Lennon, Neil – Miscellaneous Articles (manager) (2)

Neil Lennon homepage

17 Sep 2011

Celtic Football Club Statement

By: Newsroom Staff on 17 Sep, 2011 15:44 CELTIC Football Clubhas issued a statement on a Daily Record article printed today.

The newspaper carried a back page headline asking: "WHO'S MORE HATED AT IBROX? (Is it Lennon or the taxman?)".

A spokesperson for Celtic Football Club commented:

"Clearly, given the year Neil Lennon and his family have experienced – with bombs, bullets, death threats and physical assaults – this kind of reporting is inflammatory, highly irresponsible and quite simply offensive. For this newspaper to treat the matter in this insensitive and ill-judged manner is astonishing.

Celtic has today been inundated with complaints from supporters relating to this story and the Club fully understands their feelings on this issue.

There is no question, on the eve of a Rangers v Celtic match to use "Lennon, "Hate" and "Ibrox" in a newspaper headline is extremely irresponsible.

Neil Lennon, his coaching staff and the Celtic players are very disappointed at this reporting and have jointly decided that they will not be co-operating with journalists from The Daily Record.

It is only right that the newspaper delivers a suitable retraction and apology.

Neil Lennon as always will continue to receive the full support of everyone at the Club."

(all wrt this from the Daily Record on the eve of the first Celtic v Rangers game of the season (to be played at Ibrox))

Football: Why do people want to kill Neil Lennon?

For the past decade Celtic's bellicose manager has endured death threats and physical assaults. Sectarian prejudice could explain it, but some say he brings it upon himself. Kevin McKenna meets the most victimised man in football

Kevin McKenna
Kevin McKenna
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 17 September 2011 21.04 BST

Neil Lennon
“I became aware that I was being jeered at every away ground Celtic played”: Neil Lennon last month, at the club’s training centre near Glasgow.

It is claimed that you must attend an Old Firm game at least once in your life… like drinking yak's milk with Tibetan monks or fire-walking with Mayan Indians. To say that it is merely Irish Catholic Celtic vs Ulster Protestant Rangers is to disregard the centuries of cultural, ethnic and political nuances that make this one of the purest and most intense tribal rivalries that has ever existed in world sport. Today is the first of a handful of occasions this season on which these two will meet. For those new to this tumultuous carnevale it is a breathtaking experience. The seasoned observer learns a lingua franca with which to navigate this febrile part of Glasgow, when colours, songs, accents and dialects are scrutinised for signs of an allegiance to one team or other.

Even so, the series of events that befell Celtic's Northern Irish manager Neil Lennon between January and May this year remains shocking, and has led to one of those prolonged bouts of spiritual introspection in which Scotland likes to wallow every generation or so. Following the traditional early January meeting between these two clubs, in which Celtic triumphed at the home of their ancient foes, Lennon was told by police that he was the subject of a threat of physical violence and that his home in the West End of the city would be placed under 24-hour guard. Websites began to appear encouraging subscribers to "kill Neil Lennon"; bullets were sent to him at Celtic's stadium address. In March, following a four-day media blackout, it was revealed that primed explosive devices intended for Lennon and two other prominent west of Scotland Catholics had been intercepted.

Glasgow develops a bleak and sardonic humour that it uses as a carapace when evil comes to visit. But this time there was a palpable sense of shock that such things were happening in post-Christian, modern and liberal Scotland. Why Neil Lennon? In 2002, two years after joining the club as a player, he was forced to quit playing for Northern Ireland following death threats issued to him before a game. In 2003, two students attacked him as he enjoyed a night out near his home in the genteel West End. In 2004 he was the victim of a road-rage incident in the middle of the M8 which led to a man being fined £500. In 2008 he was beaten unconscious by two men as he left a pub. Each of his assailants was jailed.

If an asylum-seeker or an immigrant or a gay man had been subjected to an ordeal of such deep, sustained and violent hatred there would have been a public inquiry. Instead, there is a widespread notion that Lennon, somehow, has partly brought this upon himself. At the end of last month a 26-year-old man admitted to Edinburgh's sheriff court that he had assaulted Lennon during a football match in the city in May between Heart of Midlothian and Celtic. The miscreant could hardly have pleaded otherwise; 16,000 spectators and millions more watching on TV had witnessed the incident. The perpetrator spoke of his remorse and told the court that he had written a letter of apology to Lennon. The jury, however, found that the assault charge was not proven and that he had merely been guilty of a breach of the peace. It is one of the few occasions in Scottish legal history when an individual is acquitted of a crime that he freely admitted carrying out. A joke rapidly emerged that Colonel Gaddafi had offered to surrender to Nato if he could be guaranteed a trial in Edinburgh.

Until now, the Celtic manager has largely kept his own counsel on the maelstrom that engulfed him earlier this year. I encounter him behind his desk on the upper floor of the club's sleek training facility, set among the splendour of the Campsie Hills 10 miles north of the city centre. He is still in his dark tracksuit after a two-hour session with his squad and at 5ft 8in his squat frame and cropped red hair suggest an amateur boxing trainer. His words are considered and each sentence is weighed before he delivers it in a soft Ulster accent. He has an unnerving habit of adopting a longish pause before answering each question and looking directly at you, as if he is asking if you can be trusted not to distort or misrepresent. He seems at ease with himself and glad that he has made it unscathed to the start of a new season. But he remains angry and not a little bitter at what he had to endure a few months ago.

"This isn't something that just suddenly happened this year," he says. "When I joined Celtic as a player 10 years ago I became aware immediately that I was being singled out for special treatment. At first I thought it might just have had something to do with the fact that I was an expensive signing from the English Premiership. That would have been OK. But I became aware of something more sinister when I played for Northern Ireland as a Celtic player for the first time. Before then I had represented my country 36 or 37 times and had enjoyed the full support of our fans. Now I was aware of being jeered by our own supporters every time I touched the ball.
Neil Lennon attacked by a fan In the line of fire: Lennon is attacked by a Heart of Midlothian fan at Tynecastle Stadium in May. Photograph: Lynne Cameron/PA

"Then I also began to become aware that I was being jeered at every away ground Celtic played at. Some writers said that it was because of my combative style, but I only received two red cards in seven years playing with Celtic and I had never received this treatment while playing in England for three different clubs."

Lennon is a passionate man who, only with some difficulty, masks his emotions. When Lennon is angry he seems to snarl and bare his teeth. Sky's ubiquitous TV cameras captured just this look in the aftermath of a replayed Old Firm cup-tie in March. A lot had been riding on the match; Celtic had developed the upper hand in recent Old Firm clashes and Rangers were under pressure from their supporters to win. It wasn't the roughest game these two have played, but after a narrow Celtic win, eight Rangers players had been cautioned and three sent off. At the end of the game the cameras closed in on Lennon and his Rangers counterpart, Ally McCoist, about to greet each other at the final whistle. In the space of five seconds, the following happened in chronological order: Lennon shakes McCoist's hand and smiles in commiseration; there is a brusque exchange and Lennon adopts his Rumpelstiltskin visage; a mild scuffle lasting a moment ensues before each is huckled away. No more, no less. Within 24 hours Strathclyde's chief constable has phoned Alex Salmond, Scotland's first minister, and something called a "sectarian summit" of concerned politicians and officers of each club has been organised. It took almost as little time for Cobra to be convened after the al-Qaida attack on Glasgow Airport in 2007.

"I was proud of my team that night," Lennon says. "Almost every one of our opponents was booked or sent off. After the game I took exception to something that was said and a very brief scuffle took place. It was nothing." But it wasn't nothing and some pointed to Lennon's manner and said that this sort of behaviour… Well, he just doesn't do himself any favours.

Does this though adequately explain why so many people apparently want to harm him? After all, Lennon's former boss at Celtic, Martin O'Neill, comes from the same Northern Ireland, Catholic background as him and never encountered anything remotely comparable. "Unlike Martin, I played for a Celtic team that enjoyed seven years of almost unbroken supremacy over Rangers, so I was already an unpopular figure," he says.

In the 123 years since this fixture was first played there have been sporadic alarums to exercise the civic panjandrums. On these occasions there is an unseemly dash to occupy the moral high ground and speak portentously of Scotland's dirty little secret.

What had been a keenly contested but otherwise unremarkable city derby for around 25 years developed its sectarian edge when Celtic, the pride of the Irish diaspora, dominated Scottish football in the decade before the Great War. Who could mount a Scottish challenge to navvies, Fenians and tattie-howkers? At this time Rangers, whose home lay in Govan on the other side of the city, began to attract support from shipyard workers imported from the Harland and Wolff yards in Belfast. These were loyal to Ulster, the crown and the Protestant faith. Rangers became their club and began to shoulder their aspirations. Battle was joined. The two clubs, ever since, have been entwined in a grim dance to the music of their time.

Lennon was bemused at the reaction of Scotland's political leaders in the aftermath of the March cup-tie. "I still find it difficult to fathom how, in the face of death threats, attempts on my life and physical assaults, some commentators have said it is partly my fault. Martin O'Neill, my old boss at Celtic and also from Northern Ireland, once pulled me across to salute the Celtic fans at Ibrox after I had received even more than the usual abuse from the Rangers support. The press criticised him for that. Only one sportswriter supported him. This is 2011 and reporters have a duty to report what has happened to me in my 10 years here truthfully, but until the bomb threats they and the politicians swept it under the carpet."

"Yet I know that the Celtic support is very protective of me," Lennon continues, "and I am very humbled by that. I've had hundreds of letters too from Rangers fans, from Hearts fans, from Aberdeen fans, all saying that they have been outraged by some of the abuse directed at me and that it doesn't truly reflect their views. That's also been very humbling."

Neil Lennon playing for Celtic 2006 "I still find it difficult to fathom how, in the face of death threats and assaults, commentators have said it is partly my fault": Neil Lennon, playing for Celtic in 2006. Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA

Lennon grew up in Lurgan, the sober and tidy little town that welcomes us to Northern Ireland when we leave the ferry, and where his parents still live. "I had a good upbringing and a good education," he says, "and I encountered very little sectarian tension. I played sports for many of the protestant boys' clubs and youth clubs. Sectarianism simply was not part of my upbringing." He was invited to train with Rangers when he was 13 and beginning to attract attention from clubs in the mainland. "I still have the letter Rangers sent to me," he says, "and a picture of me at Ibrox with Jimmy Nicholl [Rangers' Northern Irish defender]."

A friend, knowing that I am to interview him, speaks of her appreciation that he wrote, in his 2006 memoir, of his continuing struggle with clinical depression. His candidness was applauded by mental-health charities and he still does what he can to support their campaigns. Despite his troubles in Glasgow he loves the city, and people are often surprised to see him socialising freely in the streets around his home with his family. His friends say he is a gregarious and engaging character who will never be deterred from talking about football to anyone who approaches him.

The football writer Graham Spiers has been observing Lennon the player and Lennon the manager for 10 years. "Look, I'm a huge admirer of this man," he said. "But I wouldn't dismiss the notion that he brings some of his troubles down upon his own head. Yes, he does tick every box in the Celtic, Catholic Irish narrative and that elicits a bigoted response from some people. But this only explains part of it. He is always on the front foot and he never retreats when others have found it more prudent to do so. I've seen him give the middle finger to supporters who were giving him abuse at a couple of grounds. I'm sure these are occasions he regrets. At these times, he seems to be saying: 'Get it right up the lot of you.'"

But little of this begins to truly explain why, following 10 tranquil years in England, many people, outwith Scotland's Catholic community, simply can't abide the sight of this turbulent Irishman. The answer is both troubling and reassuring, for Lennon's decade-long Gethsemane may yet prove to be cathartic for a proud and disputatious nation.

The two other intended recipients of the explosive devices sent in March were Paul McBride, Scotland's most successful QC, and Trish Godman, the former Labour MSP for West Renfrewshire. The law and politics were, not so long ago, realms where the Catholic Irish were not permitted to hold a stake. The white and aspirational working-class Protestant community could rely on exclusive entry to the trades and the professions; the Kirk and the Conservative party gave them sustenance. Membership of golf clubs and tennis clubs and bowling clubs was theirs and theirs only.

That was then. No longer is there an artisan class in Scotland, once the sole preserve of working-class Protestants. And Conservative Unionism is extinct. The Church of Scotland is permitting gay ministers. Old certainties are now no more than wraiths and spectres. The Catholic Irish, having educated themselves out of the ghetto, are prominent in the law, politics, academia and journalism. And into this has come a ginger-headed, Irish Catholic captain and manager of Celtic FC. He is bellicose when once he would have been benign; he gets up when once he would have stayed down; he rolls with the punches and comes out fighting. There are some in Scotland who are raging against the dying of the light and Lennon has become a lightning rod for their fury.

In one of those city centre wine bars where tribal tensions dissipate in sauvignon blanc a well-known Glasgow lawyer is considering the Neil Lennon question. Douglas Kilpatrick is a lifelong Rangers aficionado and is uncomfortable with the easy assumptions about the opprobrium that surrounds the Celtic manager. "To some in my tradition, Lennon represents the sum of all fears, and religious prejudice on its own does not explain all of this," says Kilpatrick. "The influence and sense of entitlement which has sustained many working-class and middle-class Protestants have declined in the last decade or so. Some Scots just can't cope with this all at once and their response is suitably atavistic. But it will pass. There is too much healthy respect and goodwill between the majority on either side for it not to."

Lennon has refused to yield in the face of almost unbearable pressure and continues to live in the heart of the city with his partner and child while other Old Firm players seek the refuge of drowsy dormitory villages. Every man, though, has his breaking point and Lennon knows his. "If I thought for a minute that anyone in my family was in danger because of me then I would walk away tomorrow."

Perhaps Neil Lennon was born for this; to be the necessary paschal sacrifice that has to happen to wash away the sins of an ancient blood feud, which may now be coming, kicking and screaming, to an end.

© 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

Neil Lennon is staring down the barrel…

Graham Speirs (The Times) Nov 2011

For the first time this season, in terms of Neil Lennon’s job security, we can truly say he is now staring down the barrel. Given Celtic’s faltering league form, confirmed again in their 0-0 draw with Hibernian at home on Saturday, Lennon must now take his team to Fir Park on Sunday and win against Motherwell — or else.

The figures make bleak reading for the Celtic manager. Lennon’s team have played 19 competitive matches this season, of which they have won just nine, drawn five and lost five. In the Clydesdale Bank Premier League, Celtic have collected 23 points out of a possible 36, and lag 12 points behind Rangers with only a third of the season gone.

For any Celtic manager this is the stuff of professional suicide, and Lennon knows it. Anything other than a win at Fir Park on Sunday will have the Celtic board meeting urgently to debate their manager’s future.

Lennon professes to be unconcerned about his own fate, and far more interested in the greater good of Celtic, but his feelings cannot be that simple. No football manager cares little for his job prospects, and Lennon loves the role he is currently in.

The truth is, it must be agonising for him, after the promise of his debut season last year, to see his team floundering like this.

It is a blunt way of putting it, but talk of Lennon facing the sack is now unavoidable. In a moment of dark humour, he even referred to it himself recently, imitating the act of a knife across his throat if his team didn’t start winning regularly.

He needs a dramatic turnaround by his team to get out of this predicament.

One added complication in this current Lennon saga is the mutual respect and affection which he and the Celtic board share. John Reid, the now departed Celtic chairman, could scarcely open his mouth without sometimes placing Lennon on a similar pedestal to Mahatma Gandhi.

“He is a special man,” Reid said of Lennon at Celtic’s recent AGM, which was about the least of his encomia towards his young manager. It is a feeling said to be shared by the entire Celtic board.

Dermot Desmond, moreover, is said to be equally warm towards Lennon, with the two men chatting regularly on the phone about Celtic matters. Desmond is said to have a deep affection for Lennon and for all he has done for the club, never mind the shared Irish heritage of the two men.

And, on top of all this, is the hassle and flak and bigotry that Lennon has had to endure in his time at Celtic, which has endeared him to the club’s board even more. Whatever you make of Lennon, in stepping into the Celtic job, unlike most other managers in Britain, he has on more than one occasion entered a war zone.

The point is this: how does a board get rid of a manager with whom it feels such deep sympathy and empathy? For this reason, as Lennon’s team stumbles on and on, the directors of Celtic will be feeling deeply uncomfortable.

Yet all is not well at the club, prompting many to believe that relations between Lennon and some of his players have become strained. Cloudy injuries notwithstanding, the virtual disappearance of Kris Commons from the Celtic radar this season has been baffling. Then there is Gary Hooper’s sudden pedestrianism on the pitch, and Beram Kayal’s hot-and-cold interest in proceedings.

There is no doubt that the losses to injury of Emilio Izaguirre, Kelvin Wilson and Scott Brown have diminished Lennon’s chances: you are looking at a Celtic team that is shorn of some of its prized assets. Nonetheless, as Lennon said himself on Saturday, any manager has to take the ultimate responsibility for his team’s play.

“Maybe I have to look at myself, and how I am going about things,” Lennon said, confirming an age-old truth.

Few people saw Lennon and Celtic arriving at this sorry pass. After last season, even after the catastrophic night in Inverness which robbed them of the championship late in the campaign, Celtic started this season as most people’s tip for the title. Rangers, on top of everything else, were said to be a corporate shambles.

The decline of Lennon and Celtic has been startling. We may be weeks away from seeing him vacate his position at Celtic Park. Lennon has a fight on his hands, as great as any he once revelled in on the pitch.

Neil Lennon bomb trial: Celtic boss tells of 'disturbing' events

One rule for Neil Lennon, another for the rest.

Phil Gordon – The Times – March 27 2012

He is always the one, isn’t he? That Neil Lennon. If the Celtic manager was starting to entertain thoughts that he might be an ordinary man, the last few days will have delivered an uncomfortable truth. Lennon is unique, but not in a good way.

When you start measuring your experience with match officials, and the subsequent fallout with the Scottish Football Association, with that of your counterparts, the evidence will offer reasonable doubt. If Lennon was just an ordinary man, he would not have spent the second half of Sunday’s Old Firm game watching events in the media room at Ibrox — regardless of who advised him to go there.

Lennon must have been the only manager in the history of British football to be condemned to spend 45 minutes in a locked room after being “sent off” at half-time by the referee. Even players who have been sent off, and head to the dressing room, can get showered and changed to watch the rest of the match from the stand, but not Lennon.

Even if Calum Murray’s view is that Lennon broke the rules, and the Celtic manager will certainly contest that on the basis of what he said at the press conference after the Old Firm encounter when he revealed his “confinement” during the second 45 minutes, the inescapable verdict is that Lennon has been denied basic human rights, never mind the managerial right to sit in the stand and watch the second half.

Celtic revealed yesterday that it was their security people who advised Lennon that he could not sit in the Ibrox directors’ box, and Rangers confirmed that they had offered Lennon a seat there after Murray’s sanction against the Celtic manager. However, what security adviser worth his salt would not have come to the same conclusion?

This is the man who was attacked by a Heart of Midlothian fan last May while doing his job on the touchline. He is also the man who has been giving evidence in the case of two men accused of plotting to kill him. So, sitting up there in the directors’ box, in a stadium where his name is abused even when Celtic are not there, is hardly an option.

Except that it should be. Lennon is entitled to the same treatment that every manager takes for granted. Stuart McCall, the Motherwell manager, is actually facing the same charge as Lennon — alleged breach of rule 203 — for the same “crime” as Lennon, criticising Craig Thomson, the referee, during the recent Scottish Cup defeat by Aberdeen at Fir Park.

The difference between McCall’s case and that of Lennon is that the Motherwell manager was able to sit up in the directors’ box at Fir Park to watch the second half after being “sent off” at half-time in similar manner to his Celtic counterpart.

McCall has rejected the SFA’s offer of a one-match ban and will be visiting Hampden Park for his day in “court” around the same time as Lennon.

If Lennon did not know that he was in a special category of one, it was brought home to him during the Scottish Communities League Cup semi-final with Falkirk. A manager strode out on to the Hampden turf and jabbed an accusing finger at Euan Norris, the referee. It was Steven Pressley, Lennon’s counterpart.
The Falkirk manager was also “sent off” by Norris. Undaunted, Pressley went out for the second half and actually found a seat in the press box at the national stadium and sat alongside journalists.

Pressley received a four-game ban for his very public act. Last year, Lennon had to use a lawyer to have a much larger ban reduced to four games. Where is the consistency?

Lennon is not the first manager in the world to be sent off. When it happens during the game, luminaries such as Arsène Wenger have found a seat in the hostile heartlands of Old Trafford, while David Moyes, of Everton, climbed into the spectators’ area at Stoke City.

However, the fact that Lennon is regarded as such a security risk when a referee hands out some summary justice should put this country to shame.

Lennon might want to seek advice from another manager who had a bad day at work, once. He too saw his team reduced to nine men, and he too felt the referee’s judgment to be so flawed that he ignored the fines and took the SFA to court to overturn a touchline ban that “affected his ability to carry out his duties as a manager”.

That man was Craig Levein, while in charge of Heart of Midlothian in 2003. It certainly never stopped Levein in his tracks; he is now Scotland manager.

Levein has an office at Hampden. Maybe Lennon should pop up for tea next time he’s in the building.

Neil Lennon's lack of Self control does Celtic no favours

(Hatchet job in the Scotsman) http://www.scotsman.com/news/neil-lennon-s-lack-of-self-control-does-celtic-no-favours-1-2197900

By STUART BATHGATE
Published on Tuesday 27 March 2012 03:45

Just a week after losing his cool following the League Cup final defeat, Sunday’s Old Firm game brought out the worst in Neil Lennon once again

ONE day, Celtic will lose a big match and their manager will accept that the better team won fair and square. That the result was produced by the other side playing better football, not by criminality, incompetence or any kind of malice aforethought on the part of any match official.

One day. But will that day come while Neil Lennon is still the man in charge, or will we have to wait for a new appointee before we see that kind of equanimity?

Right now, it is hard to see Lennon developing that ability. And unless he does, it is hard to see him making a long-term success of football management.

That is, or should be, the bottom line for the Celtic manager as he contemplates another disciplinary charge after another confrontation with a referee during a match which his team went on to lose. It’s not primarily for the sake of greater sportsmanship that he should learn to curb his wrath, even if that is what many of his critics rightly want him to display. It is for the sake of his club, for his performance in the job and for his longevity as a manager. Professional players quickly learn that they need to channel some emotions and suppress others if they are to make the most of their ability. It is even more incumbent on managers to do so, for without self-control they cannot hope to extract an optimal performance from their team. But, at present, self-indulgence, not self-control, appears uppermost in Lennon’s make-up.

His alleged misconduct in Sunday’s Old Firm game came just a week after he declared a decision of referee Willie Collum’s in the League Cup final was “criminal”. He faces an SFA hearing into both matters, and if either charge is upheld part of the penalty could be the activation of a £5,000 fine.

That fine was imposed just over a year ago, but suspended until the end of this season, for remarks made at the end of his team’s match at Tynecastle the previous November. At the time he was serving a four-match ban for his “excessive misconduct” during that match, which saw him sent to the stands. That same month, March 2011, he was given another four-match ban for his behaviour during that month’s Scottish Cup tie against Rangers.

A fine of such a size will be of little consequence to Lennon, and a touchline ban need not be a major inconvenience, especially if served during what remains of the league programme. But he should take note of the lengthening charge sheet and ask himself how he might reduce the likelihood of further rows with the authorities.

After last year’s Scottish Cup final, at the end of a far more toxic season than this one has been, Lennon was able to reflect calmly on his own performance as Celtic manager. Despite the unacceptable pressure on him – he had been attacked during one game, and been subjected to various other threats to his safety – he subjected his own actions to scrutiny, and said he would have to look at changing aspects of his own persona.

It was an insightful remark. Because, while some of the bile directed towards Lennon was clearly sectarian, many people with no such axe to grind had formed a deeply negative impression of him.

He is an intelligent man, and a decent man, yet a wide cross-section of the public saw him as ignorant and thuggish. He knew he should do something to try and change that misconception, not so much for his own sake, as for that of the club. For a time it worked. The most visible outward sign of the new Lennon was a slightly longer hairstyle, but for months he seemed calmer too. There was pressure of a different sort back then, as Celtic went through a shaky spell which saw speculation grow about his job. But he had the resilience and determination to withstand it then, and it is only more recently, at the business end of the season, that the strain has begun to show.

His criticism of Collum came as Celtic lost their first domestic match since the start of October. Kilmarnock won 1-0, their goalkeeper Cameron Bell was man of the match, but Lennon could only dwell on a late penalty claim by Anthony Stokes.

“For me it is a criminal decision and it has cost us the treble,” Lennon said of Collum’s refusal of that claim. The word “criminal” was particularly ill advised, but the whole statement was out of order.

Would Celtic really have won the treble had Collum pointed to the spot? Would the equaliser have been scored? Would Celtic have gone on to win the game? Lennon was right to regard the league as in the bag, but why was he presuming his team would win the Scottish Cup too?

His complaints about Sunday’s referee Calum Murray were similarly over the top. Leaving aside the debate about what he said at half-time and how politely or otherwise he said it, his depiction of a manager’s right to question a match official was a curious one.

“I am entitled, as a manager, to speak to a referee,” he said. “Who are they accountable to? Are they just allowed to waltz through games criticism-free?”

He knows full well that they are accountable to the SFA, and that they do not waltz through games criticism-free. There is a debate to be had about how much criticism of match officials should be allowed, but Lennon’s hyperbolic assessment is not a helpful contribution to it.

Cha Du-Ri’s sending-off “changed the game”, he claimed. The contact between Cha and Lee Wallace “absolutely minimal, and he [Murray] couldn’t wait to get the red card out.”

Rangers’ “second goal was offside,” he added. “Again the linesman was not doing his job. At their third goal, we’ve got caught chasing the game, then we’ve rallied brilliantly with nine men.” Others might think that Rangers were far the better side and were strolling to victory before two last-gasp goals from Celtic produced a 3-2 result. And maybe if Lennon watches the game again in a couple of weeks he will spot the shortcomings in his own team which were not immediately obvious to him.

Or maybe he will need a while longer to acquire the detachment he needs to come up with an accurate assessment of how good this current Celtic squad are, and what he must do to make them better still.

Neil Lennon seeks sense of security from Celtic landing league title

A point at Kilmarnock will give the manager a rare moment of joyous tranquillity after years of vilification by half of Glasgow

Kevin McCarra
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 5 April 2012 22.37 BST

Celtic manager Neil Lennon says: 'Why do I get so much abuse at every ground? My background plays a part. Maybe they just see me as a threat to their sort of happiness.'

Neil Lennon is in line for a rare moment of joyous tranquillity after years with Celtic in which he has been beaten unconscious in the streets of Glasgow and, at one stage, needed bodyguards. The manager will secure the Scottish Premier League title should his side take a point at Kilmarnock on Saturday . If need be, he will have a further five games in which to complete the formalities.

That is soothing, but Lennon has had little experience of the comfort zone in his time with the club. For the first time, he has spoken at length about the hazards and rewards in a new history of Celtic. Lennon appreciates the cafes and restaurants around Glasgow University but while a Celtic coach he was attacked there in September 2008 by a pair of Rangers fans who were subsequently jailed for two years.

"I was very lucky," he said. "People told me that if I hadn't been as fit as I was at the time I could have been seriously damaged. I was unconscious and I don't remember much about it." Recently, another pair of Rangers supporters were found guilty of conspiring to assault Lennon and two prominent Celtic fans by addressing what seemed to be bombs to them, although the devices turned out not to be viable.

There was a period, too, when Lennon was advised not to enter his own home unaccompanied in case an intruder was lying in wait. "They were revamping the security system inside the house," he said. "There were security guards walking me in. It was a bit of a distraction, but they just felt it was the right thing to do."

Lennon finds it all too convenient that he should be treated as an ogre or as a person who cannot stop bringing havoc upon himself. This is supposed to be an extension of the role he once had as a defensive midfielder in the thick of most battles on the field. It is as if, in the public imagination, Lennon was born to live in the midst of trouble, but that interpretation is not a good fit for the broader facts.

"Everyone said that it is down to my aggressive style of play," he said, "but then Paddy McCourt and Niall McGinn [two Celtic wingers] got sent bullets in the post and you wouldn't say they were aggressive types of players. They have the same background as me [Catholics from Northern Ireland]. People try and bury their heads in the sand sometimes and hide from the reality of it. They're just afraid to write about it."

Lennon could not pretend to be a paragon. He was obliged last year to apologise to his board for a confrontation with Ally McCoist, then getting experience with Rangers as manager for the Scottish Cup ties, after a confrontation at the end of a win for Celtic. Still, a low profile would not suit him.

"All the other stuff should not be part of living in Glasgow," Lennon said. "Why do I get so much abuse at every ground? My background plays a part. Maybe they just see me as a threat to their sort of happiness. In a perverse sort of way you take it as a backhanded compliment."

He is also addicted to the sense of occasion at a ground where crowds of 50,000 are common for Celtic's SPL matches. "We are not spoiled by the corporate side," Lennon argues, "so there is still a raw energy. You go to some Premier league clubs and it's not at the decibel level you have with Celtic."

Even so, the restricted income in a small country has to be deployed with as much care as possible. More effort is now applied to scouring the world for affordable talent. Victor Wanyama, a Kenya international, has the physicality for British football, but there is also plenty of potential to be tapped in a 20-year-old who cost a mere £900,000 from the Belgian club Beerschot. Lennon, despite the hostility he encounters, seems at peace while part of a project that absorbs him. At the end of last month, he was tweeting that he had the "best job in the world".

Money does, of course, matter regardless of the odd bargain. Goals tend to be expensive. When Martin O'Neill's Celtic lineup beat Liverpool en route to the 2003 Uefa Cup final, two of their three goals in the tie came from Henrik Larsson and John Hartson. The Swede commanded extremely high wages and the Welshman had cost £6m. Another striker, Chris Sutton, had been bought for a similar fee.

For all the exploits, Celtic could not break even while paying such sums and the corresponding salaries. Lennon has done well as manager, but the challenge for him and his successors is steep.

Celtic title: Proudest moment of manager Neil Lennon's career

07 April 12 18:40
Neil Lennon's Celtic clinched the title

Neil Lennon says winning the title as manager is like ending his probation period with Celtic and surpasses those he secured as a player.

Celtic thrashed Kilmarnock 6-0 at Rugby Park to secure their first Scottish title in four years.

"It is the greatest thing I have ever done," Lennon told BBC Scotland. "I'm very proud. The players did it with a bit of style, which thrilled me.

"I felt as if I was on probation. Now I feel the Celtic manager."

Lennon has had to endure death threats and sectarian abuse during his time as Celtic manager and admits he came close to walking away from the job when his side were 3-0 down at half-time before fighting back to draw 3-3 with Kilmarnock in October.

And he was again coy about his future despite the title success.

"Like every season, I'll assess my position in the summer and see what the future holds for myself," he said.

"It's a young team and we're building something we think is special.

"But there are other things outside the football that have affected my life and it's not always an easy thing to deal with."

However, he saw a bright future for his young side and felt he had emerged from the shadows of predecessors Martin O'Neill, Gordon Strachan and even Jock Stein.

"You dream about being a player, you dream about being a captain and you dream about being a manager, but now I'm living the dream," he said.

"When you are a player, you are part of a team. I had Larsson, Sutton, Petrov, Lambert, Mjallby and Thompson to lean on.

"When you are a manager, it is a lonely job, you have to make the decisions.

"I am only young in this job, it's only my second season, it's a huge job with huge expectations, but I feel vindicated now.

"I was walking behind Martin, Gordon, Wim Jansen, Davie Hay, Billy McNeill and Mr Stein and now I can step out from behind them and walk alongside them and that is a fantastic feeling for me."

Celtic chairman Peter Lawwell spoke of his pride in the manager, the backroom staff, the players and the support and pointed out that the Celtic squad had an average age of only 23.

"I am absolutely delighted for him," he said of Lennon. "He has come through an awful lot in the last two years.

"The pressures of being the Celtic manager alone are immense, never mind what he has to put up with off the park.

"But it shows you the strength of character, his willingness to win and his love of the job.

"He's a young man and let's hope he's here for a long time winning titles for Celtic.

"This is not the end. This is the beginning for Celtic hopefully. We want to get back into the Champions League on a regular basis."

Neil Lennon admits ref rage was wrong but claims he is ‘demonised’

By ANDREW SMITH
Published on Wednesday 2 May 2012 00:00
The Scotsman

CELTIC manager Neil Lennon has claimed he is “demonised” by the Scottish media at times. But the Northern Irishman added that he “deeply regretted” his post-match behaviour after his team were knocked out in the semi-finals of the Scottish Cup and said he would be writing to referee Euan Norris to apologise for his behaviour.

However, Lennon, alluding to the furore which followed the infamous touchline bust-up he had with then Rangers assistant manager Ally McCoist at the end of an Old Firm game at Celtic Park in March 2011 said he believes his persona is unfairly represented.

He pointed to the friction between United boss Sir Alex Ferguson and City manager Roberto Mancini during the Manchester derby on Monday and said that, if he had behaved in that way, it would have attracted widespread condemnation.

“I saw the greatest manager in the game [Ferguson] having a spat with Roberto Mancini and people enjoyed it, enjoyed seeing Sir Alex show that passion, that he was up for the fight,” said Lennon. “I enjoyed it. Two managers sticking up for their own team. Has there been a huge public outcry about what happened? No. They talk about a bit of a spat – big deal.

“When we do it up here, it’s two pages full and I get singled out, I get demonised, I’m this snarling sort of presence on the touchline. I don’t think I get a fair deal at times. I see it so many times. I have seen managers on the pitch remonstrating with referees before, some of them a lot more experienced than me. Yet they don’t think they get half of what I get. I just think I should be cut a bit more slack at times.

“At times we do get lost in the game but if you take that away from us, you are going to have robots on the touchline with their hands in their pockets. You can’t take away the human element from managers.

“There are times we get angry and aggrieved and make mistakes in that aspect of the game but I think I get a rough ride.

“Over the course of the season, up until the League Cup final, there was not one thing I did wrong. We had the incident at Ibrox [no further action was taken against Lennon after he was sent to the stand at half-time by referee Calum Murray] which I have had the hearing for. So we are talking about one incident so I don’t think I have to change that much but I will temper those actions if I can.”

The Celtic manager, who has just served a two-match touchline ban for criticising referee Willie Collum following the Scottish Communities League Cup final defeat by Kilmarnock at Hampden in March, has been issued with a notice of complaint relating to Hearts’ 2-1 Scottish Cup semi-final victory, which came courtesy of Craig Beattie’s controversial late penalty, given for a handball.

Lennon is accused of breaching three Scottish Football Association rules.

He raced on to the pitch to confront Norris over the penalty award but said yesterday: “I deeply regret what happened. I know I have to conduct myself better than that.

“I will be sending correspondence to the referee as an apology as well. It’s one actionable thing that I’ve done that I shouldn’t have done. I will go to the tribunal [tomorrow] and, hopefully, get a fair hearing as I did the last time and take what’s coming.”

Rangers fan threatened to bomb Celtic manager Neil Lennon

STV 7 June 2012 16:09 BST

The threat was made on the social networking site.

A Rangers supporter threatened to bomb Celtic manager Neil Lennon on social networking site Facebook because he "doesn't like him".

Allan McCormack, 25, posted the message "Bomb Neil Lennon, bomb him now" after a Glasgow derby the previous month.

He was caught when police anti-violence teams spotted the message while monitoring the internet.

McCormack, of Colebrook Street, Glasgow, pled guilty to behaving in a threatening or abusive manner by posting the message on April 30, 2011, which was offensive and threatened Mr Lennon with violence.

Glasgow Sheriff Court was told on Thursday that Strathclyde Police's violence reduction co-ordination unit were involved in an inquiry into online hate messages directed at Mr Lennon.

Procurator fiscal depute, Angus Crawford, prosecuting said: "Whilst monitoring social networking sites particularly Facebook, the phrase 'Bomb Neil Lennon, bomb him now' was discovered."

He added they were able to establish McCormack as a suspect and in August last year, telephoned him. McCormack volunteered to go to the police station for an interview where he made admissions about the message posted.

The court was told McCormack claimed to the police he had been drunk and posted the message at 2am on the day after his birthday. It followed a game between Rangers and Celtic in March 2011.

Mr Crawford added: "He further went on to state to police that the posting was in response to a Rangers versus Celtic game at Celtic Park.

"He stated that he didn't like the way Neil Lennon the Celtic manager had conducted himself that day and that he doesn't like Neil Lennon generally."

The court heard McCormack was an "avid Rangers supporter" and often attends games. Sheriff Charles McFarlane QC deferred sentence until next month and continued bail in the meantime.

As conditions of his bail he must sign in at his local police office during the first half of every Rangers game and is not allowed to enter Ibrox Stadium, Celtic Park or Hampden Stadium.