McNeill, Billy – Passing & Obituaries

Lisbon Lion John Clark: Billy was such a big part of my life

http://www.celticfc.net/news/16067
By: Tony Connelly on 23 Apr, 2019 13:31
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JOHN Clark described Billy McNeill as an ‘icon of football’ and a ‘massive personality’ as he paid tribute to his friend and former Lisbon Lions team-mate who sadly passed away late last night (Monday, April 22).

Celtic legend, Billy McNeill, passed away at the age of 79 after battling dementia for many years. He leaves behind a legacy unlike any other, and tributes for the man fondly known as Cesar have begun pouring in from throughout the footballing world.

In paying tribute to Billy, John Clark said he was deeply saddened at losing a dear friend and described his former team-mate as a giant of the game.

“My thoughts are with Liz, his children and his grandchildren,” said Clark. “It’s obviously very sad and I hope they are okay. Jim Craig called me this morning to tell me the news and, even though I knew he wasn’t well, it still stuns you when you find out.

“I’ve known Billy for most of my life. We played together and spent most of our lives working together, about 60-odd years in total. I can’t imagine a time in my life then without him.

“There were no big egos in that team we were part of and Billy summed that up. He was down to earth and everyone in the team was as well. Billy was well-liked, and everyone who met him liked him because of the kind of person he was.

“There’s nothing much more you could say to some him up other than he was an icon in football. He was well-respected by everyone and he respected other people as well. He’ll be a big miss. That’s part of my life away now. He was a massive personality. He was big in stature and big in personality and we’ll all miss him very much.”

John Clark arrived at Paradise in 1958, one year after Billy signed for Celtic, and the pair played in the Hoops together for 13 years. They achieved unprecedented success along the way and became immortalised as the Lisbon Lions after crowning achievement of winning the European Cup in 1967.

The two men first met as teenagers and went on to form a bond that would that would last a lifetime but their work together did not cease once they retired from playing. They partnered up in management and brought more success to Celtic.

“I played with him and managed with him at Aberdeen and Celtic,” said John Clark. “I always knew Billy would be a good manager because he was determined enough to be successful and he was successful.

“He never let things get to him in a way some managers would have and that was down to the character he was. He could handle the pressure well and he did as a player and a manager.”

We won’t see the like of Billy McNeill again
Alex Massie

We won’t see the like of Billy McNeill again
Alex Massie
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/04/we-wont-see-the-like-of-billy-mcneill-again/
23 April 2019

2:59 PM

Certain deaths unavoidably feel like the closing of an era, the final confirmation that what has been and gone can never return. One such is the passing of Billy McNeill, whose death, at the age of 79, was announced this morning. The Celtic captain, skipper of not just that club’s greatest side but of the finest team that ever emerged from Scotland; the only Scottish team to win the european cup and the first British side to do so, was one of a kind.

All football clubs cherish their heritage but few more devoutly than Celtic. If the club’s penchant for underdog status sits oddly with its remarkable record of achievement – Celtic will soon win the Scottish championship for a fiftieth time – it still reflects something real. This has not just been a football club, it has been a family. A movement for Catholic Scots and Scots of Irish descent that for generations has understood itself as the outsiders, forever considered somehow suspect or not quite the thing by a Scottish establishment whose colours, especially in Glasgow, were the royal blue of Rangers, not the green and white of Celtic. There was enough truth in this for it to matter, even if – especially when viewed from outwith the Old Firm duopoly – the distinction has always seemed one of degree not kind.

But of McNeill it may reasonably be said we shall not see his like again. As the obituaries remind us, he was nicknamed Cesar after the actor Cesar Romero on the account of his looks but the public preferred to think of him as “Caesar”, a sobriquet better fitting his imperial demeanour at the heart of an all-conquering Celtic XI that won nine consecutive Scottish league titles. Indeed, in the course of a career amounting to 800 or so games in the hoops, McNeill gathered a personal haul of 31 trophies.

Football has changed since those black-and-white days and often for the better. But even progress and improvement come at a cost. The commercialisation of the sport, both made possible by and dependent on the globalised commodification of entertainment, has made elite football a wholly different game to that played by McNeill.

This season’s Champions League has proven unusually interesting. The progress of Tottenham Hotspur and Ajax to the semi-finals has offered a refreshing alternative to the cast of suspects commonly present at the sharp end of european football’s flagship competition.

Satisfying as this has been, some perspective is required. According to Forbes magazine’s latest analysis, Tottenham is the tenth most valuable club on the planet. As also-rans go, they run pretty far and pretty fast. Ajax, meanwhile, provide a more interesting case. That a club which has won the tournament four times can be considered plucky, impoverished underdogs tells you everything it is necessary to know about how european football has, at the highest level, become a closed shop entrance to which is denied to all but a gilded few. And, in this context, Ajax really are plucky, impoverished underdogs. So much so in fact that anyone possessing even an ounce or two of romance must keenly hope they lift the trophy for a fifth time. It would be a more remarkable achievement than any previously enjoyed by one of europe’s greatest clubs.

As everyone knows – and, yes, as some are tired of hearing – every member of the side McNeil led to glory in Lisbon was born and brought up within 30 miles of Celtic Park. That was remarkable even fifty years ago; it would be simply impossible now and not just because the seams of talent to be mined in Glasgow and Lanarkshire were deeper then.

That gave McNeill’s side a rare distinction that has proved imperishable, adding lustre to a legend that would have more than sufficed even without that quality. These were the Glasgow boys that took on, and beat, a continent. On that hot Lisbon afternoon in the summer of 1967 Internazionale of Milan were confident they’d win the european cup for a third time. They reckoned without Jock Stein’s men; they reckoned without the Lions of Lisbon.

And it was not just Celtic’s status as underdogs that won so many admirers then; it was also their commitment to attacking football. There is a peculiar beauty to the catenaccio style preferred, indeed mastered, by Helenio Herrera’s Inter team but it is one for a particular type of purist. To put it differently, if everyone played like that football would be a diminished spectacle. Celtic, by contrast and in keeping with the club’s idea of its own traditions, were an attacking phenomenon. They ran Inter off their feet and Stevie Chalmers’ winner, struck with just five minutes left on the clock, was both a long time coming and seemingly inevitable. It was also a blow for a particular idea of what football should be.

As Bill Shankly, whose Liverpool side had been demolished by Ajax earlier in the competition, told Stein, “John, you’re immortal now”. All true and a status by no means confined to the manager. McNeill, who captained the club for a dozen seasons, was rendered immortal that day too. Scottish football has not seen the like of that team, which reached another final and a brace of semi-finals too, again. Nor, indeed, has British football while on the continent perhaps the homegrown Ajax side which triumphed in 1995 comes closest to equalling Celtic’s achievement.

That Ajax side disappeared overnight, however, plucked clean by richer clubs in Italy, Spain, and England. This year’s underdogs from Amsterdam will suffer the same fate; enjoy their presence together while you can for it will not, cannot, last for long.

In 1967 Celtic defeated the champions of Switzerland, France, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Italy. On a given day, the randomness essential to knock-out competition could have sunk the Scots’ chances. That randomness – upon which sport depends more than the people who run sport allow – would in time prove too much for european football’s guardians. The Champions League is not just about making money – though of course it is largely about that – it is about making sure that money is shared between a select, unchanging, few. Randomness is the enemy because business plans demand predictable income streams.

So, even as we marvel as Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo or whomever else, we know, deep down, modern football has privileged spectacle at the expense of poetry. There can be no room for the unknown, the new, the surprising. It makes for a great show but one whose rewards are subject to the law of diminishing returns. It is magnificent in its way, but it is not sport. It is a commodity that knows the price of everything but the value of rather less.

The idea a team from Scotland could become champions of europe now is palpably absurd. But then the notion clubs such as Red Star Belgrade or Steaua Bucharest could do so once again is equally absurd. This century, only Porto have challenged the plutocratic elite and that too was a one-off whose reoccurrence seems less probable year by year. The money doesn’t allow for it.

Sport requires competition, otherwise it is only spectacle. The field has never been truly level but it was once level enough for surprise and wonder. Removing that, stripping sport of its randomness, impoverishes it even as it enriches those protected from upsets.

In that sense, the death of Billy McNeill is the end of one world. McNeill was the leonine symbol of that great Celtic era; the Caesar of a team that conquered all worlds available to it. Something precious has been lost since then and not just in Scotland either.

Billy McNeill – Emotional Tributes from 3 Lisbon Lions teammates
By Editor 23 April, 2019 No Comments
https://thecelticstar.com/billy-mcneill-emotional-tributes-from-3-lisbon-lions-teammates/+

“It is very sad news,” Jim Craig said. “Billy was such a nice guy, easy to get on with and that’s all you can ask from someone. He never made any demands on you, he was just happy in your company and that’s what I’ll miss the most.

“I first met him in unusual circumstances. I was the captain of the Scottish schoolboys team in 1961 for a game against England, which was the only international match we played at that time at Under-18 level. The match was held at Celtic Park, and before the game Billy, who had played in the same fixture just three years earlier, was brought into the dressing-room.

Bertie Auld and John Clark lay a wreath in tribute to their friend and fellow Lisbon Lion Billy McNeill pic.twitter.com/urDKhuTZfe

— Celtic Football Club (@CelticFC) April 23, 2019

“By that time he was playing for Celtic and he was an example of how we could improve and how we could get on and the level we could reach if we worked hard, so that was my first meeting with him. Then, five years later, I was a team-mate of his.

“Billy was always a natural leader. He didn’t have to say anything, he just looked the part and he was very helpful to me when I came into the team and I’m sure he was the same to the others as well,” the Lisbon Lion said, speaking to the official Celtic site.

“He might have a quiet word sometimes during a game, maybe at a corner or a free-kick, but he was never a shouter, he never needed to roll up his sleeves.

“It was a natural thing he had, an aspect of his character where, if he said something on or off the park, you could accept it. And he had worked with Jock Stein before when Jock was there at Celtic in the earlier days with the reserves. So there was a rapport between those two that I think none of the rest of us had, which was a great help as well.

Lisbon Lion Jim Craig: I will miss spending time with my friend

— Celtic Football Club (@CelticFC) April 23, 2019

“He had a very good managerial career as well and was very successful in his two spells at the club, and again, that’s where the family came into play because they were always very supportive of him wherever he managed. They were all behind him and they’ve always been a tower of strength for him.”

Lisbon Lion Bertie Auld: Billy was destined to be a Celtic greathttps://t.co/l0PczXLHBk

— Celtic Football Club (@CelticFC) April 23, 2019

John Clark also paid his respects to his great friend, former teammate and of course he was also assistant manager to Billy at both Celtic and Aberdeen.

“My thoughts are with Liz, his children and his grandchildren,” John said to the official Celtic website.

“It’s obviously very sad and I hope they are okay. Jim Craig called me this morning to tell me the news and, even though I knew he wasn’t well, it still stuns you when you find out.

“I’ve known Billy for most of my life. We played together and spent most of our lives working together, about 60-odd years in total. I can’t imagine a time in my life then without him.

“There were no big egos in that team we were part of and Billy summed that up. He was down to earth and everyone in the team was as well. Billy was well-liked, and everyone who met him liked him because of the kind of person he was.

“There’s nothing much more you could say to some him up other than he was an icon in football. He was well-respected by everyone and he respected other people as well.

“He’ll be a big miss. That’s part of my life away now. He was a massive personality. He was big in stature and big in personality and we’ll all miss him very much.”

"He was a lovely man and he was a gentleman. He was a very good manager and at all times, Celtic was the first thing on his mind.”

Bertie Auld paying tribute to Billy McNeill pic.twitter.com/5Ze6KG6rk2

— Celtic Football Club (@CelticFC) April 23, 2019

Bertie Auld, who paid his own special tribute to Cesar by starting a chorus or two of the Celtic Song today as he joined John Clark in laying a wreath at Billy’s wonderful statue at the bottom of the Celtic Way, also spoke to the official site.

“It’s sad day for the club, but Billy is getting a bit of relief now, and to me that is so important.

“I saw him when he was 17-years-old, just signed with Celtic down at the tunnel and such like, and he went from strength to strength. He was a magnificent asset to Celtic Football Club.

“Big Jock signed him as a reserve player as he had recommended him to the club. Billy was big tall youngster standing at the bottom of the tunnel while I was training full-time with the first team and I remember shaking hands with him and saying ‘All the best, son.’

“Billy had a tremendous presence about him. He was the type of man that you could rely on and we used to rely on Billy an awful lot as a player. He was a great player and a great captain and he hit the heights he deserved to hit. When he became manager here it was something that everybody wanted to happen, and he deserved that and the love Celtic fans had for him.

“When I came back to Celtic, I wasn’t surprised that he was captain by then as he was very, very confident as a young player, even at 17-years-old. He was very confident in himself as I remember playing a few reserve games with him, and the confidence was obvious.

“He was someone that you always looked up to, and not just because of his height, it was because of his mannerisms and the way he carried himself. To me, that was something that was so important as I remember my Dad saying to me, the great thing about the reserve team of today is that it is the first team of tomorrow – and Billy was important in bringing that forward.

“He had the same respect, we all respected each other’s position. That was the great thing about us – on and off the park.

“Our paths crossed as managers as well, but the great thing about it was that we always committed ourselves. So when Billy was managing Celtic and I was managing the opposition, it was him against me and we always gave our best – I don’t think you’d be able to look at yourself in the mirror if it was anything other than that.

“He was well-educated, well-mannered, a great parent and a great husband. To me that’s the sad thing as we were all close, all of our wives and families at functions and meetings. Liz has done extremely well, and we all feel for her and the family.
“Billy was the perfect player, captain, manager and ambassador for the club. You just had to look at him to see his stature as his chest was always out and he loved that position. It didn’t matter where you were, he was able to conduct himself in the correct manner.

“He was a magnificent player and he walked down that tunnel for every game carrying the ball with his chest stuck out, and he would be the same at receptions and functions later on in life. He always looked after himself and treated everybody and every occasion with respect.

“He was a lovely man and he was a gentleman. He was a very good manager and at all times, Celtic was the first thing on his mind.”

Lisbon Lion Bertie Auld: Billy was destined to be a Celtic great

By: Joe Sullivan on 23 Apr, 2019 17:01
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BERTIE Auld and John Clark paid an emotional tribute to their friend and fellow Lisbon Lisbon Lion, Billy McNeill, when they laid a wreath at Billy’s statue today (Tuesday).

It took its place alongside the countless other tributes that have already been laid at the statue on The Celtic Way by supporters mourning the loss of the club’s legendary captain.

Speaking today, Bertie Auld said: “It’s sad day for the club, but Billy is getting a bit of relief now, and to me that is so important.

"I saw him when he was 17-years-old, just signed with Celtic down at the tunnel and such like, and he went from strength to strength. He was a magnificent asset to Celtic Football Club.

“Big Jock signed him as a reserve player as he had recommended him to the club. Billy was big tall youngster standing at the bottom of the tunnel while I was training full-time with the first team and I remember shaking hands with him and saying ‘All the best, son.’

“Billy had a tremendous presence about him. He was the type of man that you could rely on and we used to rely on Billy an awful lot as a player. He was a great player and a great captain and he hit the heights he deserved to hit. When he became manager here it was something that everybody wanted to happen, and he deserved that and the love Celtic fans had for him.

“When I came back to Celtic, I wasn’t surprised that he was captain by then as he was very, very confident as a young player, even at 17-years-old. He was very confident in himself as I remember playing a few reserve games with him, and the confidence was obvious.

“He was someone that you always looked up to, and not just because of his height, it was because of his mannerisms and the way he carried himself. To me, that was something that was so important as I remember my Dad saying to me, the great thing about the reserve team of today is that it is the first team of tomorrow – and Billy was important in bringing that forward.”

Of course, Billy, Bertie and their team-mates went on to greatness as the Lisbon Lions and all moved on to football careers beyond wearing the Hoops, and they still looked up to Cesar during those years.

Bertie added: “He had the same respect, we all respected each other’s position. That was the great thing about us – on and off the park.

“Our paths crossed as managers as well, but the great thing about it was that we always committed ourselves. So when Billy was managing Celtic and I was managing the opposition, it was him against me and we always gave our best – I don’t think you’d be able to look at yourself in the mirror if it was anything other than that.

“He was well-educated, well-mannered, a great parent and a great husband. To me that’s the sad thing as we were all close, all of our wives and families at functions and meetings. Liz has done extremely well, and we all feel for her and the family.

“Billy was the perfect player, captain, manager and ambassador for the club. You just had to look at him to see his stature as his chest was always out and he loved that position. It didn’t matter where you were, he was able to conduct himself in the correct manner.

“He was a magnificent player and he walked down that tunnel for every game carrying the ball with his chest stuck out, and he would be the same at receptions and functions later on in life. He always looked after himself and treated everybody and every occasion with respect.

“He was a lovely man and he was a gentleman. He was a very good manager and at all times, Celtic was the first thing on his mind.”

Billy McNeill obituary
Footballer associated with Celtic for more than 60 years – as a player, manager and club ambassador – who won 29 caps for Scotland

Brian Wilson

Tue 23 Apr 2019 13.33 BST
Last modified on Wed 24 Apr 2019 18.00 BST

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Celtic captain Billy McNeill clings on to the Scottish Cup as he is carried shoulder-high by his triumphant teammates after their 3-2 victory in 1965.
Celtic captain Billy McNeill clings on to the Scottish Cup as he is carried shoulder-high by his triumphant teammates after their 3-2 victory in 1965. Photograph: SMG/PA

As captain of Celtic, Billy McNeill, who has died aged 79, was the first British footballer to hold aloft the European Cup. That memorable image represented the apex of a long and distinguished career as player and manager.

In an era that permitted all national league champions to compete on equal terms, Celtic had disposed of their counterparts from Switzerland, France, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia before facing Inter Milan of Italy at the Estádio Nacional in Lisbon on 25 May 1967.

All of the team McNeill led out had been born within 40 miles of Celtic Park. They were the rank outsiders but, playing what their manager, Jock Stein, described as “pure, beautiful, inventive football”, they defeated Helenio Herrera’s exponents of the ultra-defensive catenaccio (door-bolt) system by two goals to one.
Billy McNeill holding the European Cup trophy aloft after beating Inter Milan in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1967.
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Billy McNeill holding the European Cup trophy aloft after beating Inter Milan in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1967. Photograph: AP

The dais on which the trophy was presented stood on the opposite side of the stadium to the dressing-rooms, and in the chaos that followed the final whistle McNeill was separated from his team-mates and had to lift the trophy alone. He later reflected that his only disappointment in the whole experience was that they were not alongside him to share the moment. However, they stuck together as a team of close friends for the rest of their lives, inextricably linked by an extraordinary shared experience.
'Lisbon Lion' Billy McNeill – a life in pictures

As captain of the Lisbon Lions, McNeill held a unique place in the affections of Celtic supporters for more than half a century. His intelligence, articulacy and leadership qualities all enhanced the image of an exceptional sportsman and role model. His entire club career of more than 800 games was in Celtic colours.

Early in his Celtic career, McNeill, the only one of his group who owned a car, acquired the nickname “Cesar”, in deference to Cesar Romero, the getaway driver in Ocean’s 11. As the years went on, the spelling had to be adapted since the name would have been more appropriate to McNeill’s imperious bearing, acquired from his Dundonian father, Jimmy, who was an army PE instructor.

McNeill was born in Bellshill, Lanarkshire. His mother Nellie’s parents were Lithuanian immigrants, and in his early childhood the extended family lived in their miners’ row cottage. When he was nine, his father was posted to Hereford, where Billy attended a rugby-playing school and showed promise as a winger. Returning to Scotland took him back to football, and he completed his schooling at Our Lady’s high school in Motherwell, breeding ground of many fine players.

In 1957, Stein, then Celtic’s youth coach, saw him play for Scotland schoolboys against England and immediately sought his signature. McNeill recalled Stein asking his mother: “If he steps out of line, is it OK if I give him a skelp?”

Mrs McNeill readily agreed and the deal was done. Billy, who was academically able, regretted not going to university but could not refuse the lure of Celtic. He received an honorary degree from Glasgow University in 2008.

The early 1960s was a grim period in Celtic’s fortunes. While they had promising young players, the club’s management structure was archaic, with all power lying in the hands of the chair, Bob Kelly. Stein left in 1961 to become manager of Dunfermline Athletic, and by 1965 McNeill was on the verge of seeking a transfer – when his mentor returned to Celtic with immediate and devastating effect.
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They won the first available trophy, the Scottish Cup, and set off on a run of nine successive league titles (there would also be six more Scottish Cups and six Scottish League Cups). The team was built around McNeill in the centre of defence, where he developed what he described as a “telepathic understanding” with John Clark, who occupied the sweeper’s role. It was a classic partnership in a team generally dedicated to stylish, attacking football. McNeill also went on to win 29 Scottish caps, usually with Clark alongside him.

When McNeill finished playing in 1975, he intended to pursue a business career. However, an investment of the modest savings which football had yielded, in property and hotels, proved disastrous. He turned to management, briefly with Clyde, then, very happily, with Aberdeen, for whom he laid the foundations of future success under Alex Ferguson. However, he answered the call to become Celtic manager in 1978 on Stein’s departure.

This proved a difficult experience. In five seasons, McNeill led the club to three league titles but, frustrated by lack of resources to buy players, eventually concluded that “loyalty was a one-way street”. He left to manage Manchester City, who had just been relegated from the old First Division, and in his second season McNeill led them back into the top flight. He then had a brief and unhappy spell as Aston Villa manager before becoming reconciled with Celtic in 1987.

Celtic, entering their centenary season, were faced with the free spending of Rangers, on a scale unprecedented in Scottish football. McNeill’s heroic credentials were reinforced when he led Celtic to a League and Cup double in that momentous season. However, the club was entering a period of turmoil, with boardroom battles and financial pressures undermining McNeill’s role, which ended in 1991.

He continued to be in great demand for media work and appearances at Celtic supporters’ events. His unique place in the club’s history was recognised in 2009 when he became its first official ambassador, cutting a respected figure in the boardrooms of Europe. The following year he was diagnosed with dementia. A statue of him holding the European Cup aloft was unveiled in 2016 in the approaches to Celtic Park.

In 1963, McNeill married Liz Callaghan, then a dancer with the TV variety show The White Heather Club, in Scotland’s “wedding of the year”.

She survives him, along with their five children, Susan, Carol, Libby, Paula and Martyn, and eight grandchildren.

• Billy McNeill, footballer and manager, born 2 March 1940; died 22 April