside London for the pre-match press conference. It later emerged McCarra wasn’t even meant to be there himself. It had been his day off.

ALAN PATTULLO