Managers | Manager Pictures | Quotes
Personal
Fullname: Gordon David Strachan
aka: Gordon Strachan, WGS (Wee Gordon Strachan)
Height: 5.06
Weight: 10.06
Born: 9 Feb 1957
Birthplace: Muirhouse, Edinburgh, Scotland
Position (as a player): RHS Midfielder (attacking)
Internationals (as a player): Scotland
International Caps (as a player): 50 caps
International Goals (as a player): 5 goals
Manager: 1 June 2005 – 25 May 2009
Succeeding: Martin O’Neill
Successor: Tony Mowbray
| “I don’t know if there is another big club where the supporters have a love like the supporters have a love for this club.” WGS on the Celtic fans (quote taken from “Celtic Minded 2” (book), 2006) |
Player
During his playing career he played for
- Dundee (1974-1977),
- Aberdeen (1977-1984),
- Manchester United (1984-1989),
- Leeds United (1989-1995) and
- Coventry City (1995-1997).
He won 50 international caps for Scotland and is in the Scotland Football Hall of Fame.
Gordon Strachan was an aggressive, skilful right-sided midfield player. He never played for Celtic as a player, and generally was not the most popular opposition player. Nippy and aggressive, he irked some of the Celtic support but mostly it was due to his ability as being just a great player for Aberdeen during a golden period for them.
Overall, he was a great entertaining Scottish player and the Celtic support appreciated that at least.
Management
WGS became Coventry City’s Director of Football in November 1996.
He finally retired as a player at the end of the season after making his last appearance at the age of 40, a record in the English Premiership.
Strachan kept Coventry in the Premiership until 2001, when they finally went down after 34 years of top division football. He was sacked shortly after the start of the 2001-02 Division One campaign.
Gordon Strachan returned to management within weeks, taking the manager’s job at Southampton – after Strachan’s appointment in October 2001, they finished 11th in the Premiership.
In 2002-03 when they finished eighth and reached the FA Cup final, where they lost 1-0 to Arsenal, but since Arsenal had qualified for the UEFA Champions League, Southampton qualified for the 2003-04 UEFA Cup.
In March 2004, Gordon Strachan announced his resignation as Southampton manager, earlier than intended because he wanted to spend time with his family.
When Berti Vogts stepped down as Scottish national coach, Strachan was widely tipped to take over until Walter “Wattie” Smith got the job, and he was even linked with the manager’s job at Portsmouth, but turned down the offer to take over. He later took on the Scotland role from January 2013 as the popular choice amongst the Scotland support, resigning in October 2017 after failing to get Scotland through to at least the play-offs of the 2018 World Cup, and having not qualified to Euro 2016.
Gordon Strachan has also been an analyst of football matches for the media, most notably on the BBC’s Match of the Day 2 show. Renowned for his deadpan humour as much as his shrewd tactical awareness, quotes attributed to Strachan have become legendary among football supporters.
As Celtic Manager
Gordon Strachan finally returned to management on 1 June 2005, when he succeeded Martin O’Neill as manager of Celtic in the Scottish Premier League (SPL).
He resigned on 25 May 2009, after 4 years in charge having won the league three times in a row, with a lot to look on to be proud on, both domestically and in European competition.
| PREMIER LEAGUE | CIS LEAGUE CUP | SCOTTISH CUP | EUROPE | TOTALS | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| SEASON | P | W | D | L | F | A | PTS | P | W | D | L | F | A | P | W | D | L | F | A | P | W | D | L | F | A | P | W | D | L | F | A |
| 2005-06 | 38 | 28 | 7 | 3 | 93 | 37 | 91 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 45 | 33 | 7 | 5 | 107 | 46 |
| 2006-07 | 38 | 26 | 6 | 6 | 65 | 34 | 84 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 13 | 3 | 8 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 9 | 10 | 53 | 35 | 8 | 10 | 90 | 48 |
| 2007-08 | 38 | 28 | 5 | 5 | 84 | 26 | 89 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 9 | 3 | 8 | 3 | 0 | 5 | 7 | 10 | 52 | 34 | 6 | 12 | 102 | 42 |
| 2009-09 | 38 | 24 | 10 | 4 | 80 | 33 | 82 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 51 | 31 | 12 | 8 | 97 | 44 |
| TOTALS | 152 | 106 | 28 | 18 | 322 | 130 | 346 | 12 | 10 | 1 | 1 | 23 | 7 | 13 | 9 | 1 | 3 | 27 | 11 | 24 | 8 | 3 | 13 | 24 | 32 | 201 | 133 | 33 | 35 | 396 | 180 |
First season (2005-06)
For 2005/06, his stated aim was to regain the SPL title off current holders (Rangers).
Things didn’t exactly get off swimmingly, and an embarrassing start to his campaign as Celtic manager losing 5-0 to Slovakian champions Artmedia Bratislava on 27 July 2005 and 3 days later only managing to draw 4-4 away to Motherwell in his first SPL match in charge of the Glasgow club. A few days later he recorded his first win in charge as Celtic won 4-0 in the return leg of the Champions League qualifier.
However, that was not enough to avoid being put out of Europe before the season had got started in earnest. For many Celtic fans, these set of matches set the tone (for both WGS and the supporters) on how the mentality on governing the side’s tactics was to be for future matches. It was a huge psychological blow, and some fans never seemed to forgive him. It was too regularly brought up in seasons to come.
Nevertheless, Celtic improved under Strachan, leading the SPL by as much as 20 points at one point despite playing with a defence that came under regular criticism from the media and fans. Rangers were in turmoil as Alex McLeish lurched from one disaster to another. Two notable victories over Rangers in November (scoring 5 goals and conceding none) was a gem of a time, and saw the emergence of Shaun Maloney as a front runner for the team.
Not all went Celtic’s way, and another low-point was the shock defeat in the third-round of the Scottish Cup to First Division Clyde on 8 January 2006. However, the following month his team made history when they beat Dunfermline Athletic 8-1, a record victory margin for the SPL. Over the period after beating Rangers twice in November, the First Team went through a poor spell for two months where the First Team went behind in too many games, but thankfully fought back in to recover.
Worse was that the First Team kept on conceding goals in all the games. It was not until Celtic played against Rangers in mid-February that the first team had a game that they didn’t concede a goal in.Celtic were winning games but the weaknesses of the side were beginning to be seen, and in many ways they were the weaknesses that were to begin to haunt Celtic for over the next couple of seasons.
An important point that has to be made is that this was a season of transition, and anyone taking over from Martin O’Neill as manager was going to have a hard task in front of them (a lot to live up to). Spats with Sutton and Agathe, saw both leave prematurely yet both could have contributed more. On the other hand, the players have to take in that the old regime was over and you have to understand and work with the new regime. With the less than stellar playing achievements of both after leaving Celtic, maybe WGS was right. Sutton in particular can be a prickly character and not predictable, so maybe it was best to move him on.
Overall, Strachan’s first season was ultimately successful as he coached Celtic to victory in the Scottish League Cup and, on 5 April 2006, his side clinched the SPL title in record time with six matches remaining. A difficult year of transition, but he’d won most over to his side at this point.
Reflecting this achievement, Strachan was voted ‘Manager of the Year‘ by the Scottish Football Writers’ Association eight days after the title was clinched.
This was just the beginning, and much better was expected of both him and the team in the next season in terms of entertainment and results (goals conceded, scored etc).
Second season (2006-07)
His second season was even more of a roller coaster compared to his first, with excuses out the window for many, and the arrival of Paul le Guen (PLG) seen by the press as leading “Le Revolution” at Rangers to challenge Celtic. To the surprise of practically everyone, there was no actual domestic challenge. Rangers went comedic from failure to tragic farce, and Celtic simply took advantage going over 20 points ahead of them at one point in the season. In games v Rangers, the best PLG did was one draw. The ‘Hearts Revolution’ was also a joke with their challenge petering out before it had even began.
Knocked out early in the league cup was no issue, and WGS easily made it up with winning the Scottish Cup to wrap up a cup and league double. Overall, WGS was having a respite domestically from any strong challenge, but nobody should understate the level of his achievement. Whilst others floundered, he ensured that Celtic did not, and the players were building up a fair reputation as a unit.
The Champions League was where it’s at, and there he excelled. Despite a tough group, Celtic won all three home games, with a special victory against Man Utd which led Celtic to qualify from the Group stages for the first time. You can’t understate the work done by Gordon Strachan in this. He galvanised the players and had set them out correctly to push further than they expected. Not a unit of players as highly rated together as the best under Martin O’Neill yet they achieved what they did not. The players were fit and able, and were pushing to the last minute of matches. It made a whole difference. Strachan was able to utilise players like Nakamura to his best and it was paying out.
On the other hand,Celtic were poor away from home and lost all 3 games, with WGS stating that he knew the problem and would have it resolved. The next round v AC Milan was very special for the Support, and WGS held to what he said and the first team didn’t concede in 180mins of football, but sadly didn’t score either. Ultimately,Celtic were outdone by a classic goal by Kaka in extra time. A sad way to go out, but a great achievement by WGS and he deserves all the credit in the world.
Regardless of the European achievements, some criticism must also be put at WGS for his second season domestically. The quality of football in the last third of the season in particular was appalling, and the player effort by too many of the squad was deemed non-existent. Rangers’ new manager (Walter Smith) had the better of WGS with a very comfortable win in the last game v Rangers in the season, and Celtic lost in some very drab games. People pay to enjoy the product on the pitch, it really was not good at Celtic. It wasn’t ‘The Celtic Way’.
A number of the signings were disappointing that season, Gravesen, Miller and Jarosik in particular, whilst Jan Venegoor of Hasselink was injured too often. A spat with Maloney over new contracts saw the club lose a great new wee player (transferred to Aston Villa) and the defence was as bad at the end of the season as at the start. The manager appeared to bamboozle and patronise fans on many occasions with his team selections, and what appeared to be a continuing spat with Derek Riordan saw the player play few games and being overshadowed by the far less productive Kenny Miller. A round of boos as Riordan was taken off in one match late in the season was evidence of this. It was a sorry situation.
Many fans were simply disillusioned by WGS at the end despite the successes, and simply couldn’t see where he was taking the team. The fear was that the club was moving backwards despite what had been accomplished in the last year. This should have put an end to the rubbish that the fans didn’t like him as he wasn’t a “Celtic man” (lazy journalism), it was all because of the criticisms as said above. A real roller coaster of a season, and after all the achievements in the season it’s sad to have to have to summarise it all in a negative tone.
Third season (2007-08)
The Support all felt for him and just how much the job and the club really did mean to him. Winning the league against the odds (big odds at that) appeared to have moved the fans and split the fans opinion on him whether to stay or go at the end of it all.
This season for WGS can be termed a success on paper. To quote him, the team achieved what he set out at the start of the year to do. On paper, Celtic won the league (three in a row) and got through the Champs League group stages again (two in a row) which cemented the club as being more than just a flash in the pan side as others in the past have been cynically referred as being.
Celtic sold hapless Kenny Miller to Derby County for £3m (amazing!), brought in a few quality players like Barry Robson, beat Rangers twice at home in very entertaining games and so on. Adding in that Celtic were seven points (plus a game played more) behind Rangers going into the end of the season, WGS must be given his due, even by his harshest critic, for leading the team to somehow comeback and win the league. The first team won the last seven games (which included 2 wins v Rangers) and got much pride back. That can’t be smirked at by anyone, and the last win came just a week after Tommy Burns death (not an easy time).
At the end of the day, his style of football was uninspiring and unentertaining, and he seemed to stick with some players in his squad way beyond what he should have and then moved them on (e.g. Caldwell, Donati, JVoH), demonstrating an inability to accept criticism and that he had been wrong. A public rift with Derek Riordan depicted an unsettled atmosphere in the changing room although other comments by players, like Mark Wilson, Pressley and Venegoor, said otherwise praising WGS for his man management skills.
Bringing in Barry Robson into the Celtic team seemed to show admission that he needed steel in a lightweight side (and what a change he made to the team), whilst Hartley was a revelation this season and deserved all the praise in the world. Boruc as ever was great, but a kick up the back side was needed as it took him a year to manage a game where he didn’t lose a goal away from home.
Allegations were thrown at the Celtic support that they were spoilt (see this story) and that the support didn’t like WGS as he wasn’t a ‘Celtic man‘. Complete balderdash and it was simply sloppy & cheapshot journalism. The fans pay up good money to watch Celtic, and many a time the performances were dreadful to watch with the manager unwilling to admit change was needed and seemed to anger many, especially when he criticised the fans for not understanding what he was trying to do. The zonal defensive play was not working, the formations weren’t working and certain players needed a kick up the backside.
The First Team lost v Inv Caley when they were two ahead, lost against Hibs, Motherwell and even struggled in games v Gretna. The First Team lost the first two games v Rangers, with poor tactics amongst other points to blame for it. Transfers weren’t working out, especially the enigma that was Donati. Taking in the club had spent more money than Rangers, it was embarrassing to go behind in the league and watching Rangers going to the end for a very undeserved potential quadruple (which thankfully they didn’t achieve).
Adding all this up, WGS has to take flak. However, as said, his emotions after Tommy Burns showed his real self to everyone and all felt for him. This season may probably have shown him to be more of a coach than a great manager, but unlike the other pundits on television at least he puts his money where his mouth is and takes up the challenge of football management. Moving on to next season he should have learnt from what had happened to become a more complete rounded manager.
Must be said, any manager who wins three league titles in a row must be doing something right, so maybe the critics amongst the fans are wrong. A late find in Barry Robson was a revelation, whilst bringing Lennon into the coaching staff seemed to freshen things up.
WGS can be quite an enigma but moving into the next season, more entertaining football really was a requirement.
Fourth Season (2008-2009)
So, was WGS to cement his name as a legend at Celtic by achieving the coveted “4-in-a-row” of league titles? But more importantly, it was questioned on how was his relationship with the fans going to develop this year? It was a (near) clean sheet for many on WGS after the emotional end to the last season.
Before the season had even begun, rumblings (as usual) had restarted about WGS and his transfers. Few buys to excite the fans made many apprehensive about the hope for greater entertainment, but in general the mood was that, despite all else, Celtic were going to win the league (confidence was high).
The season started off rather easily until the first game v Rangers where basically Celtic were turned over (at home) 4-2 and lucky not to have lost by more. The first team were hopeless, and the daggers were out for the manager. The pent up frustration from sections of the crowd was released in one big explosion, and the tone was decidedly frosty for the rest of the season with respect to the manager’s relationship with the fans. Not a good start.
Nevertheless following on from there was a cracking set of games which saw Celtic take advantage and overhaul Rangers to go top of the league. There was some great football in the first third of the season, and this was the best to watch Celtic for a few seasons at least.
Anyhow, the big headaches of the season began with injuries besetting the manager in his aim to overhaul Rangers. Credit to WGS as his policy of squad numbers above single big signings did pay off which enabled Celtic to be able to squad rotate players to cover for gaps in the side and keep their nose in front. Amazingly Celtic went 7pts ahead at the end of November, and December became the brightest time of the season and it was capped off with a Scott McDonald inspired 1-0 victory at Ibrox against Rangers. Great! Everyone thought Celtic were set up for the rest of the campaign. How the support were to be disappointed.
During all this was the Champions league escapade. A poor final set of results saw Celtic finish bottom of their group and again fail to win any of the away games (see link for full write-up). After 4 years, WGS still hadn’t managed an away win in Europe, something that can’t be put down to bad luck alone, and something that was noticeable to all. Celtic got the breaks last season in Europe, this time they didn’t.
Back to the league, when did it all begin to go wrong? Basically from the turn of the new year, yet WGS seemed to do little.
What was going on? To everyone’s surprise, WGS himself summarised the situation well in a post-match interview:
“You have to determine your own destiny. The eyes of the football world are upon us all. The question being asked is, ‘Are you a team that plays just when everything is right for you?’ That can’t happen. The best way for us to recover is to get back on form as quickly as possible.” (Mar 09)
However, he quickly turned back to old irritating ways by stating in an interview a few weeks later: “If anyone can find a negative – and I’m sure they will – then they are warped!” after a Dundee Utd game in April where Celtic drew 2-2. Clearly and sadly showed a dividing line between the management and the fans. An unnecessary dig and it was an unworkable relationship. This post-match comment was very insulting and patronising to the support (and uncalled for). Difficult to see how things were going to be mended easily for many. Why exactly did WGS have to patronise and insult the support? Only he could answer this question, but best left to the end of the season.
Add to that, complaints about the lack of entertaining football were being swatted away with abandonment: “In terms of entertainment, yes, we do have responsibilities at Celtic and Rangers, because we have greater resources than most clubs up here to entertain, But most of the songs that the supporters sing are all about winning trophies — they don’t sing nice wee ditties about the beautiful game. No one remembers the beautiful football, but they do remember the defeats.” This line again seemed to show his distance from the Celtic ideal.
One nice break was the league cup final, beating Rangers 2-0 after extra-time, with both goals scored by two Irish internationals (O’Dea & McGeady).
From then on in, little went right for Celtic again, and after dropping points, Celtic were up against Rangers to see who was to win the league. The final league game v Rangers was a failure, losing one-nil and from then on the writing was on the wall.
Celtic had lost the league to a poor Rangers side. The Celtic players did not perform, and the apathy around the club was heart-breaking. It was overall a poor season with under-performing players.
The football was generally poor to watch and it had been a continual complaint over the past few years. For many who were tired of the turgid football on display this was a bit much, and swathes of empty seats at Celtic matches became the norm rather than exception. With the global credit crunch beginning and hitting one and all, it was not a time to alienate the support. Yet WGS did, so why? Who knows? It doesn’t require much to get on the side of the fans.
There are many reasons for the loss, but the manager has to take the flak and he was not one to ever take criticism lightly, being self-admittedly easily irritated. In fairness there were mitigating points, e.g. the loss of Barry Robson to injury was probably more costly to the First Team than anyone realised, as he was a strong driving force to the title run-in last season.
WGS handed in his resignation with little surprise the day after the league defeat, and he left rightly with his head held high for his achievements over the past four seasons with uncharacteristically no smart remarks from him (thankfully). There was actually some sadness to see him go as there had been many good memories over his time. He had been the creator of his own downfall this last season, and in his own reflection on this last season will have to admit, to himself at least, where he went wrong.
Review
So after all that, how should anyone take and look back on WGS? His predecessor is still lauded to this day, and in reflection Martin O’Neill’s achievements were hanging over WGS during his whole tenure at the club. Regardless, he had to deal with them, and if truth be said, then WGS can argue that on paper at least he has been on par with what Martin O’Neill achieved, and some sympathisers would even argue that WGS exceeded Martin O’Neill. Not that WGS would but the argument of who was the better manager (WGS or MoN) was a never ending debate which is all academic now. Martin O’Neill was blessed to have had Henrik Larsson at hand so comparisons for WGS aren’t easy or likely entirely fair.
Putting aside his predecessor, WGS had a few tasks to fulfill. Firstly, was to regenerate the squad and lower the cost base after the more spendthrift MoN years, win the league back and get Celtic further in Europe. On that score, he more than achieved what was set out. Wage costs were reduced, Celtic won the league back and in time achieved getting past the group stages in the Champions League twice in a row. Brilliant stuff.
Winning the league three times in a row, as well as outliving two Rangers managers is surely a sign of success, especially after the hoo-haa over Paul Le Guen’s management signing. Add in some incredible achievements in Europe (e.g. in beating European Cup holders AC Milan, the Naka winner v Manchester Utd, qualifying twice out of the Champions League group stages etc), and he can easily hold his head up high. The support were spoilt with success at many points.
When Celtic won the league for the third time with him as manager, there is no denying that he had silenced all the doomsayers who were worrying that Celtic were out of the league title race. That last seven game winning run to win the league title against the odds will be spoken about for many a year. It was a phenomenal achievement to pick the players up and get them motivated. No matter what else can be said of his managerial ability, that was exceptional. The First Team came so close to reaching the quarter-finals of the European Cup in one season and what a mark that would have been. This was all done without the sublime talents of Larsson, Petrov and Sutton.
Europe had been a sore bugbear for predecessor Martin O’Neill, and Gordon Strachan achieved what Martin O’Neill failed to achieve by qualifying past the group stages (and did it twice). It put Celtic on the pedestal with the premier clubs in Europe, and it was a great place to be.
Gordon Strachan was the architect for the high points, and when they came off they were exceptional, and WGS deserves all the credit in the world. Post-match interviews could also be enlivened by some of his emotive witticisms, which on a number of occasions lightened the mood and made everyone smile.
The most exciting game? Well there were many. WGS himself said that the Spartak Moscow win in 2007 was the most exciting and many would agree but defeating Manchester Utd 1-0 to reach the KO stages of the Champions League was also very special.
He also helped to foster the careers of some of the younger players, such as Maloney, McManus, McGeady & Wilson, and in reflection they will be thankful for the role that WGS has played in their careers. Some will succeed (at Celtic or elsewhere) whilst others inevitably won’t but at least he gave them the opportunity. WGS likely was the best developer of youngsters we’d had for the past twenty years or so. Billy McNeil was the last to have done well with youngsters in the squad.
So why in reflection, is the mood relatively more lukewarm over WGS than an outsider would expect? Much of it has been reflected above in the season reviews. The fans can be said to have been very patient with him, but the truth is that the football in general was too often poor to watch and after four years of that, what are the fans to say? He failed with a number of big transfers, and many players seemed to have declined under him rather than improved.
Many fans take the belief that he couldn’t coach well; confusing squad rotations and team selections baffled players as much as fans, and the last season was woeful in so many ways, throwing away major leads. Tackling Rangers in his last two seasons shouldn’t have been as difficult as it was as Celtic were far better resourced, yet tripped up in both seasons and only got out of jail the first time.
He never helped himself with a number of his post-match remarks either, the “warped” comment in his last season in particular was particularly poor judgement. He readily admits that he is easily irritated, but he’d been in football for over twenty years and worked in the media for some time, so he should have been able to know how to deal with it. Yet he couldn’t or wouldn’t!
Many would agree that “ned-culture” had been on the rise, and WGS in particular had been very vocal on this issue, taking journalists to task on occasion as well. However, when you give a flippant remark to a question or a thinly veil snide remarks to others, then how really is anyone to see him in a different light to those he criticised? Bit extreme but the point stands and he could end up making things worse for himself. All are irked by neds but he made too much of a crusade of it at times, and at Celtic it was the wrong place for his campaign.
Celtic is a social community club, and thefore reflects a cross-section of society. So admittedly the support can have a small share of nefarious characters, but the support does push and emphasise the roots of the club in terms of charity and community, and this in turn is reflected by the good nature and reputation of the support. Winning is not the only aim, it’s also about the ineffable “to play the Celtic Way”. WGS did not seem to comprehend this, and dismissed any criticism of his tactics stating that others didn’t understand what he was trying to do. That was simply nonsense.
His “win at the cost of entertainment” style may find favour in the cut-throat English championship (second tier) but not at Celtic. That in itself had been what has been the crux of the friction between the support and WGS, and that was what created his downfall. He did things by the training manual but that is never sufficient, and he could be quite robotic with his decisions (such as always subbing on players in matches at an exact certain time) so leaving little room for flexibility or showing that he was able to be experimental in matches.
From the outside, everything appeared to be rosy as Celtic won trophies but it’s about more than that with the Celtic support. The supporters weren’t most often enjoying the play on the pitch, reflected in the falling attendances.
WGS is actually a very decent man. The players all spoke very highly of him, and there was little if any dissent at the time (McGeady and Riordan apart) even from those who left prematurely, although one or two (e.g. Sutton & Gravesen) have been quite critical of Strachan since leaving but much later on. All Celtic fans who have met him have generally commented well on him. Away from it all, a long one-on-one interview in December 2008 with Radio Scotland brought out his good side and there was a general amount of respect for him from this.
However, that’s not the full qualification to be a successful football manager, and WGS’ natural managerial ability was below that level which all wish he was at. Maybe if he had spent some time with some great managers learning their skill, he could have been a far better manager. He was a player with Manchester Utd and Aberdeen under Alex Ferguson but his coaching began at Leeds (under the dour Howard Wilkinson) and then Coventry, and sadly it’s those latter clubs that his coaching philosophy stems from. Ex-Celt Gravesen in an interview in 2018 commented on Strachan’s extreme fear of losing games, noting criticisms made to Gravesen on defending the lead when he had scored a hat-trick after the game in question.
An important point must be noted that WGS is the first Celtic manager to have to grapple with the new media. Martin O’Neill was manager when the internet got going, but it was in its infancy throughout most of MoN’s reign, and the scale and importance in which the internet had taken in WGS’ time had meant that he had another task to take on.
It’s not easy anymore. Replays and events are dissected more thoroughly and for longer than ever before. There are cameras to capture everything, statisticians to tally up the most mundane of figures and heated wipe-spread discussions begin on the matches before they’re even over (on the forums & social media) and not hours later in the pub as it all used to be. Sky Sports & its peers are everywhere, and unconscious comparisons with richer foreign leagues had been rising, which doesn’t help with the club’s limited resources. Sadly, that was the future, and WGS was the first Celtic manager to deal with it and few seemed to sit back and notice. Maybe if they did then he’d have been cut more slack.
His biggest mistake? Should have left at the end of 2007/08 season as many fans were calling for. He stayed 12 months longer than he should have, and that set in the rot which accelerated over time. At the end of it all, most fans wanted him gone, and it’s sad to see him have to leave in that kind of atmosphere. Much of it had been of his own creation, and his successor had the unenviable task to rebuild the squad in much the same way that WGS himself had to when he himself began.
For those who still believe that the Celtic support were irrational, they should take the following comment from Middlesborough legend & ex-player Bernie Slaven on Gordon Strachan’s brief reign at Middlesborough after leaving Celtic, as there are parallels from his comment to the Celtic supporters’ criticisms of Strachan’s time at Celtic:
“After a year in charge, we [Middlesborough] had not improved one iota – the football was average, away results were abysmal, the worst league position in 20 years and he still doesn’t know his best team. It wasn’t just on the field that Strachan let himself down, off the field during post-match interviews he became an embarrassment to himself, the club and the fans. He was arrogant, obnoxious, sarcastic, cutting and rude. He came across to me like a man who was on the borderline of insanity.”
We hoped WGS all the very best in the future, in whatever direction he was to take. Everyone knows from his honest comments that he grew to love the club, just at times his daft side too often got in the way. He is a good man, and for the great memories all will forever be thankful for them and there were a number of them along the way. In time, all at least missed his sense of humour from his interviews [see Quotes by and on Gordon Strachan].
He signed off from Celtic with a wonderful speech which contained the following great quote (from the Tommy Burn’s tribute match, full wording below):
| “I wasn’t going to pretend I came here as a Celtic supporter. I don’t believe in kissing badges to get your support. I didn’t know the words of ‘Fields of Athenry’…. [but] From today, I’ve become a Celtic supporter.” Gordon Strachan (May 2009) |
Post-Celtic & Scotland management
Since leaving Celtic, he had a relatively unsuccessful time as manager at Middlesborough. He took over a set of former Celtic (& Rangers) players to his new club making it dubbed by some as some kind of Glasgow old boys team. It didn’t work out at all, and his time as a club side manager was over.
He returned to football analysis on TV & Radio, and to the joy of every Celtic fan, he has been incredible towards Celtic. Never hides his sympathy, and talks up the club at every opportunity. Really puts to shame some former players who have taken pot-shots. Without the pressure of management, Strachan has shown his knowledge of the game on TV and applied it in an easy accessible manner for the viewer and is very popular. A very different character to the fish-bowl like environment that a Celtic manager has to endure in Glasgow.
The support was very much warming to him, and possibly it’s an indication that he may have regretted not having shown this more amiable side during his time at Celtic. Sometimes you don’t know what you have until it’s gone, and maybe only once he was at a distance that he was able to admire what Celtic had offered and given him. The affection that Strachan now has with the support was increasingly mutual as was shown on his frequent trips back to Celtic Park.
Must add that he had acted as a mentor in part for Neil Lennon. At one point there were stories of bringing Strachan back as a paid mentor for Neil Lennon but this didn’t materialise. However, he has still acted as such and Neil Lennon publicly paid his respect to Strachan once after advise given by him which helped Celtic win a vital game against Rangers (and helped keep Neil Lennon in his job).
Curiously, Strachan has claimed that there was no bias against Celtic in his time as manager of the club, but then again Rangers were so bad during much of the spell, bias wouldn’t have made a difference (as it was to do so during Lennon’s reign).
Scotland Managerial Tenure
Over his entire time as a manager, his name was continually brought up as a possible future Scotland manager, and with the lack of candidates putting themselves forward for the role, Strachan in January 2013 was announced the new manager. Interestingly, one of the first questions he was posed at his initial press conferences was: “Is this the biggest job in your career so far?”, to which Strachan retorted: “I was manager of Celtic, there’s no bigger job than that!”. Bless him, the support loved him more now than ever.
There was to be added spice for the Celtic fans. In 2013, Martin O’Neill was announced as the Republic of Ireland manager with ex-Celtic player Roy Keane as his assistant. If you ever read back to the old match threads, reports and reviews by Celtic fans from the 2000’s, a common argument was “MoN v WGS“, as who was the better manager: Martin O’Neill or Gordon Strachan?
The comparisons were difficult, and the arguments at times nauseating, but in 2014 both Martin O’Neill and Gordon Strachan were drawn to face each other in competitive matches for the Euro Championships. The first match was ironically played at Celtic Park as Hampden was being renovated, and Scotland triumphed 1-0, and the return leg ended 1-1 with ex-Celt Maloney (who had played under both at Celtic) the scorer for Scotland in both games. Nobody was going to truly believe this would settle any old arguments. Time has now passed by for the old debaters, and both managers should be respected for their time at Celtic.
Strachan’s second run at qualification had certain parallels to his time at Celtic, as in the roller-coaster aspect. A grim start to the qualification for the 2018 World Cup was compounded by his stubbornness where he opted to remain loyal to old stalwarts rather than new players or those regarded as currently on form in the Scottish league. Many also argued he had a bias against those based in the Scottish leagues in preference to the English leagues.
The qualifying campaign for Strachan to the 2018 World Cup was a roller coaster mirroring that of his time at Celtic. Having begun the campaign very poorly, his head was on the block, only to incredibly recover but then fell at the final hurdle. Part of the problem was his initial intransigence to play Celtic players who were then by far the best in the country, publicly rebuking calls for more Celtic players, most notably Griffiths.
A 3-0 loss to Lithuania at the start of the campaign featured no Celtic players, but the turnaround featured a number. His fall at the final hurdle was in part due to the loss of two key Celtic central midfielders (Brown & Armstrong) to injury. The biggest issue was to be his patter, and a post-match comment about Scot’s lacking height & genetics made him lampooned across the footballing circuits and infuriated everyone. He was still rubbing everyone up the wrong way.
On the other hand, Scotland were again a fighting side under his management. As at Celtic, last minute goals were notable event, e.g. crucial winner v Slovakia in Oct 2017, it was a great attribute. The amount of times his Celtic and Scotland teams have done it is remarkable. There comes a point where you can no longer say it’s luck or fortune, and he genuinely does instil a belief and winning mentality into his teams. Fair enough the football wasn’t always free-flowing and the mentality didn’t necessarily always turn into victories, but the winning belief was a great trait to have.
He resigned in Oct 2017 after failing to get Scotland through to at least the play-offs of the 2018 World Cup, and having not qualified to the 2016 Euros.
Few were bemoaning the decision, but he had made a rod for his own back. His positives and negatives again came very much to the forefront in this role as it did at his time at Celtic. Sadly he would leave with little to write home about with Scotland (despite some progress) whilst his Celtic tenure had many wonderful highs. If anything, it vindicated the often ambivalent opinion the Celtic fans had of Gordon Strachan over his time at the club.
Post-Football Management
In a curious twist of fate, his son Gavin Strachan was on the Celtic coaching staff in 2020/21 during the Covid-19 pandemic, and after a trip to Dubai due to an enforced Covid-19 isolation of 13 players, the manager and his assistant manager, Gavin Strachan was the de facto acting manager for a couple of games. This meant the first father & their son to have managed Celtic in competitive matches.
There were reports Gordon Strachan would join his son at Celtic, with Gordon Strachan given a role as director of football following Neil Lennon’s departure. This was though shot down by a number in the support, and the board likely backed away from it as at that point there was a lot of friction between the board & the support, with a number of cynics seeing it as further short-sightedness and cronyism. Gordon Strachan did eventually return to Celtic for a brief time consultancy role in 2021.
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We wished Gordon Strachan the best.
Honours as Celtic Manager
Scottish Premier League winner:
Scottish Cup winner:
Scottish League Cup winner:
SPFA Manager of the Year:
- 2005–06, 2006–07, 2008-09
SPL Manager of the Year:
Pictures
Quotes
Forums
Articles
- Autobiography Extracts (2006)
- WGS attacked by Celtic fan (1980), “Caught in time”
- WGS – Celtic Minded? by BobbyPeru
- Resignation & Departure (articles May 2009)
- Miscellaneous articles on Gordon Strachan