Books – Celtic’s Lost Legend: The George Connelly Story

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Title: Celtic's Lost Legend: The George Connelly Story
Author: Brian Cooney with George Connelly
Published: 2008
Player Homepage: George Connelly

Synopsis

George Connelly was hailed as the greatest Scottish talent of his generation. He made 254 appearances for Celtic and played in the Scotland team that qualified for the 1974 World Cup Finals but, at the age of just twenty-six he walked away from football and a glittering career.

Connelly has never revealed the truth about what happened.

Until now.In "Celtic s Lost Legend" he tells the incredible inside story of his life and career for the first time. From his early appearances for Celtic in 1968, he soon showed that he possessed a very rare talent.

He moved round the pitch with the authority of Franz Beckenbauer, could pass long or short with unerring accuracy, could entertain crowds with his keepie-uppie skills and seemed to have the world at his feet. Celtic were rebuilding after the Lisbon Lions and Connelly was the cornerstone of the new plan.

But, as Celtic and Scotland looked forward to a successful new era, the demons in George Connelly's head were starting to persecute him. And behind the laid-back exterior, the man himself was starting to fall apart.

In "Celtic s Lost Legend", George Connelly tells the full story of why he walked away from his dreams and from the team he loved and finally answers the question that has intrigued football fans for thirty years. Whatever became of George Connelly

Review

(from AB MURDOCH@NotTheView)
George Connelly has existed as an almost mythical character in the Celtic story for over 30 years; the man who apparently had all the gifts to play the game perfectly, in almost any position but who walked out of professional football at the age of 26 never to be heard of again.

Myths and legends sprang up about him; he was a womaniser, he had never wanted to be a footballer, he wanted to drive a lorry, he quit because he was hearing voices inside his head etc. etc.

Sightings of him had been limited to junior football and a brief spell on trial with Falkirk.

But now he’s re-emerged, visiting Celtic Park for the first time since walking out 30 years ago. Celtic TV have made a documentary about him and now there’s this book which attempts to set the record straight.

All of it is part of an attempt to combat chronic alcoholism which has affected him for the best part of 25 years.

The book has a slightly unusual format in that Connelly’s is not the only voice heard in the narrative. There are chapters from David Hay and David Cattenach (who were both in the reserves with Connelly), Billy McNeill and Connelly’s second wife and son.

By and large the football people stick to football stories and his family sticks to the home aspects of his life, which doesn’t appear to be that happy. Both his wife and his son profess great love for him but neither shirks from giving him both barrels over his alcohol addiction and how it has blighted their lives.

His wife’s description of how she found out he had been a footballer is comical. When they were going out he would take her for a drink and inevitably he would be verbally abused by complete strangers for wasting his talent. Nice when you’re trying to impress someone on a date.

The early chapters are a typical story of a young talented footballer spotted playing for his local team by a Celtic scout and finding himself on the groundstaff at Celtic Park, although there is an interesting aside to that tale. Jock Stein had tried to get him for Dunfermline at the same time.

From there it’s progression to reserves and a first team place alongside the Lions, whom he clearly idolised.

Throughout his time at Celtic Park it is apparent that he suffered from an inferiority complex like no other. On the one hand he seems almost to believe that he was unworthy of his success, yet at times he can be quite brazen about his talent, at one point saying that we never saw anything like the best of George Connelly.

However, it is clear that he had trouble with the gregarious nature of the dressing room.

As he begins to get more first team games his life around him starts to dissolve due to a seriously unhappy first marriage the circumstances of which sound pretty grim.

While most people would consider training and playing football every day an escape from any problems they might have, the opposite seems to be the case here. Connelly began to see his football career as a contributory factor in his unhappiness.

He began to disappear, he ran out of training a couple of times (once with the rest of the squad running behind him to find out what was going on) and he walked out on Scotland.

Jock Stein tried to coax him along reassuring him that the club would do anything they could, even arranging for a session with a psychiatrist (quite revolutionary and forward thinking for 1970s West of Scotland, but maybe not the best thing for a naturally shy person).

It was all to no avail.

The transfer of David Hay, his closest friend, after a dispute over wages was the final straw. Connelly had even gone on strike with Hay over their wages. But in 1975, after a long absence, Celtic released him.

Money features heavily in any discussion about players leaving Celtic Park at that time, but Connelly has perhaps provided the ultimate example of how poorly paid the players were. After he quit Celtic he took a job lagging pipes. In his first week he cleared almost double what he was getting with Celtic.

Even after his release from the club there were opportunities. One day he got a knock at the door and an offer of the chance to join Tommy Docherty at Manchester United.You would think that this might offer him a way to escape, leave his wife in Glasgow, start afresh.

Not a bit of it. He said no and closed the door.

The rest of the book is the story of how he met his second wife, slid into alcoholism, lost both his parents and a sister and a brother in alcohol-related deaths and basically lost contact with the rest of his family due to that (he has a pretty heavy go at them). He took up part time taxi driving.

This is not book with a clear-cut happy ending. His wife and son make clear this book is part of an on-going process to fight his addiction.

The stories of George Connelly the footballer are fantastic, his accounts of some games are truly fascinating, David Hay in particular has some great stuff here.

The story of what happened after that time is a grim tale but one which is definitely worth reading.

Product Details

Publisher: Black and White Publishing
Language English
ISBN-10: 1845022106
ISBN-13: 978-1845022105
Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.6 x 2.8 cm

Other Reviews

It is the question Scottish football fans of a certain vintage have been asking for over thirty years: whatever happened to George Connelly?

Just how did one of Celtic's most gifted ever players slide away from stardom and into oblivion?
Connelly made 254 appearances for the Glasgow club between 1968-1975 and, until now, was the foremost enigma of Scottish football.

With the world at his feet, the elegant utlity player, nurtured by the legendary Jock Stein and learning his craft with the Lisbon Lions, walked out for the last time in 1975, unable to deal with the intensity of playing for one half of the Old Firm.

A fledgling Connelly learned his football craft with the Lisbon Lions

And, in doing so, his disenchantment with the game and his remarkable decision to walk away from the big stage at 26 years old was a huge loss both to Celtic and Scotland.

Finally, the Fife-born man has broken his silence with the publication of Celtic's Lost Legend: The George Connelly story.

Stein had earmarked him as a natural successor to Billy McNeill as captain, after immense performances, in particular, against Rangers in a 4-0 Scottish Cup final victory in 1969 and Leeds United in the 1970 European Cup semi-final.

Ironically, the calm assurance of Connelly – who won four Scottish titles and appreared in an abundance of cup finals – on the park for a long time overshadowed his inner torment off it.

'Quality Street Gang' Celtic's famed conveyor belt of talent for a decade from the mid-1960s, known as 'The Quality Street Gang,' gave rise to Kenny Dalglish, David Hay, Lou Macari, and Connelly.

His contemporaries enjoyed the fruits of success with the Hoops before switching to Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester United respectively.

Connelly, hailed as the greatest talent of his generation, however, hitched a ride on the down escalator and into a private world of obscurity and, sadly, alcoholism.

With the benefit of hindsight he says: "Can you imagine the number of people who wanted to tell me what a mug I had been?"

Connelly was dubbed 'The Scottish Beckenbauer' by Jock Stein

Sean Fallon, Stein's assistant, maintains that Connelly was the best player he worked with in his time at Parkhead, and such high praise makes his story all the more poignant.

However, after absconding from the club he adored, Connelly was re-introduced to the Celtic supporters at half-time during the recent Champions League game against AC Milan.

Little did this most modest and sensitive of men realise that he was always fondly regarded by contemporaries and fans alike.

Principally, the book's appeal lies in Connelly's relationships with the Celtic squad he grew up with as well as his thoughts on working with the Lisbon Lions.

And, more importantly, it gives the Scot a belated chance to address a few of his personal demons, which, he admits, has been a therapeutic experience.

By the mid-1970s, Connelly found himself not just a lost Celt, but a lost soul.

And like others in the game, before and after, his attempts to replicate the buzz of playing with drinking failed miserably.

"I've forgotten a whole lot more about my career than I've remembered. I was never obsessed with myself as a footballer, I just did things and that was it – I forgot about them and ordered the next drink."

Now, an older, wiser, Connelly, 58, is in rude health and has found an inner contentment.

But what a shame, his light shone for only – by his own admission – two years at his peak.

The fact that this most reclusive of players walked out on Scotland as well due to his personal problems is testimony to how ill-equipped he was to cope with the limelight.

After a starring role in Scotland's win over Czechoslovakia to qualify for the 1974 World Cup, how the Scots would have loved the injured Connelly to form a famed half-back line alongside Billy Bremner and Jim Holton in Germany.

With Celtic, it was a strange kind of love for Connelly, and while he realised his mistake of quitting the club later, time waits for no man.

Indeed, Scotland's player of the year in 1973 spurned several chances to reboard and rebuild his career.
"How I wish I could have justified his (Stein's) confidence in me," he admits.

"My once buoyant spirit was beginning to flag faster than he could have imagined.

"And, in spite of my upbeat prediction about there always being the 1978 World Cup, I just knew it was never going to happen for me as far as Scotland, or Celtic, for that matter were concerned."

Connelly's candid story makes a fascinating read, not just for Celtic fans but for all those who recall the skills of a player Stein dubbed 'The Scottish Franz Beckenbauer.'

"I can't believe the phenomenal reception I received on revisiting Celtic Park. It's great to return."

Thankfully, this philosophical lost Celt has found a route map back to his beloved club and to life itself.

Julian Taylor BBC.

GEORGE Connelly's autobiography is sitting on a table in the front room of his home in Clackmannan, his younger and infinitely more tortured self peering out from the cover, the hoops on his chest and a slightly pained expression on his twenty-something face. He picks up his life story and looks at the young man on the front when attempting to answer a question about his past. If that boy was here right now what would the 58-year-old George want to tell him?

"Here the noo?"

"Aye."

"Sitting there?"

"That's right."

A long, melancholic silence descends. And then: "I'd tell him he's only a laddie, Only a laddie. Though he wouldn't believe it. I'd say that he has his whole life ahead of him if only he looked for help, but he wouldnae. Get yourself a bit of help, son. Go and see Mr Stein. Go and tell him what's going on inside your head, pour your heart out to him, hope that he'll be able to find the answers for you."

Even one as legendary as Stein would have had his work cut out with Connelly. He had all the talent in the world, the Scottish Franz Beckenbauer as his manager once said, but, Lord, he was a troubled soul. "Deep as an ocean," is how his mate, Dave Cattenach, describes him and it's an assessment Connelly agrees with. Cattenach and Davie Hay were his closest friends – still are – but they knew nothing of his troubles at the time. He wasn't the type to confide. In his confused, lost state he thought it better to be a man and keep it inside. So what if his problems were killing him? It never even dawned on him to unburden himself.

If ever a man needed help it was the young George Connelly. He needed answers; answers to what possessed him to run out on Celtic five times, what drove him to abandon Scotland duty and seek comfort in the form of his bed and a bottle of Cinzano. Why, when at the absolute peak of his powers, with all the cars and medals and houses and glory any man can handle (or can't handle) did he spot a guy standing outside a pub reading the racing form and feel deeply jealous of the simplicity of his life?

Why, on bright sunny mornings, did he wake up, look out the window and see only darkness. "I'd want to pull the blankets over my head. I needed to hide from the world. If you have been able to buy invisibility at the chemist's I'd have been at the front of the queue seeking a lifetime's supply!"

Why "the black moods, the paranoia and the anger"? Why "the basket case afraid of my own shadow"?

Is it really true that it all began with a shotgun wedding at 19? The depression, the isolation, the sadness was all down to a dysfunctional relationship? In the beginning, before drink took him to some horrible places, he says the marriage was the root of it. He describes his short life with Christine, mother to his two daughters, in graphic detail.

His girls, Susan and Sharon, don't know what's coming. They have not been told what went on with their father and mother, not by George at any rate. The first they'll hear of his version of events is when they read it in his book and that's making him a little anxious. "I'm a bit nervous about that. Aye, I am. We just never really sat down and spoke about it. Never had the right opportunity. I'm hoping they'll be fine. It's just life, isn't it? That's the way life is sometimes."
And what a life. He tells a story from just after he walked out on Celtic for the final time, after Jock Stein went to him and offered him yet another chance, which he rejected, after Stein offered a reference for some future employer, which he also turned down. He's done some stupid things in his time, he says, but turning down a reference from Stein was right up there.

He remembers the day well. "I'll do you a wee reference," said Stein, accepting now that the genius he helped nurture was a lost cause. "Och, you're all right, Mr Stein. I need to be heading up the road." How stupid, was he? "Aye, not clever. I know how I felt that day. I just wanted to get out of there as fast as I could. Not in a bad way mind. I didn't want to wait around while they put something through a typewriter. I used to tell that story to people years ago but I stopped telling them because it was embarrassing."

By the time his link with Celtic was broken his miserable marriage had also come to an end. He was free at last of the two things that ate into his soul; football fame and domestic strife.

Now he could become the man outside the pub reading the racing form. Now he could have the anonymity he craved.

But this is what it did to him. He sold his marital home after the divorce, paid his mother the few quid he owed her, and drank the rest. "Those were the days," he writes. "There was no hanging about then. At eleven o'clock in the morning, with my tongue flapping like a shirt on a clothesline on a windy day, we'd be waiting [himself and his late brother, Dan] for the pub doors to open. In many ways I had achieved my ideal dream. The manacles that had bound me were off and I was a free man. The opportunities were unlimited, just like the beverages that I was now about to throw down my neck at every chance."

The drinks were on him. Three spirit measures at a pound a throw, double vodkas with Britvic, lagers. The pub closed from half past two until five. He plugged the gap by downing bottles of sherry at 50p a go. "Life was as sweet as the sherry, or so I thought."

It's all out in the open now. The rise and fall, the attempt to explain it all. He kept it hidden for 30 years but there is no secret left untold at this stage, no detail of his life that is bottled up inside him. "What's the word? Is it 'candid'?"

Indeed it is.

He puts his book back on the table and looks over at a photograph of Helen, his saintly wife, the woman who saved him, and their son, David. Helen has written a chapter in his life story, so have Hay and Cattenach and David. He hasn't read those bits yet. He's not quite sure why. Fear, maybe. You tell him that their words, in places, are highly emotional and loving and he smiles. "I'm glad you said that. I'm really glad. I'll read them. Aye, I will. Next few days, maybe. Aye."

David is in Australia right now, trying to get something started for himself in Brisbane."That's him there," says his father, pointing to his picture. "He's 24. I look at him and I think 'Jesus Christ, he's only a kid'. And that's all I was when I chucked it all away. I started my last match against Rangers at 24. I was oot the game two years later. I had four league medals, three Scottish Cup medals, two caps, a player of the year award. I thought I was a veteran but I wasnae. I wasnae. I was only a boy, like David there."

He fills his days now by driving a taxi and by walking for miles, two, three, four days a week, anything from five to 25 miles at a time. It keeps him busy, keeps him out of the pub, away from the gargle that has done him such harm.

He looks healthy and says he's happier than he's been for quite some time. The way the Celtic fans welcomed him back during a half-time appearance at the Milan game a few weeks back touched him in so many ways. "I had a wee lump in my throat that night. I had to check myself. Aye, I didn't want to get all emotional."

Four months have passed since he touched a drop but as good as that sounds he knows he is only one drink away from it all going wrong again. "One drink and I'm back into hell. So it's one day at a time. That's the way you get through it. No other way."

He finishes chatting and heads off with the photographer, down to the waterside for a picture. Thirty years on and he's in the limelight again. But he's at ease now and all that he wants from life is more of the same. Peace of mind. All the money in the world can't buy it.

Tom English: Scotland On Sunday

FORMER Celtic star George Connelly admits a burden has been lifted from his shoulders after supporters forgave him for quitting in his prime.

Connelly made 254 appearance for the Parkhead side in the late 1960s and 1970s and was a member of the Scotland squad which qualified for the 1974 World Cup.

However, the big Fifer walked out on Celtic several times before controversially retiring at the age of 26.

But Connelly was given a warm reception by the Celtic fans when he was invited onto the pitch at half-time in the Champions League match against AC Milan last month.

Yesterday, launching his book Celtic's Lost Legend at Parkhead, the 58-year-old said: "I didn't know how I was going to get received that night.

"It was a worry to me because I felt people would hold my walk-outs, and the fact that I quit the game when I was only 26, against me.

"But everything worked out fantastically well.

"I was really pleased with the reception I got. I had a word with chief executive Peter Lawwell and he said to come to Celtic Park any time and not be a stranger.

"I've been in touch with my old Celtic team-mate Davie Hay and he asked me to go to games.

"So I feel as if I've been welcomed back into the fold and it makes me feel good."

Connelly, who was one of the great talents of his generation, is less than enamoured by modern-day football but admits he would not mind the salaries enjoyed by some of the top players in the game.

He said: "We were on £65 per week when I played and I always say that if I was on £25,000 per week they could put boxes of tomatoes around the track and they could throw them at me if I had a bad game.
"That's the way I see it."

He explained: "To be honest I don't like the style of football these days.

"There is too much square passing and to me that's Italian style and I never liked that.

"It would be better to revert back to having attacking wingers.

"But the wingers are not there now, it's more of a team effort and individualism is out of the game. It's not my style of football at all.

Ronnie Esplin: The Scotsman

George Connelly has existed as an almost mythical character in the Celtic story for over 30 years; the man who apparently had all the gifts to play the game perfectly, in almost any position but who walked out of professional football at the age of 26 never to be heard of again.