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Details
Title: Celtic: Keeping the Faith
Author: Richard Purden
Published: 2 Nov 2015
Synopsis
A sequel to the bestselling We Are Celtic Supporters, first published in hardback only as Faithful Through and Through, this is a fully revised and updated edition. Richard Purden takes a fresh look at Celtic’s relationship with individuals and institutions who have had made a unifying and cohesive impact on the club, its support and the team.
Purden talks to a selection of supporters, ex-players, managers and public figures, while traveling to a number of historical locations. While visiting the club’s ancestral home in Ireland he discusses Celtic in the context of faith, politics and identity.
The author channels the voices of secret millionaires, Irish troubadours, Scottish politicians and the club’s most popular icons who take you on a Celtic odyssey in a continuing story that underlines why this team from Glasgow’s East End personify a way of life that represents unwavering hope and positive life-affirming values around the world.
Review
(review by pd1978 of KDS forum)
Writing as impressive a debut as ‘We Are Celtic Supporters’ may have caused Edinburgh-based Celtic aficionado, Richard Purden, a few age-old problems.
Afflictions that have threatened to undermine the creative and free-thinking souls of writers, movie makers and songsmiths for centuries have left many lesser beings suffering the horrific and career-threatening effects of Sophomore Syndrome.
Self analysis and its inevitable side order of self doubt, executive interference, the shift of the tides and a litany of kangaroo keyboard critics (oh, the irony) can render a writer helpless in their follow-up’s unremarkable and hopelessly lonely descent into the ‘inferior sequel’ category.
The good news for fans of Purden’s magnificent debut is that the author has managed to body swerve these dark yet magnetic pitfalls as he has woven an angled, thoughtful and compelling thread throughout this second volume of bar-room romances and terrace tales, which frequently shunts even its fantastic predecessor into the shade.
Obsequious to the darker moments in the club’s history, Purden is willing to challenge that mantle of Celtic fans being regarded as the greatest supporters in world football where, in chapter six, he discusses a less than auspicious moment in the club’s fairly recent history.
Purden is able to illustrate those mostly well-travelled legions of fellow Celtic supporters as “shameful” for their banana-throwing failure to accept Mark Walters into Scottish society and the throes of a Glasgow Derby in 1987 as former Secretary of State for Scotland, Jim Murphy, highlights an incident that left the prominent political figure questioning his lifelong love affair with Celtic. Murphy goes on to explain, “It is right that we romanticise Celtic Football Club, we like to think that we have a philosophical outlook and egalitarian beliefs, but it’s also important to recognise these vile and embarrassing moments.”
Purden used his tenacity and investigative ability to track down two of his most-impressive subjects – Martin O’Neill and Henrik Larsson – and these two individuals bring their own ingredients to the eclectic mix of personalities contained within the author’s first two volumes. It took years of tracking Celtic’s ex-manager before being granted an audience with the then Sunderland boss. The interview with the King of Kings was granted with a couple of days’ notice and involved a frantic trip to Sweden for Richard to get his man. These are the lengths that this fabulous writer goes to in order to set him apart from many of his contemporaries and Celtic fan’s libraries are far richer for his efforts and undoubted literary skill.
Once the ink finally dries on a writer’s final manuscript, the experience is akin to breathing life into a balloon and then letting it go into the great unknown. There is no control over the rate at which it rises, where it goes, who sees it or where it comes to land. The experience feels strangely exhilarating; releasing a creation and watching it rise into the sky from where you’re rooted.
Purden is a perfectionist and has now released two outstanding and unmissable tomes into the ether in recent years and his stock among the difficult-to-please Celtic literary appreciation fraternity has risen considerably. I look forward to adding more of this talented writer’s work to my collection.
Product Details
- Paperback: 272 pages
- Publisher: Freight Books (2 Nov. 2015)
- ISBN-10: 1910449539
- ISBN-13: 978-1910449530
- Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 2.2 x 19.8 cm
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