Macari, Lou – Articles (Misc)

Lou Macari faces his son’s suicide

His son’s suicide has changed football forever forthe former Celtic man

Lou Macari talks about the tragedy that changed his world

Published Date: 10 August 2008

By Catherine Deveney, Feature Writer of the Year

AS A player and manager, Lou Macari won the hearts of fans and a cabinet full of trophies. As a husband and father, he feels lost, heart-broken, his life void of one of his most beloved treasures.

Grief is like a furnace: trapped inside it, you become molten, malleable, ready to be fashioned into something different. And sometimes, when everything cools down again, you’re stuck in an unfamiliar, awkward new shape, the person you once were fossilised inside. You can see that meeting Lou Macari. The small man who comes bustling towards me in a Manchester hotel shows, on the surface, some of the expected attributes of old: energy, bluntness, common sense. But how quickly you realise what a shell the human body is, just a carapace built of the outer edge of experiences that are carried mainly on the inside. And when you pick that old, crusty shell, no matter how many years it has been forming, fresh blood flows.

Macari has been through a lot in his life. The man who played for Celtic under Jock Stein, for Manchester United under Tommy Docherty, for Ally MacLeod’s dream team of the 1978 World Cup, is no stranger to turmoil. Not just losing to Peru, or weathering the heights of ridicule that Ally’s Army were exposed to back then, because see that? That was only a game. Macari came to know the difference between life and a game.

Not even being banged up in a police cell, falsely accused of fraud when he was manager of Swindon, registers much. Nor losing all the money he had made as a footballer (loose change to the pampered, David Beckham generation of footballers) when he took Fergus McCann to court after McCann peremptorily sacked him as manager of Celtic. And why is he not bitter about that? Because that’s only money. He smiles. Fergus McCann? He wouldn’t waste energy thinking about him. “I can laugh now. I can say, ‘How big a deal was that? Not very.'”

Strange how familiar Macari seems, how instantly comfortable to be with, despite the conversation being about such troubling things. Because I know his type; we all know his type. That generation of Scottish men who may be a bit buttoned up but so thoroughly decent you’d trust them with your life, and if you ever earn their love or their loyalty then, my God, you’re tapping into a deep well. The only drawback being they’re more likely to drown in there than tell you.

Macari does not waste words. He has just produced an autobiography, Football, My Life, and right at the start of it he says the events of his life have put football into perspective. Then he barely mentions his private life again until near the end, when in one short section he presents the reader with everything he’s going to tell, like he simply boxed it all up and unwrapped it only when forced. It recounts the defining event of his life: the 1999 suicide of his youngest son, Jonathan, when he was just 19.

Was that the only way he could deal with it, to contain it in that way? Macari hesitates. The football side, the facts and the figures, take care of themselves. “You just say what happened. You know you may say one or two things that might upset people, but what’s more important is that when you’re talking about family, especially someone you’ve lost… it’s difficult, sensitive… the hardest part of the book.” It caused a few problems at home, he admits. Maybe that’s the way it should be, because when you love someone, everything matters – every word, every thought, every nuance. And talking to Macari, you’re in no doubt how loved Jonathan was. How important he was. How different life is now.

When you look at a stopped watch, often the last thing you notice is that it has stopped. It can con you for a while. You see the face, the strap, the hands pointing to a time. It looks normal until suddenly you see that the small seconds hand is motionless. There is about Macari, that sense of apparent normality concealing malfunction. “I’ve got to put on a false face,” he says. If it hadn’t happened, he’d be sitting here reflecting on the greatest parts of his life. “Oh, that day at Hampden Park when we beat Rangers and I was a young player and got my first Scottish Cup medal – that was great. And that was followed by a trip to Wembley… and how lucky I’ve been, I’ve played for Scotland. But I don’t sit down and look back and think what’s been great, because one event has washed it all away.” It’s the same for any parent who loses a child, he says. Parents whose children are killed in Afghanistan or Iraq. You can’t ever tell how you’ll deal with it. “Certainly, it could stop the rest of your life. You could just come to a complete standstill.”

THE ITALIANS WHO emigrated to Scotland often have wonderful stories of how they got here – literally walking from the Italian mountains, across Europe, searching for a new life. Macari has no such story. He talks only reluctantly of his Italian lineage. When Lou was just a year old, his parents moved away from Scotland to London, where they would remain for the next eight years. Lou’s father was a grafter, working in the catering industry, while back home his own parents ran a successful café in Largs. There was Nardini’s at one end, the Moorings at the other, and Macari’s in the middle.

Whatever the reason for Macari’s indifference to his Italian roots (I suspect his grandparents would have preferred their son to marry an Italian than a Scot), what’s more important is the attitude he displays: a fierce loyalty to his parents, a strong sense of what he believes is right and wrong. He was an only child and his parents died in their 40s. “What they did for me, and how they looked after me… how they got me to Celtic Park when I was starting off as a reserve player… you just don’t get the chance to repay them.”

His parents had moved back to Largs from London, and Macari’s house backed on to the Largs recreation centre where he watched footballers in pre-season training. There he was, 12 years old, wearing his Celtic scarf in the garden and watching Billy McNeill, thinking this was the closest he would ever get to his Lisbon Lions heroes. But at 16 he was signed by Celtic and worked under the legendary Jock Stein, a man who inspired both respect and fear. Stein had them running from Celtic Park to Barrowfield every day and he would drive alongside his players, shouting, “Get a move on!” from the open window.

“I was terrified of him,” recalls Macari. “Everyone was terrified of him. You didn’t get a second chance with Jock. It’s strange to think about it now, but even Coca-Cola was frowned on. If you sneaked a Coke up to your room at night and he spotted it, he’d throw it down the sink and say, in typical Jock fashion, ‘I’ll Coca-Cola you.'”

That kind of discipline is lacking nowadays. Macari cleaned the Lisbon Lions’ boots and dealt with their laundry and felt privileged to do so. There were no guarantees about making it as a player, no fancy wage packets. Now, money has taken the hunger from young players, taken away their sharpness and drive. Macari insists that even footballers regarded as naturally gifted, such as Kenny Dalglish, needed to be pushed. “Was I talented and gifted enough to achieve it on my own?” asks Macari. “No, I wasn’t. The man who pushed me along the way, who made me run and made me appreciate everything you get out of the game, was Jock Stein. I was guided in the right direction, given a chance of being a footballer, and that’s all it was – a chance.”

The Scots in general have a tremendous record in football management. “They have a hunger,” explains Macari. Alex Ferguson has a huge start on every other manager because of his disciplined style. “They’re all pussyfooting around and players are stepping out of line. Alex is trying his best to keep hold of his beliefs in a changing world, and he probably knows he’s not going to achieve that, but I would say he still has a greater hold on his players than any manager in the country. And long may that continue. He worked with Jock and no doubt things rubbed off on him because I see similarities between the two managers. Stein helped me have a long career, and Dalglish and Danny McGrain… all because of the start that was demanded of us, the levels of commitment, of fitness.”

It makes him laugh when people talk so earnestly now about football tactics and formations and fancy this and fancy that. He’s of the run-your-guts-out-on-the-field school, with fish and chips on the team bus on the way home. It’s not foreign players who are keeping the home players out of sides. (He remembers Brazilians being brought by Stein to Celtic and Scandinavians being brought to Morton.) But the home players had the edge because they were driven. He has seen players who didn’t really have the natural ability to make it, achieve because they were focused. “So focused they’d stay in at weekends and they’d be the type cleaning their boots in their digs and looking forward to training on Monday morning. Is that happening nowadays? No chance. No chance whatsoever. It’s looking forward to the weekend now. I’m a great believer that it’s just enough to throw your career off the route it should be going.”

He never imagined he would leave Celtic, but he knew he could make three or four times as much in England. “If I had still been the young lad picking up my wages on a Tuesday, still heading into town with Dalglish, McGrain and David Hay, and spending three or four quid on a meal, happy as Larry with no commitments, then fine.” But life had changed. He was married, his wife was expecting, and, tragically, his father had died of cancer and he now needed to support his mother. He headed south to sign for Liverpool and ended up being snatched at the last minute by Manchester United, who at that time were far less successful than their Merseyside rivals. He’d have ended his career with more medals at Liverpool but he doesn’t regret joining United. He got career decisions right. It’s other things in life he got wrong.

In the years following his father’s death, his mother stayed in Largs. Macari intended to bring her down to Manchester, and even invested in a chip shop for her to run. But life was busy and the 1978 World Cup was approaching, and she died before he got round to organising her move. He still feels so guilty about that. “You kick yourself for not doing this, not doing that,” he says.

He had tried phoning her just three or four days before but had got no answer. Now he was sitting in a hotel with the Scotland team when he looked up and saw his cousin, a doctor, walking through the door. “I thought, ‘I haven’t seen him for a while,’ and by the time he got from the front door to me, I thought, ‘Bloody hell, there’s something…’ His face, the way he greeted me – there was obviously bad news. He’d come to inform me that my mum had been found dead in the house. She had been lying there maybe four or five days and I couldn’t go and identify her. That’s why he had been called in.”

The circumstances of her death were strange, and Macari still has no answers. Does he know why she died? “No,” he says. “My mum had been on her own, and in the conversation I’d had with her she said she had some friends up there. Putting the pieces together after she died, I just wasn’t convinced that the friends were good friends. Some money had gone missing.” She had signed things over to these friends that she shouldn’t have. She was on tablets, had taken too many and simply never woke up.

Macari thinks now that she never got over her husband’s death. “She never really showed me she couldn’t get over the loss of him because it’s something a parent would probably want to hide from their child, but I always had a gut feeling that losing my dad would be tough on her, really tough.” They were a close couple? “I would have said as close as you get. And I’ve moved down south and am not really there to gauge how she’s coping with it, and of course when I phone up and speak to her she’s giving me the impression she’s coping fine, which is probably what I would do… what I do at this moment in time with my lad. I’ve got to be seen to be coping.” And is he? He avoids the question. “It’s tough, isn’t it?” he says instead.

JONATHAN RUNS LIKE a thread through the conversation, a coloured thread against which everything else in life is compared. The talk of discipline among young footballers, of the effect of high wages on their playing, on their psyches… I’m not sure it’s just the musings of an older player on the current state of the game. I think maybe we’re talking about Jonathan. Macari has three sons, all of whom have played the game professionally. You can tell he’s proud of them all. You can also tell he’s not a man for making big boasts, but he says Jonathan was really talented, had the ability to go places. He had signed for Nottingham Forest. But things weren’t going right.

Did the new football culture he describes contribute to Jonathan’s difficulties? “I think it would surprise you, the money,” he says. “I argued about it even with my wife. The money he got for walking out of school and into a football club was insignificant to what a lot of them are being paid now, but it was enough to give him a cosy start to his football career and it shouldn’t have been. I just felt it was too much.” It was life-changing. “If my lad decided to go out every Saturday night because he’s got the finance, it can’t be doing him any good.”

When Macari stopped playing at the age of 34, he had no stash of cash for life. He went into football management, with stints at Stoke, Swindon, Birmingham City and, of course, Celtic, and looks back on the stresses and strains with a kind of indifference. The fraud charges at Swindon came about because the team captain asked him for £40 bonuses for the players. Macari asked the board; they agreed. Macari wasn’t to know the payments weren’t accounted properly. He had no interest in accounts. The same thing was happening in other clubs and involving far bigger sums, and Macari believes Swindon was used as a warning to higher-profile clubs. But Macari himself was cleared.

As for Celtic, well, Fergus McCann arrived just after Macari was appointed, and Macari felt from the start McCann wanted him out. (In fact, a journalist phoned Macari on McCann’s first day to say a senior Celtic figure had told him so.) But it would have cost McCann a lot of money to buy out Macari’s contract. Their working relationship was disastrous, with McCann communicating by letter despite their offices being only 50 yards apart. “I didn’t bring it to a head because I wanted to be manager of Celtic. That’s why I came back, why anybody would have come back. I was willing to put up with all the crap that was going on, willing to put up with him not giving me money to buy players, because I wanted to be manager of Celtic.”

McCann knew employment law. Macari didn’t. When the chairman eventually sacked him for disobeying an instruction, Macari took him to court. Halfway through, Macari’s lawyer was promoted to Lord Advocate with immediate effect. Macari subsequently lost not just his lawyer but the case and his savings. He must have been bitter, surely, losing everything? “At the time you’re upset because you know the way it’s been manoeuvred and what is being said is untrue. And it leaves a nasty taste in your mouth. Years later, when you see others in the hot seat – Tommy Burns, God rest him, Wim Jansen – it wasn’t a personal thing against me. It was the way he was.”

It doesn’t rankle that he wasn’t a successful Celtic manager. “It was never on the cards. It was never to be. People have said Fergus saved Celtic, and I understand why they say it. But if Fergus hadn’t come in, someone else would have, because the job was there to do. In fairness to Fergus, that’s where he was smart – he realised what Celtic Football Club had going for it, not just at that time but what it has always got going for it: a massive worldwide support.”

People generally divide into two camps: those who are embittered by bad experiences and those who shake them off. “I can shake it off,” says Macari. “There are other things I will never shake off.”

JONATHAN MACARI was small, like his dad, and happy-go-lucky. He was a striker, played up front in a little-and-large combination with Marlon Harewood, a big 6ft-tall centre forward who has gone on to play for Aston Villa. The manager had cleared out a lot of young players but kept Jonathan. He was a prospect. So it was a shock when Jonathan himself decided to leave. Macari didn’t understand.

The morning he learned his son was dead, Jonathan’s girlfriend had called at the house. Had Jon come back? No, Macari said, he thought he was with her. Jonathan’s body was discovered hanging in a wood by a man on his way to work. Macari has never found out what really happened. Jon was closer to his mum, Dale Marie, but she doesn’t know either. “There’s no point in guessing,” says Macari. “I have my own thoughts but it wouldn’t be right to put them into print because Jonathan’s not here to tell us.”

Maybe at 19, life and love are a bit more intense than at other times in your life. There was also talk of drugs but Macari has discounted that now. “At the time, I possibly believed drugs were part of it, but I don’t any more. My lad wasn’t an angel. He had stepped out of line, but at that particular time he didn’t have a problem. The coroner made that clear. If it was drug-related I wouldn’t have a problem saying so because it would be giving youngsters an indication of what can happen. But, no, it wasn’t the case.”

People think of grief as the great unifier, but more often it’s the great divider. That’s nothing to do with how much you love the people around you, it’s to do with everybody expressing their grief differently. I tell Macari I have often been struck by how differently mothers and fathers deal with the loss of a child. A mother once told me she wanted to talk about her dead son all the time. Her husband’s way of coping was never to mention him. That difference was hard for both of them.

Macari nods. Later, he says he probably does the opposite of what his wife does. And he has a friend who lost a son and who visits the cemetery every week. Macari couldn’t do that. He sees the stone on the next grave, a woman of 89, and it pierces him to see Jonathan’s age beside it. But he wouldn’t criticise any way of coping with grief. “We all deal with it differently, and I couldn’t tell you how the other members of my family are dealing with it because I just don’t know.”

He has videos of Jonathan playing football. Videos from Sky television of himself being interviewed with his three lads round him. “I could get all those memories back but I’m just not sure I would want to sit in the house and put on a DVD and see that again. I’ve not asked my wife but she might want that. I don’t go down the road of even talking about it.”

But he loves his family, keeps going for them. “I just know that I’ve got a commitment to them and therefore I’ve got to continue working.” He works for Sky and Manchester United TV, and he can’t be on screen looking miserable. He has to paint a smile on. But he’s not sure he would have the patience or the focus for management any more. Things are different.

When your child dies, you deal with grief and loss. When your child commits suicide, you deal with grief, loss and guilt. “You’re asking yourself why, wondering what you could have done.” Macari’s burden is all too obviously heavy. But if another teenager committed suicide, would he blame their parents? No, he says quietly. Yet he would blame himself for Jonathan’s death? “I would, yeah. You take the view, ‘Why didn’t I do this? Why didn’t I do that?’ It’s difficult to erase those thoughts from your mind. I just felt that I missed things. I wouldn’t say they were staring me in the face or I wouldn’t have missed them. But why would someone…”

He breaks off. As a manager, he was so careful with youngsters. Tried to protect them. If a talented lad had come in saying he wanted to leave he’d have kept him in his office for a day until he found out why. But he never found out with his own boy. But I’ll bet he tried. “I did try, yeah,” he says. “I didn’t get any answers.” Well, how could he possibly have known time was running out to get answers? But nothing will convince Macari not to blame himself. It’s why he hasn’t bothered with counselling.

Occasionally, interviewing can seem like a worthless kind of dance, chipping at ego, skirting round truth. Today it feels like the most privileged job in the world talking to someone about things that really matter. People say time is a great healer, says Macari. He hasn’t found that. No wonder – the phrase implies at some stage you get your old life back. How can you? When you come out of the heat of the furnace that loss imposes on you, you have to take on a different shape. The challenge is to make it a good shape.

But is Macari capable of happiness again? “I couldn’t have the streamers out at Christmas, the whoo-hoo… I couldn’t. I’d be ashamed of myself, to be honest. It would be a bit of a betrayal. I’m not going to ruin it for other people. I just don’t get into that environment. I’ll take my kids out and my grandchildren, and hopefully we’ll enjoy ourselves. But events like Christmas and birthday parties… I just feel that wouldn’t be right.”

There is something very, very Scottish about Lou Macari, for all his years in the south. A blunt simplicity. An emotional quality, both diffident and piercing. The poet Hugh MacDiarmid famously wrote about the little white rose of Scotland that “smells sharp and sweet and breaks the heart”. A Scottish footballer might be the last person you’d associate with flowers and sentiment. And yet for some subliminal reason, that line returns to me over and over when I leave Macari. Maybe it’s because the deepest things in life are often the simplest. Sometimes, when he’s on his way home from a good football match, Macari is almost tricked into thinking he’s happy, and then it hits him. “You’re going back to a house where there’s one missing.”

The Bhoy In The Picture – Lou Macari

Written by St Anthony (from Celtic Underground)
source: link

Through the years I’ve never subscribed to the fascination of having a favourite player, much preferring to appreciate the efforts and talents of the Celtic team as a whole. I’ve had plenty of friends and acquaintances who have been obsessed with the likes of Johnstone, Dalglish, Provan, McStay and Larsson.

When I was young I lived in Govan and there was an Italian family who stayed in our close called Franchi, who hailed from Florence. We always pronounced it as ‘Fran-shay’ when the correct pronunciation is actually ‘Frankie’ and the two girls, Elia and Lucia, were my best friends at a young age. Elia was the oldest and was a real tomboy, absolutely football mad. She and I would play football in the back court and because of her Italian heritage she would insist on being Lou Macari in our football games with me opting for Jimmy Johnstone or Bobby Lennox. In the early 70’s Lou Macari seemed like an exotic creature in this dull country we live in. He had a wonderfully unusual name and the press were always attracted to him given his Italian extraction. In 1972 when Celtic played Inter Milan in the European Cup semi final the Italian press corps were infatuated with the young Macari because of the Italian connection and found it hard to comprehend that an Italian Scot was up against them. What also made Lou different was he was an excellent player. A sniffer, a poacher, who could bag goals out of nothing and defenders hated playing against him because he was a niggly wee guy who was always snapping away at the heels of those bigger centre halves. In his early days Jock Stein compared Macari’s finishing ability to that of Jimmy Greaves and the big man wasn’t noted for making extravagant comparisons of that sort. Celtic fans loved wee Lou and had a few notable chants in his name. ‘Lou, Lou, skip to my Lou’ was probably the most common one and it should be noted that the Ibrox choirboys of the time had their own more obscene version. When I heard the popular ‘We’ve got Harry…and Lou Macari…and Kevin Barry’ chant at a young age my Father explained to me that Kevin Barry was a Celtic player in the 1950’s so reluctant was he to go into an explanation with his young son about something of which I wouldn’t understand anyway.

Lou was very much a man for the big occasion and when Celtic drew with Rangers in the 1971 Scottish Cup final the Celts’ forwards had missed a plethora of chances. Lou was Celtic’s substitute that day and for the replay he was thrown in from the start as replacement for Willie Wallace and he showed his sharpness by scoring an opportunist opening goal, Celtic going on to win 2-1, much easier than the actual result suggests. In the 1972 Scottish Cup final he was part of the team who ripped Hibs apart by 6-1, scoring twice in the process. He scored a dramatic goal against Ujpest Dosza at Parkhead in March 1972 with the cutest of lobs over the Hungarian goalkeeper which took Celtic to the semis against Inter Milan. Macari was a great goal scorer and was a real asset to Celtic at this time.

Part of the reason Celtic fans took to him was the effort that he put in against Rangers. Lou never hid his dislike for our Glasgow rivals and this went down tremendously well with a hardcore element of the Celtic support.

Macari was actually only a first team regular for three seasons but such was the impression he made that he became a highly sought after commodity with the big English teams down south. The parting of the ways was sewn in the summer of 1972 when Lou was the only Celtic player to travel with Scotland on their tour of Brazil. McNeill, Murdoch, Johnstone and Dalglish were all required in the Scots’ squad but Jock Stein managed to persuade (or intimidate) all four of them into refusing to go for various reasons. Stein thought the trip was too far and too long and wanted his stars fully rested over the summer months for the new season in August. However, Lou rebuffed all Jock’s efforts to dissuade him from going which showed that the young Macari was very much his own man and was a strong willed character as well.

It was on this trip that Lou learned of how much the Anglo Scots players earned and this turned his head somewhat. The Scotland manager was the ex Celt, Tommy Docherty, and when Manchester United required a new manager in the early winter of 1972, the Doc was their man and Lou was his first target. By this time Lou had married an American girl in Saint Patrick’s cathedral in New York and perhaps he had a more cosmopolitan attitude at this time compared to other Celtic players.

Older Celtic fans will tell you that Macari was causing a bit of distress behind the scenes at Celtic Park at that time with several controversial newspaper interviews and rather than tolerate a troublesome personality in the dressing room, Stein decided it was time Lou moved on. Celtic at that time had an embarrassment of riches in their forward line with Johnstone, Dalglish, Deans, Hood, Lennox and Macari all vying for three places in the attack. Lou was, arguably, not even a guaranteed starter in the first eleven and Stein did good business in obtaining a massive £200,000 transfer fee from Old Trafford. He was a loss but not to extent that Davie Hay would be missed in 1974 or Kenny Dalglish in 1977, both of whom who were virtually irreplaceable. Macari showed his single mindedness again by sensationally snubbing Bill Shankly’s advances to bring him to Liverpool in order to go to Old Trafford. This was not the greatest career move as Liverpool would be come the dominant force in European football for the next 10 years.

The strange thing is that United converted Macari from an ace goal scorer to being a deep lying midfielder and success was hard to come by, United even being sensationally relegated to the second division in 1974, on the very same day that Celtic celebrated their 9 in a row league title win at Brockville.

In 1976 Manchester United came up for the Johnstone/Lennox testimonial and Lou stated publicly that he could not bring himself ever to play against his beloved Celtic. However, by 1980 he had a change of heart and decided to play for United in another testimonial game at Parkhead for his great friend, Danny McGrain. United actually made him captain for the occasion and he was given a rapturous ovation from the Celtic fans in the Jungle.

Somewhat curiously, the fans in that same area two years previously had given Kenny Dalglish absolute dog’s abuse when he returned in a Liverpool jersey and it was claimed that the Pope would have received a better reception at Ibrox. This still annoys me intensely to this day because Dalglish gave infinitely more to the Celtic cause than Macari ever did and was a consummate professional as well.

In 1984 Macari was given a testimonial for his eleven years service at Old Trafford and Celtic were his chosen opponents. Lou contented himself by playing for United in the first half and Celtic in the second half in what was an entertaining game and his pockets were well lined by the 15,000 Celtic fans who travelled down for the occasion.

Looking back after all these years we should appreciate Lou’s efforts in the hoops and he was part of a fantastic, attacking, Celtic team in perhaps the most successful period of the club’s history. It’s just a pity he couldn’t have saw fit to have hung around Parkhead for a good while longer.

Celtic ‘saviour’ falls victim to new regime

JIM REYNOLDS

Herald newspaper

17 Jun 1994

Jim Reynolds reports how only eight months ago Lou Macari arrived back at Parkhead to restore Celtic’s fortunes, and yesterday the new board showed him the red card.
THE rumours which have been rife around Parkhead since the dawn of the Fergus McCann era became a sad fact for Lou Macari yesterday when the most famous revolving door in sport — that used most often by football managers — turned him out into the street after less than eight months in the job.
Macari was to be the saviour of Celtic, the man to build a side capable of ending Rangers domination of the Scottish scene, but while the majority of fans welcomed his arrival with boundless enthusiasm others were asking themselves why a man who publicly announced himself to be a Celtic man through and through seemed at one point reluctant to claim the job on offer after the sacking of Liam Brady.
Negotiations had been long, and until he eventually decided to return to Parkhead on October 26 of last year, there always remained some doubt as to whether he would leave Stoke City, where he had been immensely popular. Maybe Macari thought that a board of directors who could so easily get rid of men of stature such as Billy McNeill, David Hay and Brady left a lot to be desired. How ironic now that with the influence of the old board practically gone, Macari should fall victim to the new regime.
Yet it all began so well for Celtic and Macari last autumn. His first match produced a victory over Rangers in a premier division match at Ibrox — then came the little signs that all was not well. Backroom staff had been shuffled and elbowed aside, Macari brought in his own men, Chic Bates, Ashley Grimes and Peter Henderson, and the club was knocked out of the UEFA Cup by Sporting Lisbon. Even as a player Macari was never slow to air his views. In a way he was something of a sports writer’s dream, because you rarely got a ”no comment” from him. As a manager he had not changed much in that respect, which meant he upset others.
As a player, it was mainly officialdom which suffered from his comments, the most famous probably being his fierce criticism of the SFA’s arrangements during the World Cup finals in Argentina in 1978. Most players thought the conditions at their training headquarters in Alta Gracia were too spartan. Macari said it.
That ended an international career which had seen him win 24 caps and score five goals for Scotland. Following Macari’s blast, the then secretary of the SFA, Ernie Walker, said his association ”would be delighted to accede to Mr Macari’s request not to be considered in the future”.
Macari’s Celtic career began in 1966 when he joined them from St. Michael’s Academy, in Kilwinning, and he made his first-team debut as a substitute in a league cup tie against Ayr United at Somerset Park on September 27, 1967. In the aftermath of Celtic’s European Cup victory and with the emergence of a new breed of outstanding players such as Danny McGrain, David Hay and Kenny Dalglish, it took an exceptional player to break through at Parkhead.
Macari did just that and before joining Manchester United for #210,000 in 1973, he had played 90 domestic matches for the club, scoring 48 goals. He also won two championship badges and two Scottish Cup winners’ medals. Success followed at Old Trafford (a second division championship win and an FA Cup final success against Liverpool) before he moved to Swindon as player-manager in 1984. He steered the Wiltshire team from the fourth to the second division in five years and then took over at West Ham from John Lyall.
His reign at Upton Park did not last long. The man, who never hid the fact that he liked a punt, was fined #1000 by the FA for breaking a rule regarding betting on matches while at Swindon, and resigned.
He returned to football as manager of Birmingham City in 1991 and after just four months there he joined Stoke. Controversy, as well as success, followed the little man, and in 1992 he was cleared in court of tax fiddle allegations involving under-the-table payments to Swindon players.
Last October Macari returned ”home” to his first love, but the rapport he enjoyed with his players in other places seemingly did not follow him to Parkhead. Senior players openly criticised his style of management and if a manager does not have the confidence and respect of his players there is no chance he will achieve success. That was most emphatically underlined by yesterday’s events in Kerrydale Street.
Lou Macari had a proven track record as a manager but, sadly, when it came to the job in which he most wanted to succeed he was unable to convince his employers, or his players, that he had what it took to win trophies in such a high-profile position.
There is no doubt Macari will bounce back. He will not be lost to football, because there are several clubs who would employ him immediately. There is also little doubt that his Parkhead experience will not alter his views on how he should go about his managerial duties when he does take up the next challenge.
THE MACARI CAREER * 1966 — Joined Celtic from St Michael’s Academy, Kilwinning. * 1967 — First-team debut for Celtic in League Cup tie at Ayr. * 1972 — Made Scotland debut in 1-0 win over Wales. Scored two goals in Celtic’s 6-1 win over Hibs in Scottish Cup final. * 1973 — Joined Man. United. * 1977 — Won FA Cup winners’ medal with United. * 1978 — International career ended after criticism of SFA’s World Cup arrangements. * 1984 — Joined Swindon Town as player-manager. * 1989 — Took over from John Lyall at West Ham. * 1990 — Resigned West Ham post after #1000 fine by FA. * 1991 — Returned to football as manager of Birmingham City. Moved on to Stoke City. * 1993 — Manager of Celtic. * 1994 — Sacked by Celtic.

Interview: Ex Scotland star Lou Macari is devoted to helping the homeless

Lou Macari devotes much of his time to the Macari Centre, the homeless retreat he set up two years ago. Picture: Rex/Shutterstock.
Aidan Smith
Published: 06:00 Saturday 02 June 2018
https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/teams/celtic/interview-ex-scotland-star-lou-macari-is-devoted-to-helping-the-homeless-1-4748719

It could be a football changing room, given the unholy racket of shouting and raucous laughter that’s taking place through the wall from where Lou Macari is sat. In truth, though, we couldn’t be further from his old life.

This is the Macari Centre which very definitely isn’t a museum dedicated to a career spent winning titles and trophies with Celtic and Manchester United and playing in the World Cup for Scotland. Rather it’s a shelter for the homeless, a refuge offering blankets, food and hope.

“They’d better not be swearing because Sister’s in today,” he says, referring to the local nun who is currently parceling up surplus donated clothes to send to an orphanage in Kenya. “I don’t swear like I normally do when I’m here. I’m not the ex-player or the ex-manager here; I’m just doing what I can to help. The other week I was at Wembley for the FA Cup final where, as usual, the buffet in hospitality was fabulous. Here there are folk who are oh so grateful for a cup of tea and a bacon roll and to be honest I’m just as grateful I’m able to see how the other half lives, or tries to.”

Macari does more than man the urn; without him the street retreat in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent wouldn’t exist. He got the idea after no greater exposure to the homelessness issue than yours or mine: he saw people sleeping rough and in doorways, quite a lot of them, only he didn’t simply exude sympathy and maybe a few coins then walk on. “I’m probably here too often,” he says, “but it’s a hectic place with new people arriving all the time.”

Macari clearly has a big heart but, having learned under one of football’s great disciplinarians, Jock Stein, he’s no soft touch. “There’s always an issue with someone. I’ll read the behaviour reports from the previous day and something will have gone wrong. So-and-so was due in court – why didn’t they go? Or, if they did go, why did they dress like a homeless person when we’ve got decent clothes they can wear? But I like the banter in this place. Some people know who I am but a few won’t. Aye, sometimes you’ve got to separate the hard-luck stories from the ******** but one of the ways you can help is by talking to the folk, listening to them, acknowledging they exist.”

A morning spent in Macari’s company can put a lot of things in perspective and the man himself, coming from the world of football where these days the top players barely have to tie their own laces or apply their own moisturiser, is well aware of this. “When you’re younger you take everything that comes your way,” he says. “But when you get older you realise there’s a lot less fortunate people out there.”

And the difficulties faced by refuge regulars – alcohol and drugs problems, adrift from family, no fixed abode and as a result little chance of getting a job – can make the grumbles of Scotland’s 1978 World Cup squad seem really pathetic.

Those of us who lived through that disastrous campaign have heard the grumbles repeated many times. The hotel beds were too hard, the soup was inedible, the pool had no water in it and the opposition were too crafty. BBC Scotland have just reheated the complaints for a documentary, something which probably wouldn’t have saved the soup. Masochists will note that transmission is next Wednesday, 6 June, when exactly 40 years ago, Ally MacLeod’s team were reeling from Willie Johnston’s drugs bust and about to lurch to a draw with football no-marks Iran.

Macari, now 68, was one of the Argentina “bad boys” who after the tournament would never play for his country again. It’s poignant, then, that the first time we see him in the film he is inspiring one of commentator Archie Macpherson’s most famous exclamations: Kenny Dalglish knocked the ball back to him in the centre circle and as Martin Buchan galloped down the right wing, Macari hit what was surely the sweetest, most instinctive, most raking left-foot pass of his career. Cue Archie: “There’s an overlap!”

“The Wales game,” he says of the crucial qualifier for ’78, “and Kenny’s wonderful header. It was a brilliant feeling to have won that match because we would be going to the finals as the only British representatives.” That, though, would bring its own problems and pressures once the players were holed up in Cordoba.

Which Scotland squad contained the bonnier talents, ’74 or ’78? Somewhere in the land, between games in a World Cup not involving us, this will be debated. Bill Shankly is quoted in the documentary as saying that the Argentina-bound Scots, if they were to compete in England’s old First Division, would have wrapped up the league by Christmas. Macari’s party was plenty strong and he worried about not being on the plane. “Although I played at Anfield I was thinking: ‘Am I even going to make the big pool of 60?’ I was like a kid with a sticker album, only I seemed to have too many midfield players: ‘[Don] Masson and [Bruce] Rioch are certainties. [Archie] Gemmill and [Asa] Hartford and [Graeme] Souness are bound to get in. Bloody hell’.”

Too many midfielders, too much hullabaloo. The World Cup came along at a vulnerable moment for the country. The old industries were dying and we were seeking a new, different and vivid expression of ourselves. The tournament, especially with no England present, provided it. Butchers sold their shops so they could follow the team across the ocean. Bedecked in tartan, some fans embarked on the great adventure by bicycle. The film shows residents of a hamlet digging a hole in the ground. Were they attempting to tunnel their way to South America? No, simply laying four miles of cabling so Knoydart could follow the games on TV.

What did Macari think of the pre-World Cup lap of honour around Hampden? “I wasn’t very comfortable with it, but looking back it allowed wee kids to see the players along with all the other fans who weren’t able to make the big journey.” As with much of Argentina ’78 the parade has been over-analysed, and at least that bus didn’t break down, unlike the transfer from Buenos Aires to the squad’s base. “We all had to get out and push,” laughs Macari. “Can you imagine Gareth Southgate and his boys doing that in Russia this summer?”

Scotland’s impresario – PT McBarnum – was of course MacLeod. What did Macari think of him before Argentina and then afterwards? “Oh, the same. My view didn’t waver. Ally was a character like Tommy Doc [Docherty]. He was entertaining and a genuine football man who wanted to win games and for Scotland to give of their best.

“Now you’re going to ask me about preparations and whether we should have had Peru watched [the South Americans stunned Scotland in the opening match, winning 3-1 with flying wingers and outside-of-the-foot deftness by Teofilo Cubillas]. The younger generation might be wondering: ‘Where were your tactical geniuses back then?’ They don’t exist now, by the way, but we did have these great managers, guys like Jock, Shanks and [Matt] Busby. Football’s big into analysis and stats and everything now but the greats managed players and that was Ally, too.”

The second time we encounter Macari in the documentary is at the squad’s Alta Gracia retreat where he’s asking Masson and Joe Harper what would be reasonable for a World Cup bonus payment. This is followed by Macari being asked by a reporter how much he expected to make from the tournament. “Buttons,” he replies. He says now: “Sure we talked about money. Any footballer who says he doesn’t is a liar. You got paid a wage and if you won, there would be a bonus but in ’78, players were earning £200 a week. Was representing the country not sufficient reward? I don’t know, is it enough nowadays? The subject of money was bound to crop up. Of course it should have cropped up before we travelled and been sorted out then.”

If you thought you knew all you ever needed to know about Argentina ’78 you might be shocked by the film when Derek Johnstone reveals the full horror of camp boredom. Stuck by the empty pool, the players would turn their frustrations on a colony of ants, flicking gravel at them to dislodge the leaves being borne on tiny backs. Maybe the squad placed bets on the outcomes; perhaps they also backed themselves to win their second group game.

First capped by Docherty, Macari had been a member of the Scotland team which ripped up Wembley in 1977, got involved in the scruffy winner that day, just as he was for the similarly ugly Twin Towers goal which brought Man U the FA Cup two weeks before, and was drafted into the national side for what would be the dire 1-1 with Iran, his 24th and final dark blue appearance.

Macari insists he didn’t quit Scotland, rather they quit him. He’d prompted seething at the SFA over a newspaper article criticising their organisation of the campaign. “I didn’t go running to the press; I had a regular column in The Sun and when the tournament was over for Scotland was asked to reflect on it. The SFA took the hump. [Secretary] Ernie Walker’s response was something like: ‘We’re not going to punish Mr Macari by making him play for Scotland again’. I was disappointed that was my last-ever game but in the column I’d simply told it like it was.”

Macari has had a tempestuous life. To end up at Man U he said “no” to Jock Stein and then “no” to Bill Shankly at Liverpool; not many do that. As Celtic boss he took Fergus McCann to court after his sacking but lost his savings in the action. “Fergus wanted me out from day one. His method of communication was to write me a note and yet our offices were only 50 yards apart. I knew it was the wrong time to be there but anyone who’d been brought up by the club, as I had been, would have jumped at the chance to manage them.” Then as boss of Swindon Town he was fined for breaching FA rules on betting.

But events good and bad paled into insignificance for Macari following the tragedy which was to hit his family in 1999 when youngest son Jonathan, who’d been with Nottingham Forest, took his own life. The language of football, its would-be triumphs and supposed disasters, won’t have sounded more over-inflated than at that moment. Nothing comes close to losing a child.

It’s ten years since Macari wrote about Jonathan’s death in his autobiography. He said then that he blamed himself. He could have done more to help the lad. As a manager he’d been careful to spot the signs when young players might have been experiencing difficulties – why hadn’t he done this with his own son?

Does he still feel guilt? “One of the things people say is: ‘Time heals’. It doesn’t; nothing changes. You get older, the event gets older, but it doesn’t go away. You question yourself. Every time you have a mad moment, which you try to keep to as few as possible, you’ll do that. I think that must happen in all families who’ve been through something similar. There would be something wrong with you if you didn’t reflect on a loss, especially of a child, and have regrets.”

The Macari Centre opened two years ago. He would love to be able to close it tomorrow and for homelessness not to exist but in the time the refuge has been in operation its reach and services have had to be expanded. It now caters for 30, three times the original figure, and provides three meals a day. I wonder if Macari was moved to act by his feelings over Jonathan’s death. “Maybe that had something to do with it,” he says. “As a parent when you lose a child, a billion things run through your mind. The one thing that’s not going to happen, of course, is them coming back to you. So you think about what you could have done [to help] and then you might think: ‘Who helped me in life?’ At Man U and Celtic I had brilliant mentors and in Big Jock I had the greatest of them all.”

Macari thinks back to his Parkhead youth as a Quality Street kid and how he couldn’t be even a minute late for training on Tuesday and Thursday nights because Stein was always standing at the door, counting in the striplings. He’s laughing having remembered the night he tried to sneak a bottle of Coca-Cola past the boss and of course he was rumbled. “Jock was teetotal but he didn’t even approve of fizzy drinks. He poured it down the sink then uttered the immortal words: ‘I’ll Coca-Cola ye’. Like Stein, Macari has never touched alcohol.

“I couldn’t have achieved what I did in football without guys like Jock and one day, seeing so many people sleeping rough, I thought to myself: ‘Who’s helping them? What are they ever going to be able to achieve in their lives?’ I had a friend on the local council. He used to be a journalist who, when I was playing, was always pestering me for stories. I said to him: ‘It’s payback time. You must have an empty building which could be used as a shelter’. I thought setting it up would be my only involvement but here I am. I’m trying to help the folk get their lives back on track. I don’t preach to them. I want them to 
know they can rely on me and 
trust me.”

Such commitment takes time. Macari won’t leave the refuge and head for home until after 10pm. Then he’ll stay up for telly coverage of Scotland’s return to South America, the national team’s first visit to the continent since that ill-fated excursion 40 years ago. “They need to get back on track, too,” he says, “but I always watch their games, waiting for things to change. I want a magician to come along and restore us to what we used to be, producing unbelievable footballers.”

l Scotland ’78: A Love Story is on BBC1 Scotland on 6 June at 9pm.

Macari rejected Celtic’s £5 pay-rise offer, before Pat Crerand shafted Liverpool
By Editor 18 January, 2023

-https://thecelticstar.com/macari-rejected-celtics-5-pay-rise-offer-before-pat-crerand-shafted-liverpool/

David Potter has this to say about the transfer of Lou Macari to Manchester United on this day back in 1973, while writing in his Celtic Diary on The Celtic Star this morning…

Lou Macari, who has been unsettled for some time, signs for Manchester United for £200,000. He is a fine player but has been looking for a transfer to England, and there have been occasions, notably in the League Cup Final of a month ago against Hibs and in the Old Firm game of 6 January, when he has not performed as well as the supporters might have expected. It is however still a very sad day for the club. It would not be true to say that the supporters wish him well.

We promised we’d have a look at this transfer later in the day, and it’s a story about Celtic’s fiver pay-rise not being enough for the unhappy player so Jock Stein sorted out a deal with his great friend Bill Shankly only for a former Celtic Star to intervene and divert the plater away from Anfield to sign instead for Manchester United.

Given the fortunes of the two English giants during the remaining years of Macari’s playing career you could be forgiven for wondering if that was the shrewdest decision that Lou Macari ever made.

Speaking to the Utd Podcast a few years ago Lou Macari talked through his reasons for leaving Celtic, how he heard about his transfer to England but knew nothing about the club he was being sold to and then how a former Celt got involved to scupper the deal to instead divert the player to one of their biggest rivals.

Dalglish and Macari could have ended up playing together for Liverpool

It all started with Macari, one of the Quality Street Gang at Celtic that was coming through to fill the boots of the Lisbon Lions side which was slowly but surely being replaced by Jock Stein, going into see the the legendary Celtic manager to ask for a pay-rise.

“I went in and told him my father had died and I was having to support my mother now,” Lou Macari explained. “How I plucked up the courage to go in, to this day I still don’t know. But I did. I had to because I needed more money on my contract if I wasn’t going to be offered enough.

“Jock told me I would be getting an extra five pounds per week on my wages and that was it. So I said, ‘Look, I need to support my mother, I can’t be having a fiver.’

“That was it, there was no more money being offered, so I said ‘I’m off.’ I knew I could get more in England, because I’d been around players [who played for English clubs]in the Scotland team.

“I sat at home for a couple of weeks, after training every day. I was looking at the phone, praying for it to ring. I was hoping someone would know I was available, but I didn’t know how the system worked. I had no agent and no one there to support me.

“The phone did ring one night and it was the manager, Jock. He said, ‘Get ready, you’re going to England in the morning’. Then he put the phone down on me.

“‘Where are you going?’ my wife said. “I said, ‘I don’t know, he never told me.’”

Next morning as instructed, the 23 year-old Macari made the road trip south of the border, passing places like Carlisle, Blackburn and Burnley but with no clue where he was being taken. He did know that he’d be spending the night in Southport who he knew was the home to a club then struggling in the lower reaches of the Football League. Surely that wasn’t Jock Stein’s plan for him, Macari worried. His fears were eased the next morning when he was taken to Anfield.

“I arrive at Liverpool FC,” Macari recalled. “I have five or six minutes to digest in my mind how I got here and I realise Stein and Shankly are the best of pals, big friends, similar backgrounds, top managers and before I know it, I’m in Bill Shankly’s office.

Jock Stein and Bill Shankly at Billy McNeill’s testimonial game in August 1974.

“He’s seen me play, likes me, says all the things I’d like to hear and then says, ‘I’m going to pay you £180 a week.’ What happened when you got transferred in those days was you got 5 per cent of the fee. I was going to be going for £180,000 and I’m quickly working out I’m £9,000 richer for that journey from my home to Liverpool.

“Shankly had to go because they were playing that night, so he went to the dressing room and I went to the director’s box. This guy walked in 10 minutes late for the game and sat down. It was (former Celt) Pat Crerand.

“There’s nothing wrong with Pat Crerand being late, he’s always late, as you know. We looked at each other and said: what you doing here? So I told Pat, ‘I’ve just been brought down here. I’m signing for Liverpool.’

“‘You’re not signing for Liverpool, you’re signing for Man United,’ he says.

Pat Crerand on his wedding day.

“‘But you’re not in charge Pat?” Macari replied. “‘Right now, I’m in charge,” Crerand responded. Macari didn’t know if the former Celtic star was joking or not. A quick telephone call later, however, and it became apparent how deadly serious he was.

“You know Pat, he’s not one for giving up. At half-time he phoned up [then United manager]Tommy Docherty, who said he wanted me. And I’m thinking, I’m not signing for Liverpool. I’m signing for Man United.

“But I had to go back and tell the Liverpool manager, who is ferocious, no nonsense, who doesn’t mess around, that I’m not going to sign for Liverpool. How do I do it!?

“I’m a Man United fan. I knew George Best, Denis Law, Bobby Charlton. I knew George Best was the best player I was ever going to see. I don’t care what they’re doing. They might be fifth-bottom of the league, but they’ve got those three and I’ve got to be training with them next week.

“I went back to Shankly’s office and I lied, I’ve got to be honest. I said I need time to think about it. Next morning, I was going to head up north to Glasgow, meet up with Paddy and the Doc and sign for United. The fee went up because it was United, up to £200,000, which meant an extra thousand for me!”

Lou Macari On Celtic, Jock Stein, Manchester United And Almost Joining Liverpool

Callum McFadden Callum McFadden
7 months ago
Lou Macari Interview
https://worldfootballindex.com/2022/07/lou-macari-on-celtic-jock-stein-manchester-united-and-almost-joining-liverpool/amp/
MANCHESTER – OCTOBER 26: Portrait of Lou Macari, the ex-Manchester United player, during the FA Barclaycard Premiership match on October 26, 2002 between Manchester United and Aston Villa at Old Trafford in Manchester. (Photo by Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)

An interview with Lou Macari, by Callum McFadden for WFi.

You started your career at Celtic under legendary manager Jock Stein. What was Jock like to work with in your formative years at Celtic?

“When you start off in life as a Celtic supporter, going to Celtic Park as a kid to watch the team, signing for the club is a dream come true.

“I trained two nights per week at the club initially as a young player alongside Kenny Dalglish and Danny McGrain who were in the same position as me. We all wanted to impress and eventually make the grade at the club.

“We had all been promised two years of training at the end of which we would be told if they wanted to sign as apprentices on the ground staff at the time in addition to playing.

“We trained on a Tuesday and Thursday evening and Jock Stein was there watching every training session.

“That summed up the brilliance of the man because for the manager of any football club to take a real interest in the youth players that could one day make it to the first team is a real credit to them. Not everyone does that.

“I worked as hard as I could to impress him and thankfully I did and had the opportunity to go and work under him.

“Jock took no nonsense. He was a disciplinarian who expected you to always give your all with respect for others or you would be shown the door.

“He was a fair man and he would always advise you and try to improve you in order for you to have a career at Celtic.“

When you broke into the first team at Celtic in September 1967, you were immediately playing alongside the famous Lisbon Lions who had won the European Cup a few months previously. How did they welcome you into the fold?

“It was a dream for me to be putting their kit out in the morning as part of the ground staff because they were my heroes.

“So, to eventually go on and train and play alongside side then was unbelievable. I honestly thought I would never have an opportunity because when you have the Lisbon Lions ahead of you in the pecking order, that is one big mountain to climb.

“They were household names in global football. Don’t forget, they were the first British side to win the European Cup. That is the status of player we are talking about.

“However, every footballer, even a Lisbon Lion, gets older and eventually move on such is football. That then opened the doors for youngsters like me, Danny McGrain, Kenny Dalglish, Davie Hay and George Connolly to come in to the Celtic team and take on the mantle from those greats.”

You won numerous trophies at Celtic including 5 league titles. However, I have to ask you about the Scottish Cup final replay of 1971. You scored a decisive goal that saw Celtic win the Scottish Cup against Rangers in front of over 100,000 fans. Can you put into words what that was like to be part of?

“I remember being on the bench for the initial cup final which was a different feeling to the players of today because back then teams only had one substitute. That meant the chances of getting on were slim.

“We were winning that cup final and even though I was on the bench, I was excited about the thought of getting a Scottish Cup winners medal for the first time.

“Although, that excitement soon faded to disappointment as Rangers went on to score an equaliser which would force the final to a replay which would be played just a matter of days later.

“Jock took us straight back to Seamill Hydro which is where we would prepare for such matches. For some unknown reason, Jock decided to start me in the replayed final on the Wednesday evening.

“I honestly was not expecting it but Jock would often spring a surprise with his team selections from time to time.

“All of the experienced players helped calm me down and I scored the opening goal of the game which was an unbelievable feeling especially in front of a crowd of that size.

“We then went 2-0 up before Rangers pulled back a goal to make it 2-1. That is how the game finished and I had the winners medal that I so desired from the Saturday.

“My mother and father were there to watch me which meant a lot because that was the first massive game that I played in and it marked the start of a career for me in the game.”

Celtic 2-1 Rangers Scottish Cup Final replay 1971
Goals from Lou Macari and a penalty scored by Harry Hood give Celtic the cup. pic.twitter.com/vRaUMDfKJK

— Highland__Paddy (@Highland__paddy) May 10, 2019

It is often said that great teams are able to build upon success and your Celtic side was able to do that by beating Hibernian in the 1972 Scottish Cup final 6-1. You scored two goals in that final in addition to goals from Billy McNeil and Dixie Deans. How proud a moment was it for you to retain the Scottish Cup?

“It was another incredible feeling to return to Hampden for another showpiece final. Playing in those occasions was something you could only dream of as a kid so to be able to do it again was great.

“We won comfortably that day and scoring a couple of goals topped off a great day for the club.

“I did not realise it at that time but I have to be honest and day that my career in football was down to Jock Stein.

“His methods and success showcased that he is the greatest Scottish manager ever. He took Celtic to new heights, the greatest heights in the history of the club and his desperation and will to win drove each set of players that he had to bring the numbers of trophies back to Celtic Park that they did in his tenure.”

Your success at Celtic led to interest from clubs in England. You signed for Manchester United in 1973. However, I believe you could have joined Liverpool if it was not for the intervention of Paddy Crerand?

“That is true but I had no idea that any club was interested in me at the time.

“I only found out because my contract was up at Celtic and I went in to see Jock Stein about singing a new deal. He offered me a £5 rise in my wage and I thought that I would get a bigger rise than that given my form at the time.

“It was also a difficult period of my life because my father had just died and my mother was on her own so I had to look after her and in addition to that, I was about to be married.

“Jock told me that he could not offer me any more due to the budget that he had at Celtic so I made my mind up that I would have to leave such were my circumstances.

“I did not know where I could go and there was no agents at that time so I was on my own with this uncertainty.

“I did not know how a transfer worked or what happened but Jock told me that he would keep me informed.

“He called me a few days later and told me that a car would pick me up in the morning from home to take me to England. I did not ask where I was going or what was happening because I would not dare question him. He was the boss and I was only a player.

“So, the car picked me up and when we got past Carlisle, I started to wonder where I was going.

“We eventually drove into Liverpool and I realised that there was a game on that night and that I was going to Anfield. Jock Stein was close with Bill Shankly so it all fitted in to place that I would join Bill at Liverpool.

“I spoke to Shankly and he told me that he wanted me to join Liverpool but I could not understand why when he already had Kevin Keegan and John Toshack in attack. They had no real need for me as far as I could see.

“Anyway, I went and watched the game in the directors box and the seat next to me was empty. A few minutes later, Paddy Crerand sat down and asked me why I was at Anfield.

“I told him I was about to join Liverpool which led to him frantically telling me not to because he would call Tommy Docherty at Manchester United because they couldn’t let me join Liverpool.

“True to his word, he called Tommy and told me that I was wanted by Manchester United which meant that I had to tell Bill Shankly I was not signing for him, because I wanted to join Manchester United as soon as they were interested given their success under Sir Matt Busby previously and their stature as a club.”

YouTube Poster

Your time at Manchester United was a rollercoaster as the club was relegated under Tommy Docherty before bouncing back straight away. You then win the FA Cup in 1977 with the club. How would you sum up your time at the club as a whole?

“I had eleven great years at Old Trafford. Anyone who wears the Manchester United shirt is a lucky player and I loved every minute. It is a great club just like Celtic.

“I scored goals, played in three FA Cup finals and played at Wembley around a dozen times while I was at the club.

“Winning the FA Cup against Liverpool in ‘77 was special and meant a lot to me and the team because we lost the final against Southampton in the previous season.

“I always remember collecting my losers medal in front of a packed and the feeling that gave me. It was not fun, put it that way.

“That inspired Tommy Docherty and the team on to win it the following year. We were underdogs against Liverpool who were the Champions and going for the treble.

“We won the game with Jimmy Greenhoff deflecting my shot past Ray Clemence to win 2-1. It was an incredible feeling because I had walked up those Wembley steps as a runner up just 12 months previous and now I was walking up as a winner.

“Celebrating with our fans was brilliant and joyous. It was a wonderful feeling.

“I achieved a lot in my career and playing at Manchester United was something that meant a lot to me.

“I had three managers in Tommy Docherty, Dave Sexton and Ron Atkinson who all played me and whom I enjoyed working with so I was more than delighted with my time at Manchester United. I would not change it for the world.”

Upon retirement, you entered management. You had success at Swindon Town with two promotions, at Birmingham by winning the Football League trophy and at Stoke by winning another promotion and Football League trophy. How do you reflect on those successes as a manager?

“For any manager, you need to have players that are fully committed to you and to the club that you are at.

“If you have that then you have half a chance of succeeding. You see that with the number of managerial changes in the modern game. It does not always happen.

“My successes in management were down to the players that I had. They bought into what I wanted to do and I applied many of Jock Stein’s methods because he had a great influence on me as a coach as well as a player.”

You returned to Celtic as manager in 1993. You support the club and had great success as a player however your time in charge of the club was a difficult one. Was your time as manager of Celtic, a case of the right club at the wrong time?

“I knew that I should not have joined Celtic as manager given the circumstances at the club at the time.

“It was a time that Celtic did not have any money to spend and therefore, it was going to be an uphill task for me. That was spelt out to me by the Kellys who owned the club at that time.

“Despite knowing this information, I just could not turn down Celtic because as a supporter, I wanted to return. I wanted to be a part of the club again and knew that I would need support to achieve any sort of success.

“Unfortunately, I did not have the support from the boardroom that I needed but I tried my best and got a few results here and there.

“An ownership change then happened and Fergus McCann took control of the club and he made it clear to me from day one of his ownership that he did not want me.

“It was actually Brian Dempsey who broke that news to me but when you are not wanted, there is nothing you can do.

“They tried to get me to leave but I put up with certain things until I eventually left.

“Thankfully, Celtic did get better in the years ahead and the stadium was improved to what it is today thanks to Fergus.

“It is what it is and it is a part of the history of the football club and my history. It was not great but if every job was great then no one would ever move jobs or take on new challenges when they present themselves.”

Last but not least, Lou, I have to discuss your work with the Macari Foundation. You support the homeless community in Stoke on Trent. How proud are you of the work that you do and how can our readers support the charity?

“We started with eight people and I wanted to help them to try and improve their lifestyle. I set out to give them clothes, food and a roof over their head.

“I am delighted when people can turn their life around but that is down to them. I can provide them with basic everyday essentials but the actual change of lifestyle has to come from them.

“We then moved from eight people gradually to working with 50 homeless people in a new facility with individual pods as living spaces.

“I take great delight in feeding them and helping to put a roof over their heads. We take them away on trips to Blackpool or Alton Towers from time to time as well to try and help them mentally relax.

“You quickly realise that many of them have never been to these places and it means a lot to be able to give them opportunities to enjoy themselves. They are always very thankful which is satisfying because we are all human beings who deserve the best chance at life and support when we require it.

“I do not like asking for help for the charity but you can access our work at our website. http://macari-foundation.co.uk/

“We accept any donation or support from the public and any help that people can give then it would be greatly appreciated and we would be incredibly thankful. “