Lennox, Bobby

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Personal

Fullname: Robert Lennox
aka: Bobby Lennox, Lemon, ‘Buzz Bomb’
Born: 30 August 1943
Birthplace: Saltcoats, Ayrshire
Signed: 5 September 1961; 19 September 1978 (from Houston Hurricane)
Left: 29 Mar 1978 (to Houston Hurricane); 8 Nov 1980 (retired)
Position: Outside Left, Forward
First game : Dundee home 2-1 3 March 1962 league
First goal : Third Lanark home 4-4 14 September 1963 league
Last game : Rangers Hampden 1-0 10 May 1980 Scottish Cup final
Last goal : Hibernian Hampden 5-0 12 April 1980 Scottish Cup semi final
Internationals: Scotland
International Caps: 10 caps
International Goals: 3 goals

Trivia

• Bobby Lennox was a member of the Lisbon Lions, Celtic’s European Cup winners in 1967.
• Celtic’s second highest scorer, 273 goals in 571 games.
• Played in two European Cup finals with Celtic.
• Scored in the famous 3-2 win over then World Cup holders England at Wembley.
• He was awarded an MBE in 1981 and was inducted into the Scottish Football Museum Hall of Fame in November 2005.
• He was an extremely fast winger and was known by fans as ‘Buzz Bomb‘ or ‘Lemon‘.
• On 18th November 2018 a statue of Bobby was unveiled in his native Saltcoats.

Biog

When you have a record like Bobby Lennox, you’d expect that he’d be shouting about it from the rooftops. A remarkable number of goals in what was a very competitive time in the Scottish game (let alone in European football) yet he is generally overshadowed by some of his other colleagues from the Lisbon Lions. Bobby Charlton (ex-Man U & England legend) even included Bobby Lennox in his all-time greats team, much to the bemusement of many others who had little knowledge of our quiet man. So why is he overshadowed by others?

Bobby Lennox was born in Saltcoats (Ayrshire), for which he was jokingly dubbed to be the “outsider” in the Lisbon Lions team, having been born and raised the furthest distance away from the club than any of the others. So were all the players born within a 30-mile radius of Celtic Park? Well, it’s Bobby Lennox, who is responsible for that figure of 30. The rest were all born within 10 miles of Parkhead. Auld, Chalmers, Simpson and Craig were Glaswegians; Gemmell, Murdoch, McNeill, Clark and Johnstone came from Lanarkshire; and Wallace was born in Kirkintilloch. The ‘thirty miles‘ became a celebrated point which Lennox used to title a later autobiography.

It didn’t start as it should have. He signed provisional forms in September 1961, and in his early appearances he was an inauspicious striker and under McGrory’s regime, he was going nowhere. He was even close to a transfer over to Falkirk for a modest fee to restart his career. Matters thankfully changed with the arrival of Jock Stein, and once Stein got going, the club was truly in Paradise, and Lennox was in his ascendancy.

From the beginning, Lennox was playing like a new man in the side as Jock helped to prod the best out of him. Lennox’s main asset was his exceptional pace, and his ability to accelerate faster than anyone else enabled him to beat defenders giving him the advantage to take a pop at goal, which he took much advantage of. Ably assisted by Jinky et al, he scored in abundance and his record is almost without compare, scoring 273 league goals in 571 appearances for Celtic, making him the second highest ever scorer for the club. A remarkable achievement!

English legend Bobby Charlton was one of his greatest admirers boldly stating that if he had someone like Lennox playing beside him then he could have gone on forever and also rated Lennox as “one of the best strikers that I have ever seen”. High praise indeed whilst the legendary Di Stefano also picked Lennox out for high praise.

There are so many high points to his time at Celtic but obviously winning the European Cup is the highlight despite his not scoring in that match. Regardless, he along with his colleagues bombarded the opposition goals with shot after shot which rung the alarm bells for Inter Milan and helped to force the winning goal for us. He was as important as anyone else. Possibly the high mark for Bobby Lennox was in scoring the winner v Real Madrid just a couple of weeks later, admittedly a friendly match but Real Madrid were the grandees of European football and this victory cemented Celtic’s right to be crowned the champions of Europe.

Lennox is also one of the few to have scored in a Scotland victory over England at Wembley, scoring one of the goals in the famous 3-2 victory in 1967. He became the first Celtic player to score at Wembley. In total, he won ten international caps for Scotland, a surprisingly small number given his pace and ability, and more a measure of the sympathies and bias of the Scottish footballing authorities at the time. Lennox is no different in this from others like Jinky who having achieved great success at club level in Europe ended up being pitifully treated at international level by their own country.

When you look back, Bobby Lennox was a pivotal player in Scottish football’s greatest period: winning the European Cup, beating Real Madrid on their own ground and then defeating England at Wembley (for Scotland). The only tarnish around that time for Bobby Lennox was being sent off in a belligerent match v Racing Club for the World Club Championship, but that was no football game and hardly deserves to be held up against Lennox or anyone from Celtic who took part in any of the matches.

Not all treated him properly. In 1967-68, capping off another good year, Bobby Lennox won the bronze for the Golden Boot award (top scorer in European football). A great achievement, which amazingly he was never told about by the unappreciative board. Instead, one of the old board members/directors went to the lavish ceremony himself to collect the award (on behalf of Lennox (sic!)) and returned to Celtic to present it to Lennox at a pre-match dinner. Totally ridiculous and an insult to the good man, and it’s just another cringing example of how the old board could dismissively treated their own staff.

As years went on, Bobby Lennox did the business and continued to score goals as Celtic hoovered up trophies, and made everyone proud. The quality was exceptional, and as a unit the Celtic sides were peerless.

Sadly, there were defeats at important points too (such as the European Cup final of 1970), but he was there throughout to lead the front line for Celtic. Granted, in later years he was not always first pick, but he accepted it and never made an issue (how other players could learn from his example).

Lennox left Celtic in 1978 and moved to the United States to play for ‘Houston Hurricane’ for a short period of around six months, where a CSC named after him still resides. During their 1978 season, he scored 15 goals in 36 games, before returning to Celtic under Billy McNeill in 1979 who was trying to rebuild the Celtic first XI. It was a good move, as Celtic took the League title that year (winning the league at the ‘Ten Men Who Won The League‘ game) and then the Scottish Cup in 1980. His career stretched through to three decades, playing in the 1960’s, 1970’s and shortly into the 1980’s.

In total, he won 11 League medals, 8 Scottish Cup medals, and 5 League Cup medals as well as his European Cup medal, the highest medal haul for a Celtic player whilst at the club (higher even than Billy McNeill’s), and has the accolade of being one of a small band of Scotsmen to have played in two European Cup finals.

In reflection, Lennox’s time at Celtic mirrored the fortunes of the club. From the early poor days of his career where he was looking to probably leave, to the entrance of Jock which pushed Lennox’s game to freely score, then the highs and lows of European and league adventures until his departure and then the return for ‘Ten-men-who-won-the-league’. He was the last of the Lisbon Lions to play for the club, and at the end of the 1979/80 season, he was the last to retire from football. It was the end of a great era for Celtic and Scottish Football.

Post-Celtic
In the early 1990’s, Lennox became the Celtic reserve coach, and his final departure from active duty under then manager Liam Brady reflected the low state of the club at the time. The departure was bitter and could have been better handled. Likely without realising it, Bobby Lennox’s time at Celtic has been a barometer of the state of the club even beyond the end of his playing career.

Thankfully, bridges were easily mended, and Bobby Lennox returned and has been a part of Celtic in various functions and roles since then, and very highly regarded he has remained.

So going back to the original question of his being overshadowed by his other colleagues. Actually, that is not entirely true, as he is always much referred to and eulogised by the support. The reasoning why he is often less referenced is simply as because he was not a flamboyant character (an amazing point taking in both his record and achievements). You would expect him to have some arrogance about him after all he had achieved in his career, but that wasn’t him. He was a humble and reserved gentleman.

That in itself has meant there are fewer off-field anecdotes that are retold involving Lennox compared to the more extrovert players he played alongside (such as Jinky & Gemmell) on whom we could retell countless tales of misadventures to make us all laugh. This isn’t to say that Bobby Lennox has been sidelined, as all speak highly of him as both a player and person, but more that his introverted nature means he is overshadowed by others in the retelling of tall tales. However, there are plenty of great tales to tell on his long Celtic career, and it’s a sheer joy to rewatch re-plays of his old goals and play.

In 2018, he was honoured with a statue unveiled in his hometown in Saltcoats (Ayrshire) with numerous Celtic honoraries attending the unveiling, including Bobby Lennox himself and his family. He was truly humbled.

In terms of achievements, he is up there with the very best at Celtic (and world football as a whole) and will forever be fondly remembered by all Celtic supporters.

A glorious footballer, a gentleman and a Celtic great.

Playing Career