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Note: There has been more than one player with the same name to have played for Celtic. So please check the other namesakes if need be.
Personal
Fullname: John McNamara
aka: Jackie McNamara, Sr.
Born: 19 September 1952
Birthplace: Glasgow, Scotland
Signed: 3 October 1973
Left: 1 September 1976 (to Hibs)
Position: Central Defender
Debut: Celtic 3-0 TPS Turku, European Cup, 17 Aug 1974
Internationals: none
Biog
Signed from Cumbernauld United in October 1970 John ‘Jackie’ McNamara was an assured ball playing defender.
He made his first team debut for the Hoops on 3rd October 1973 in a 3-0 home European Cup victory over TPS Turku. On 17th August 1974 he scored the winner at Parkhead at right-half against Dundee United with a glorious low drive and against Clydebank in the Scottish Cup on 15th February 1975 he scored with another great shot.
He was initially only played sporadically and had to wait his chance, including being bedded into the first team in the then pre-season league cup tournament but then having to wait four months till he won a place in the first team in the Scottish Cup or League. In his Scottish Cup debut match he scored for Celtic in a 4-1 victory, but then was played a week later in the league in a 2-1 defeat to Hibs, and he was demoted again.
Problem is that after nine years of league dominance, Celtic’s form had finally dipped, and the side were a shadow of the old days, finishing third behind Rangers and Hibs in season 1974/75, but this had given Jackie his chance to finally grab a place in the first team, and by the summer of 1975 Jackie was finally a regular in the first team squad but for just one season.
Celtic recovered partly in season 1975/76 but still finished second. Celtic made it through to the quarter-finals of the ECWC in that season, and Jackie played in the disappointing 1-0 defeat away that knocked Celtic out.
He was outstanding against Boavista in both legs of the 1975 ECWC tie which Celtic won 3-1 on aggregate. On 20th December 1975 he scored Celtic’s clinching goal at Easter Road against Hibs in a 3-1 win when he coolly lobbed Jim McArthur from inside the penalty area much to the delight of the Celtic support massed behind that goal. Still more was needed.
His last few games for Celtic were a disappointing time, with a 2-1 defeat to Ayr Utd, a 0-0 draw with Rangers and then in his last game a 1-0 defeat to Hearts. Things were going to need to change at Celtic.
He had made a total of 43 appearances for the Bhoys before moving to Hibs in September 1976 in a move which saw Pat Stanton move to Parkhead. He had a niggling leg injury and Jock Stein was keen to sign the experienced Stanton.
The Hibs fans were up in arms on losing Pat Stanton (a legend to them) but Jackie proved to be an able player for the Hibees who warmed to him.
Newspaper reports around that time attributed comments to Jackie that he disagreed with the way football clubs treated players and that he had leanings towards the Communist Party (something he didn’t hide). This did not go down well with the more ‘conservative’ powers that be at Celtic at that time and perhaps this hastened his departure. Didn’t exactly help when in Dec 1975 his diatribe in “The Leveller” magazine stated (although he later denied it):
“I am a Communist…football is a sick business… the management pulls all the strings and everyone looks out for himself… Celtic and Rangers… take a shy and you see the hate on the faces… it’s a shame… Celtic Park… not many politically conscious at all …. in for the wages and that’s all!”.
From The Scotsman newspaper, a succinct biog gave an interesting background to his political convictions and its view in the team changing rooms:
“For Jackie Sr it was, and is, a fierce political conviction, passed down from his own father, one of the Clyde’s youngest shipyard shop stewards. Jackie Sr sold the Soviet Weekly round Easterhouse as a kid, and became a card-carrying communist as soon as he could. At Celtic, Billy McNeill knew him as ‘the wee commie bastard’ and Kenny Dalglish called him ‘Trotsky’.“
Jackie enjoyed a long career at Easter Road where he firmly established himself as a fans’ favourite and all time great. As stated above he was well read, a deep thinker and was well known as a political activist. He made no secret of his then communist leanings and support for the trade union movement. An interesting character and very much a contrast to the modern player. For all that anyone can argue against his old Marxist beliefs, there is still something to admire that he stuck by his principals as it was never for any personal gain but more for the respect for his fellow man.
In truth, in his time he could take it too far on the pitch as well. At Hibs, he once threw his jersey at the referee (Joe Timmons) at Love Street against St Mirren (Nov 1982) after being sent off. A bit of a hot head at the worst of times. Further punishments had him bringing in the unions et al to help out.
Sadly, he had to retire at just 32 after four cartilage operations forced him to call time early on his career.
His son – also Jackie – would go on to also sign for Celtic. He spent 10 successful years at Parkhead and skippered Celtic towards the end of the Martin O’Neill era, and proved to be a very popular player as well.
In an interesting twist of fate, both men faced each other in a cup final (albeit not on the field) as Hibs played against a Celtic side his son was playing in. Jackie McNamara Sr was in amongst the Hibs fans for the final having been an assistant manager at Hibs in the mid-late 1990s, and where his football sympathies understandably lay now, although we’re sure he will still have very much a soft spot for Celtic too.
We wish Jackie Sr all the best.
Quotes
“Managers are just former players trying to hang on to something they no longer have.”
Jackie McNamara snr, (1999)
Playing Career
| APPEARANCES (Subs) |
LEAGUE | SCOTTISH CUP | LEAGUE CUP | EUROPE | TOTAL |
| 1970-1976 | 18 (3) | 2 (0) | 9 (5) | 3 (2) | 32 (10) |
| Goals | 2 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 5 |
Honours with Celtic
Scottish League
Scottish Cup
Pictures
Articles
The McNamara variety club
www.heraldscotland.com/news/12059969.The_McNamara_variety_cub/
25 May 1996
HIS oldest son hopes to secure his degree in computer analysis next month, his middle son is one of the country’s most promising footballers, and son No.3 is pursuing an exciting career as a ballet dancer. Jackie McNamara, who spent most of his football life with Celtic and Hibs, is entitled to be reasonably content with the way the weans are growing up.
That they have such divergent ambitions should be no surprise to those who know dad. He has always been a man with his own opinions, not one to be swayed by the mob.
He was, therefore, never going to foist his ideas of the future on his offspring. “Sometimes they say to me: `You never took me out to kick a ball around.’ I suppose I didn’t do that much, right enough, but I wanted neither to encourage nor discourage them from football.”
As it was, the son in the sandwich, Jackie, needed no coercion. “It was clear from his early days he was going to be a player. In fact, I told him that he would end up a professional.” Jackie, it so happens, has “ended up” with Celtic, where dad played a generation ago.
The junior Jackie began with Dunfermline, signed by Jim Leishman – “Jim was the only one who would take a chance . . . the rest thought he was too small” – and did so well that Tommy Burns beat off a crowd of other pursuers to take him to Parkhead. Now the 22-year-old full back is a fixture in the Celtic first team and the Scotland Under-21s, who travel today to Barcelona for the European Championship finals.
Already booked and ready to enjoy the week in Catalonia are Jack Sr, and his wife Linda. Jackie gave up the game after deciding that, much as he loved his role as assistant manager to Allan McGraw and player with Morton, he could not tackle the 150-mile trip every day any longer.
He did not give up his passion for the game and you will see him most days watching young Jackie or, if not, taking in a game somewhere. He and Ralph Callachan, who have been pals since their Hibs days 20 years ago, along with friends and customers of the Sportsman’s bar – their pub in Musselburgh – are members of the SFA Travel Club and are getting geared up for “Wembulee” on June 15.
At that time Linda became seriously ill and he found there were more important things in life than football. Happily, after treatment and major surgery, she has fully recovered.
He and Callachan have a successful business, find time to play golf, and generally enjoy life. But those who remember the front-page headlines which featured Jackie in his Celtic days should not imagine that his principles have gone soft. The socialist McNamara who was decried as the “Red Celt” is still the socialist.
Son of a Red Clydesider, McNamara was never likely to deny his heritage, but the storm that blew up around him all those years ago said more about society than the man.
“I was going through a down spell with Celtic at the time. I was on poor wages, married with two young kids, and a so-called friend of my dad’s asked me what it was like playing for Celtic. I told him the truth, that it was a great club but the wages were poor, and I also said that, as I was brought up to hate bigotry, it annoyed me seeing people I had been to school with screaming and swearing at me with hatred in their eyes.
“I think I said that there was more to life than that. Anyway, it was all taken out of context, I was the Red Celt and everything else, but Jock Stein and Sean Fallon tried to protect me a bit. I have to admit I have been a wee bit wary about talking to the press ever since.”
He had slight misgivings about young Jack going to Parkhead. “I still hate bigotry and I was a wee bit worried about him, but he is such a laid-back character that it won’t bother him.”
Oldest son Steven, according to dad, “could play second division football.” After a spell at the Scottish Office and a fortnight in the navy (“that was enough”) he went back to studies and hopes to pass his exams and get that degree next month. Brother Donnie, who is 19, is training to be a ballet dancer. He spent the Christmas period in the King’s Theatre in Glasgow with Jonathon Watson and Co and might have been in Blackpool at the moment but for the fact that his dance teacher thinks he should concentrate more on ballet.
The McNamara clan, then, have no shortage of variety in dinner-table talk when the boys, as well as young Jackie and his wife, are together.
He still sees no great need to advise Jackie, simply because the young Celtic man is so relaxed, and he was given great guidance by Iain Munro at East End Park then Jocky Scott and Gordon Wallace.
“When Celtic wanted him, I was really impressed with Tommy Burns’ honesty and he has proved that since. The thing about Jackie is that he is single-minded and if you want to make it at football, you have to be that way.”
McNamara, Sr, was a fair player himself, better than he claims, and here is an illustration of his own honesty. When I asked him if young Jackie was a better player than his dad, he replied: “He was better than dad when he was nine.”