Details
Ref: Radio Clyde’s Tiger Tim (tannoy announcer at Celtic) gets the sack for jokey inoffensive dig at Rangers
Date: 29 Sep 1993
Match: 1993-09-29: Celtic 1-0 Young Boys Berne, UEFA Cup
Tiger Tim (the match announcer) cut down by the old board!!
September 1993. Glasgow’s east end is an even darker place than usual as another season gets off to an underwhelming start. The centenary season is becoming a distant, fading memory. The old board’s failure to build from a position of (relative) strength has condemned Celtic to more and more hardship and Lou Macari signings while the Great Unwashed are clocking up league titles and ever longer European campaigns.
They’d done particularly well the season before thanks to the most incredible luck (Nesbit’s shin anyone?) and had just turned us over again in the league cup while we began to falter in the title race. Big changes were around the corner but all we had to look forward to at that time was keeping warm over a tepid Parkhead pie on the open expanses of an increasingly deserted Celtic Park. The tims they were a changing, but by no means quickly enough.
One small, shining light in all this gloom was the Celtic Park announcer, the legendary Radio Clyde DJ, “Tiger Tim” Stevens (see right). A verifiable nutter from Easterhouse he was known for appalling comedy 45s (that’s songs on single record discs to you youngsters) and hosting his radio show in the nude in the ’70s. His star was very much in the descendancy but he could still raise the odd laugh, much needed at those times.
Since time immemorial the ying and yang of us and them means anything bad for them is good for us. And so it is we often look forward to them getting severe trouncings in Europe, or some incredible bad luck, to provide us some comfort and joy in the face of extreme adversity, especially when they were heaving with Murray’s millions and we were squandering what little we had on project plans for Cambuslang cesspools.
Yet again, we were up against it. We were making do with hosting the Young Boys of Berne in the Uefa Cup, then the lowest rated of the three competitions, while Rangers were taking on Levski Sofia, the Champions of Bulgaria, having beaten them 3-2 in the home leg. When Durrant got the all important away goal in the late afternoon kick off it was yet another kick in the teeth – here they were on another Champions Cup run against Europe’s finest where they could conceivably go all the way (in the media’s biased opinion), while we were struggling to overcome some halfpenny mob that no-one had ever heard of before, having failed to secure an away goal ourselves a fortnight earlier.
And that would most likely have been the outcome if it hadn’t been for an outrageous injury-time equaliser from Nikolay Todorov, putting the scores at 4 each and sending the huns for a collective early bath. Oh how we laughed at how the mighty had fallen – no more would we be subject to their high profile European encounters on the midweek telly as they’d again have to make way for Coronation Street. Such relief.
As we rolled into Celtic Park, smiling from ear to ear and ‘ere to there, we were met with some grim news. There had been no forewarning on the radio on the way to the ground so it was quite a shock when Tiger Tim announced that there would be a minute’s silence before the game got underway. Was it one of the players? Directors? One of the club’s legendary figures? There was no time to speculate as he went on to declare the silence was “in memory of Rangers’ European Cup campaign, which was declared dead earlier today in Bulgaria.”
And how we laughed! He’d got us hook, line and sinker!! No-one had seen it coming it all. THIS was what a match announcer was all about, getting it right up Them at every available opportunity.
But it was not to be. In a move the Bulgarian Communist Party would have approved of, the Tiger disappeared. Not only did he not return for half-time, he never returned again. At a time when the old Board did nothing right, they’d got it wrong again! Kiljoys could not be added to the ever expanding range of expletives and abusive terms they were being subjected to.
Within a few months the Bunnett was overseeing a revolution of his own, one which was most certainly televised. Could it be that the unceremonious dumping of the popular Tiger was another crucial factor in the overthrow of the discredited ancien regime? Mebbes aye, probablies naw. Either way there was no way back for Tiger Tim in Fergus’ new PR vision of Celtic. I mean, there were even rumours that he bandied around the phrase ‘Huns’ for goodness sake and that just wouldn’t do…
News reports of Tiger Tim’s sacking
RED CARD FOR CELTIC TIGER;
Soccer Diary
The Guardian (London)
October2, 1993
BYLINE:ROBERT PRYCE
CELTIC got rid of Stuart Slater and “Tiger” Tim Stevens this week. Slater’s departure does not appear to have caused much distress to Celtic fans, but Stevens, whose touch is a little less subtle, has split the faithful.
The 38-year-old Radio Clyde disc jockey, who works the Celtic Park PA on match days, was sacked in mid-shift during Wednesday night’s game against Young Boys Berne for what one director called a “tasteless and inappropriate” remark. Jings, no, what did he say?
He announced the result of Rangers’ game in Sofia (cheers). And then asked for a minute’s silence (laughter).
Red card for Tiger Tim after ‘request’
The Herald (Glasgow)
September 30, 1993
BYLINE:Ken Smith
RADIO presenter Tiger TimStevens was sent home with his tail between his legs from Parkhead last night. The Radio Clyde disc jockey, who also makes the public address system announcements at Celtic Park, was perhaps a little less than sincere when he made a half-time request during Celtic’s European tie for “a minute’s silence for Rangers”.
The other half of Glasgow’s Old Firm had, of course, by that time lost their European Cup tie. Celtic director Tom Grant, rather than thinking the Tiger’s skills were burning bright, took a dim view of the announcement — and promptly dismissed Mr Stevens from the Parkhead microphone. “It was quite a civilised discussion,” said one observer. “It would be wrong to say the fur was flying.”
A crestfallen Mr Stevens was heard to remark: “I just did it on the spur of the moment.”
