| Player Homepage |
George Connelly returning to centre stage at Celtic Park
(Times)
Connelly, now 58, will have an emotional reunion with the club he walked out on 32 years ago. The former Celtic player will be the guest of honour at the Champions League match with AC Milan and will be introduced to the 60,000 fans at half-time. The symmetry could not be better; Jock Stein used to send Connelly out to entertain Celtic crowds during the interval en route to the European Cup triumph in 1967, routinely keeping the ball in the air for 2,000 touches.
Connelly is no ordinary ex-player making the prize draw at half-time. He left Celtic in controversial circumstances in 1975 and has never been back. Now he has chosen to accept the club’s overtures. The man who hung up his boots at 26 and became a taxi driver will be the VIP on an occasion packed full of important people. Milan’s glamorous cast of Champions League winners and world champions are on display but Connelly’s own CV stands scrutiny with the best, playing in the 1970 European Cup final at the age of 21.
David Hay, a former teammate and best friend in the Celtic dressing-room, is glad to see Connelly finally return to the fold after years spent fighting his own personal problems. “George is basically a very shy person who conquered it every time to go out on the pitch,” Hay said. “He was brave enough to go out and do the keepie-uppie routine for the fans when Jock asked him and he played in front of 136,000 people at Hampden Park when we beat Leeds in the 1970 European Cup semi-final. I don’t like making comparisons, but George had it in him to be Franz Beckenbauer.”
The Battle of Britain with Don Revie’s Leeds United saw Connelly at his best. He scored Celtic’s winner in the first leg at Elland Road and his performance in the return game at Hampden helped to win a midfield battle against Johnny Giles and Billy Bremner. Connelly came off the bench in the final when Celtic lost 2-1 to Feyenoord. He initially broke into the Celtic side in 1968 as a midfield player and he set the trail for his young colleagues in the reserves, a group containing Kenny Dalglish, Lou Macari, Danny McGrain and Hay, who were dubbed “The Quality Street Kids”.
While Dalglish would go on to fame and fortune at Liverpool, Connelly disappeared from the football scene completely to work as a taxi driver in Clackmannanshire. Yet, for a while, he, and not Dalglish, was the hottest property in British football. The Fife-born player was just 20 when he scored in the 4-0 Scottish Cup final rout of Rangers in 1969 and was named Scotland’s Footballer of the Year in 1973. He would have played in the 1974 World Cup finals but injury intervened and soon he had tired of the game.
“I think that as soon as I left Celtic to join Chelsea in 1974, George felt more vulnerable,” Hay, who took on Stein in a dispute over more money a year earlier and went on strike for a fortnight, said. “George came out in sympathy with me. I actually negotiated his contract. He was an exceptional talent who was lost to the game, not through injury, but of his own accord.”
Connelly walked out out on Celtic five times before he quit in 1975, leaving Stein bemused. He performed one of his disappearing acts before what should have been his Scotland debut, walking out from the airport just as Willie Ormond’s squad were boarding a flight to Switzerland in May 1973. Ormond forgave the Celtic player and selected him for the crucial World Cup qualifying tie with Czechoslovakia three months later that took Scotland to the finals.
Connelly’s other cap came in a friendly with West Germany at Hampden, when he came face-to-face with the real Beckenbauer and helped Scotland to a 1-1 draw. A cruel twist of fate kept Connelly out of the 1974 World Cup finals, sustaining an injury with Celtic in a European Cup quarter-final tie with FC Basle in March of that year, ending his season.
He had a brief spell at Falkirk before turning out for Sauchie Juniors. Connelly said two years ago in a rare interview that his private life had been dominated by a long battle with alcohol that he hopes is now won. He said: “Jock was sympathetic, even towards the end. He never even scolded me. He was always good to me. I was 16 when I did the keepie-uppie at half-time in the European game. Jock said he would give me a fiver if I would do it. That was a lot to me.
“Was I nervous? I wasn’t, really. I was too stupid to be nervous. Nowadays, I’m one of those people who gets easily embarrassed. If they said to me to go and do that now, I wouldn’t go near it. But then, you just did it.”
Celtic’s lost legend
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/scotland/7093543.stmBy Julian Taylor
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?”
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.
A Celtic State of Mind: George Connelly’s return to Paradise
On Wednesday, 19 December, 2018 / A Celtic State of Mind, Books, Culture, Features, Football, Podcasts, Uncategorized / Leave a comment
https://intocreative.co.uk/a-celtic-state-of-mind-george-connellys-return-to-paradise/
It had been eight years since I last spoke to George Connelly. Referred to as “Scotland’s answer to Beckenbauer” in his prime, George was the elegant figure who astounded onlookers at a packed Celtic Park as a 16-year-old by performing his keepie-uppie routine right around the vast expanses of Parkhead before a European encounter against Dynamo Kiev (George is always keen to highlight that his ball-juggling took place before the game, as many hazy memories have embellished the occasion to having occurred at half-time).
It was the beginning of a wonderful career, which took him to the 1970 European Cup final, Scotland’s Player of the Year in 1973, qualification for the World Cup finals in 1974, and many more league and cup winners’ medals along the way.
But it ended all-too-soon, and for a multitude of reasons.George and I first met for a few tins of Diet Irn Bru at The Unicorn Restaurant in Kincardine to chat about the book I was writing at the time – The Quality Street Gang.Having relished the chance to spend a couple of hours with this man of mystery, I vividly recall the last thing that George said to me that summer’s day in 2010, just as I was about the get back into my car (he had walked me right up to the door like the gentleman that he is): “The way I’m feeling today, Paul, I never want to touch drink again.”
We hadn’t discussed his much-publicised battle with alcohol during our interview because I wanted to focus on his vintage talent, something that I felt had often been overshadowed by stories of the demon drink. George brought it up almost as an afterthought, and his statement of intent filled me with a great sense of positivity because it felt as though he meant every word of it.I had idolised George Connelly since I was a youngster, playing football for our hometown side, High Valleyfield.
The men who ran the team – Iain Downie and Mick Hutton – were old pals of George (to this day, Mick is still very close to him) and hardly a training session went by without one of them enrapturing my young team-mates and I with tales of the almost mythical talents of George.
The rise and fall of George Connelly is undoubtedly a story of cinematic proportions. In fact, a few years ago, I was involved in making the feature-length documentary about the Quality Street team he was part of. Sadly, after around 18 months of working alongside False 9 (the team behind Celtic’s Smiler and Sean Fallon biopic, The Iron Man) production hit a brick wall.
Hopefully some day we will resurrect the project.
If we do, then George has rewritten the final scenes for us. The ‘rise and fall’ story would now end with the archetypal Hollywood happy ending…George hasn’t touched booze for four-and-a-half years, and he looks a picture of health in sobriety. He decided that he was ready to make his first ‘public’ appearance in 11 years a fortnight ago when he agreed to help me out with the first-ever Quality Street Gang book signing.
Celtic fans flocked to see the Fifer at The Penalty Spot in Glasgow’s Sword Street, with some travelling from as far as Leeds and Folkestone to shake his hand and get their long-awaited photograph taken with him. Former Chelsea and Manchester United midfielder, Jim McCalliog, was among the crowd, as was ex-Celt, Tosh McKinlay, who upon asking George if he could get his photo taken with him, was met with the response, “Can I get my photo taken with you, Tosh?
”Everyone in attendance felt blessed to spend a couple of hours with the man whose own autobiography was titled, Celtic’s Lost Legend.Paul John Dykes
George Connelly
HIS GREATEST GAME v Rangers – September 16, 1972
CELTIC moved this league game to Hampden due to building work still to be completed on their newly-built main stand at Celtic Park.
Rangers came to Hampden full of confidence after their success in the European Cup-Winners’ Cup just a few months previously, while Celtic were without the influential trio of Jim Brogan, Davie Hay and Bobby Lennox as Jock Stein drafted in the young threesome of Danny McGrain, Pat McCluskey and Lou Macari to replace them.
Celtic took control from the off and opened the scoring in only two minutes when Jimmy Johnstone headed a Macari cross on to Kenny Dalglish to score from close range. Celtic smelled blood at this stage and continued their onslaught on the Rangers goal and in 17 minutes they scored a second when Dalglish beat Sandy Jardine on the left and set up Johnstone to score easily.
At this stage of the game, Celtic where imperious with Bobby Murdoch and Tommy Callaghan controlling the midfield area and attackers Johnstone, Dalglish and Macari being unplayable up front.
However, Celtic’s superiority started from the back where Billy McNeill and George Connelly had the much-vaunted Rangers strike duo of Colin Stein and Derek Johnstone totally under wraps.
Connelly was now in the apex of his career and he gave a virtuoso display of long passing, effortlessly turning defence into attack in an instant, as a regular supply of through balls where played into the danger areas behind Rangers defence for Macari and Dalglish to fasten on to.
In the first half, big George had delighted the Celtic fans by carrying out an impromptu display of keepy-up, seemingly daring the Rangers players to come and get the ball off him, but there were no takers as the Celtic supporters roared with approval.
Macari scored a third early in the second half as Celtic threatened to run all over their great rivals. Three times Rangers’ defenders cleared Celtic efforts off the line, although as the game wore on, the Celtic players were now happy to keep possession and let the Rangers’ players chase around in frustration with George Connelly at the centre of the possession play.
The Rangers fans began to leave long before the end and in the last minute John Greig burst through to score at the Celtic End of the ground where the Hoops fans greeted the goal with a huge ironic roar as Greig ‘saluted’ them in return.
The Celtic fans may have cheered Greig’s goal with a certain amount of humour but there was also an element of grudging admiration as Greig was the only Rangers player who hadn’t accepted his fate long before the final whistle.
The media stated afterwards that the gap between the two clubs on the field of play had never appeared so great such was Celtic’s superiority, although some Hoops fans were annoyed that the team had wound down in the second half and hadn’t gone for the jugular to score more goals to add to Rangers’ humiliation.
Celtic had many fine players on the day and George Connelly had been majestic throughout. Comparisons were now being made between the Celtic sweeper and the great West German star of the period, Franz Beckenbauer, and there were certainly similarities between their playing styles.
At the end of the season, George Connelly was selected as the Scottish Sports Writers’ Player of the Year as he kept up his fine form with a string of consistent displays.
This game was part of the reason he was selected for that award and Celtic fans were to fondly remember his bold keepy-up display in the heat of a Glasgow derby for many years to come.
The night George Connelly took the ball for a walk
https://www.celticfc.com/news/2022/january/12/the-night-george-connelly-took-the-ball-for-a-walk/
By Joe Sullivan
Share
It was on this day 56 years ago, on January 12, 1966 that Celtic beat Dynamo Kyiv 3-0 and headed towards a 4-1 European Cup-Winners’ Cup quarter-final aggregate win.
This was the night that a 16-year-old George Connelly thrilled the crowd with an astonishing display of ball juggling – walking around the perimeter of the playing field without letting the ball drop.
And to mark the occasion we revisit a Celtic View sit-down with the Celtic legend when his biography was published in 2007
THEY were the pretenders to the throne of the Lisbon Lions but, there was no pretence about this group of players whatsoever, as the 1960s melted into the ‘70s the assumption was ‘when’ they would take up the mantle, rather than ‘if’.
The ‘they’ in question were a bunch of lads known collectively as ‘The Quality Street Gang’ and individually each of them was still a frightening prospect as the rest of Scottish football looked on and wondered when the Celtic monopoly was going to end.
There was George Connelly, Lou Macari, Kenny Dalglish, Danny McGrain and Davie Hay – added to that there were the likes of Vic Davidson, Paul Wilson, David Cattenach and John Gorman.
The signs were that the championship was going to take up a permanent residency at Celtic Park and, the legend goes, that this reserve side was denied the chance to enter the old Second Division and gain more experience in case they actually won it.
George Connelly.jpg
Arguably the most talented, undeniably the most unruffled and certainly the most enigmatic of this bunch was George Connelly who hailed from the coalfields of Fife.
He was already the stuff of legend before he even kicked a ball for the first team thanks to an exhibition of keepy-up in front of a 64,000 crowd who had gathered for Celtic’s European Cup-Winners’ Cup tie against Dynamo Kyiv on January 12, 1966 when he was still only 16-years-old.
He made his debut in April, 1968 and was a regular in the team by 1970 but by September 1975 he had played his last game for Celtic.
In between times there had been highs like dispossessing John Greig before scoring in the 1969 Scottish Cup final 4-0 win over Rangers and playing a crucial role in Celtic’s triumphant double-header with Leeds United in the 1970 European Cup semi-final (below, scoring at Elland Road).
Connelly Elland Road.jpg
It seems though, that for every high there was a low, for every peak a trough and Connelly’s walk-outs, from both Celtic and Scotland, became as legendary as his performances on the park.
Since then, he has led a hermit-like existence but the turmoil of the lost years have now been unearthed by the player himself in Celtic’s Lost Legend: The George Connelly Story, the book we thought we would never see.
George broke the habit of half-a-lifetime by returning to Celtic Park not once but twice recently – first, for a half-time appearance at the recent UEFA Champions League win over AC Milan, and then to officially launch the book at Paradise.
He said: “When I first started the book I knew I had to be honest so that’s how I approached it.
Connelly book.jpg
“Sometimes it was painful as there a few things I didn’t want to recall but other things in the book brought back happy memories such as talking about big games and such. There were parts that I didn’t enjoy all the same.
“I feel better now for this experience though and I got a lot of things off of my chest – I talked about things that I haven’t talked to anybody about before.
“I’ve had this book idea in mind for over 20 years and people have been asking me about my life but it’s always been in my mind.
“I am getting on in years and I thought this was maybe a nice time to bring it out.”
The book though means George is back in the public eye and he has always been notoriously shy of media attention – not a trait that goes hand-in-hand with launching a biography.
He said: “I’m finding it fairly easy just now and I’m quite enjoying it all. I know I was a bit of a shy lad when I was playing football but I can handle the press and media a lot better now than ever before.”
Rather amazingly though, he did approach his recent re-appearance at Celtic Park to make the Paradise Windfall draw with some trepidation.
Connelly Celtic Park.jpg
He said: ““It feels like I’ve been welcomed back into the family, it made me feel good because when I came up here at first I didn’t know how I was going to be received.
“I was really pleased with the reception I got when I did the half-time draw.
“It was a worry to me as to how I would be received. I thought that people would hold the walk-outs and such like against me.
“I quit the game when I was only 26 and it was a worry leading up to the AC Milan game but everything turned out fantastic.”
He added: “In recent years I’ve been keeping in touch with what was happening at the park because my son David got a season ticket.
““I found myself watching the games again so that I could talk to him about them.
“I’ve always followed the football and liked it but I really started watching it again and starting to love it once more when my son David started to go to Celtic Park.
“My son’s in Australia now but Peter Lawwell has told me I can come up to the park any time and he’s told me not to be a stranger.
“I’m in touch with Davie Hay quite a bit and he wants me to come along to games.
“Previously I didn’t keep in touch with anybody. I spoke to Bobby Lennox on the phone and I was always invited through all the time by my former team-mates but I never really kept in touch with them on a regular basis.
“But I’m back in the fold again so to speak and we’ll see what happens from here.”
He added: “I’m a part-time taxi driver just now and I’m just going to take it day by day. I’m not going to project and look forward and I’m a fair age anyway now so I’m just going to take each day as it comes.
“My biggest regret would be reaching my peak and only having a couple of seasons there.
“I would have liked to have been at the top a lot longer.”
Brogan & Connelly.jpg
GEORGE CONNELLY PROFILE
BORN: March 1 1949
POSITION: Defender/midfielder
CAREER: Tulliallan Thistle 1963, Celtic (provisional, July 9 1964; full, June 19 1965), Falkirk (loan, July 14 1976), free October 18 1976, Tulliallan Thistle (August 11 1978), Sauchie FC (March 4 1982)
HONOURS:
League Championship 1968/69-1973/74;
Scottish Cup 1968/69, 1970/71, 1971/72, 1973/74, 1974/75.
League Cup 1968/69, 1969/70, 1974/75.
INTERNATIONAL RECORD: 2 full Scotland caps.
CELTIC RECORD: 254 appearances, 13 goals.