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Details
Date: 1978
Reference: Jock Stein stepping down as manager, and the offer to move to the Celtic board as a director
Background
There are differences of opinion on what happened with Jock Stein at the end of his Celtic managerial career. He was offered a directorship but ultimately declined it. There have been various stories that have circled around the whole chain of events and below tries to settle the whole issue.
Sadly, some try to make out there were religious reasons for not wanting Jock Stein on the Celtic board, but the evidence doesn’t show any of this at all (just apocryphal from paranoiacs and those with thinly-veiled agendas). One exception is partly football commentator Archie MacPherson, but as below we show that this isn’t the case.
The whole episode was understandably to be difficult for Jock Stein. It was a low period, and the first team had vastly underperformed of late.
He was the greatest manager the game will ever know in Scotland, and as was the case with McGrory & Maley before him, change was never going to be easy.
Analysis
(by CarfinHarp of KDS forum)
This is one of the most intriguing and misunderstood issues in the club’s modern history. A lot of the comments you hear about how our greatest manager was treated at the time of his departure, as has already been referred to from this thread, stem from the offer of a ‘pools job’ and his clear upset caught by a photographer at the very point when his former captain took over the reins from him:
(One book has as the subtext to this photo: ‘In this tableau a humbled giant could not avoid the chilling role of outcast‘)
I was long of the conventional view that the whole episode was a disgrace. This photograph seems to tell the whole story and is regularly used in the media when the issue comes up about how Jock Stein was humiliated by the club he turned into the Champions of Europe. In Frank McGarvey’s book, written with the help of a Rangers supporting journalist, the myth was again put into print that Jock wasn’t even offered a directorship. As the years have passed more details have become available which give a slightly different version of events from that commonly reported.
For example, you never see in print this photo taken in the same place and at the same press conference as the one above:
Jock doesn’t look distraught in that pic, quite the opposite. The reason, I think, you never see it in the media is that it undermines the entire spin that’s been put on this story. We now know (from Archie MacPherson’s recent book) that it was Jock who recommended his replacement be Billy McNeill – and it was he who approached and persuaded Billy McNeill to leave Aberdeen to replace him.
We also know that Jock was offered a directorship of the club, the first non-Catholic to be offered this. That was significant. If Desmond White and the board wanted rid of Jock they didn’t need to offer him a position as director – as said above, Willie Maley wasn’t even offered a directorship. Nor was Jimmy McGrory. Jock was. And, again significantly, he actually accepted this.
The sequence of events according to the McPherson book and the Boardroom minutes reported in Brian Wilson’s book is this:
2 March 1978 – Desmond White, in the face of the worst Celtic season in over 13 years, suggests it might be time for changes in personnel and staff at Celtic Park. Jock offers to take over the Reserves, this is rejected.
20 April 1978 – Jock advised the Board that they should offer the manager’s job to Billy McNeill. They agreed and asked him to make the approach. He approached his former captain at an awards ceremony a few days later. McNeill told McPherson: “I was a little bit stunned by that but I listened to him as he laid out to me the reasons why he thought me and Celtic were made for each other. He was very persuasive.”
The minutes of 20 April 1978 also recorded:
‘In view of Mr Stein’s long and valued service with the club, it was agreed that at the time a new manager was appointed, Mr Stein be offered an executive directorship with the club as recognition and compensation by the club for these services. Mr Stein indicated that he would be very pleased to accept such a directorship which, presuming Mr Stein* accepted the Celtic job, would take effect at the time of the club’s next annual general meeting.’
* I presume this is a typo – Mr Stein’s just accepted the directorship; I think this should read Mr McNeill?
1 June 1978 – Jock is quoted in the Glasgow Herald as saying ‘I am more than pleased to be going on the board at Parkhead’.
14 August 1978 – Jock’s testimonial game v Liverpool
21 August 1978 – Jock accepts offer from Leeds of Manager’s job.
4 October 1978 – Jock takes over the Scotland job from Ally McLeod.
Within 3 months Jock went from having accepted a position as executive director to leaving for England, aged 55. He advised his family that ‘You’ll never guess what they wanted me to do. They want me to sell pools tickets.’ In MacPherson’s words ‘he was to take over the area that involved selling club lottery tickets.’
In 1987 the only surviving director from 9 years before was Jimmy Farrell who told Brian Wilson ‘He had always been interested in the commercial side of the club and was very interested in ideas about raising finance. We felt that this was a job he could do very well, and without too much stress – but it was presented in the press as ‘selling tickets’ which was completely wrong.’ Wilson noted that in Farrell’s view the manager would have made ‘an excellent director’ and regrets that misunderstanding confused the initiative.
Quite simply, it’s not known why Jock decided to leave after having initially accepted the offer of becoming a director. Billy McNeill doesn’t refer to any discussions between him and Jock over what their relationship would be in the new structure. Presumably McNeill, like the man himself when he put Bob Kelly in his place over team selection etc, would not have welcomed any interference in his managerial powers. Had Jock assumed that his role would be that of a Gereral Manager-type like that of Matt Busby at Man Utd? Did he take umbrage at the suggestion that his would be a working directorship? Given that he had no shareholding in the club I would think he must have known he’d be expected to have some form of hands-on role i.e. he’d have to earn his director’s salary (it’s hard to imagine Desmond White having it any other way).
I’ve come to the view that it isn’t fair that the Board at the time have been subjected to the criticism that they were. The place on the Board was his – a surprising offer by the Kelly/White dynasties given his charismatic status and the potential for him to ultimately challenge their control of the club, but it was his for the taking. He ultimately decided to get back into management.
Given all this, what else could/should the Board have done differently?
From KDS forum
It has always been suggested that the greatest ever Scottish Football manager was refused a place on our board of directors because he was a non-Catholic. Along with the current lie doing the rounds this is totally untrue.
Jock Stein was offered a place on the Celtic board. Now it can be argued that the position offered did not reflect the stature of the man, but an offer, which was initially accepted by Mr Stein, was made.
This is highlighted in numerous sources:
Despite what has been said elsewhere, Jock Stein initially accepted the offer of a seat on the board of directors, a position to be ratified at the formality of an AGM later that year: “The job became a bit more difficult recently when I couldn’t get about the field as much as I’d have liked. I’m more than happy to be going on to the Board.”(Daily Record: 1 June 1978). At a press conference held at Parkhead to announce the changes, the chairman insisted that the former manager would be welcomed because “his name can open many doors and attract many ideas from many directions”.
From Campbell & Woods “DREAMS & SONGS TO SING” a history of Celtic.
Much was made of the fact that Stein, a non-Catholic, had been appointed to the Board of Directors but there does not seem to have been anymore reason why he should not have been than there was any reason for not making him manager 13 years before. What is certain is that Stein no sooner accepted the post than he began to have second thoughts…”I did not want to stay with Celtic as a director. I felt I had too much to offer football and I wanted closer involvement”.
From Bob Crampsey “Mr. Stein” A Biography.
At the same board meeting at which it was agreed to pursue Jock Stein’s recommendation of McNeill as manager…an apparently handsome offer was made to the outgoing manager. The minutes record:
In view of Mr Stein’s long and valued service with the club, it was agreed that at the time a new manager was appointed, Mr Stein be offered an executive directorship with the club as recognition and compensation by the club for these services. Mr Stein indicated that he would be very pleased to accept such a directorship which, presuming Mr Stein accepted the Celtic job, would take effect at the time of the club’s next AGM.
From Brian Wilson “CELTIC a century with honour”.
The offer and the circumstances around his refusal are also covered in Archie MacPherson’s excellent biography.
The idea that Big Jock being unhappy with the plans the board had for him after his tenure as manager, is in some way equivalent with Rangers Football Club’s deliberate refusal to play Catholic football players is risible and frankly smacks of assuagement