Lenny in the Times

By Oliver Kay


Looking back, Neil Lennon admits to having wondered “where it was all going to end”. He shakes his head as he recalls the death threats, the bullets in the post, being assaulted in the street (twice), the need for round-the-clock protection, the court case, the loss of a close friend and the concern that, as the Old Firm rivalry grew more and more toxic, he might have to turn his back on the job he cherished.

Back then, it seemed unimaginable that there could be a sense of calm in the goldfish bowl that Lennon inhabits as the manager of Celtic. Where was it all going to end? Not, he suspected, with a situation where Rangers disappeared from Celtic’s horizon, which this week is dominated instead by Barcelona.

Tomorrow’s Champions League encounter with Barcelona at the Nou Camp is a challenge that excites the 41-year-old more than any he has faced in his young managerial career. He talks with enthusiasm, rather than apprehension, about the way Xavi Hernández, Andrés Iniesta, Lionel Messi and their team-mates “mesmerise you with their possession and their movement” and says it will take a perfect combination of bravery, concentration and athleticism to stop them. “But you know what?” he says. “I don’t normally look forward to games. This one I’ve really been looking forward to.”

There have been times in Lennon’s life when he has barely been able to contemplate the next match, let alone look forward to it. There were the well-documented bouts of depression during his playing career. And there was that period, from the discovery of explosive devices in parcels addressed to him at Celtic’s training ground early last year to the court case that concluded last March, when it seemed as though Scottish football was going into meltdown, with him at its core.

“It was very distressing, very traumatic,” Lennon says. “I was very well briefed and very well looked after by the police. There was a spell when we were having 24-hour protection. I was spending more time with the police than with my players. I found it bewildering. I had been assaulted in the street before and now all of this. I’m just a football manager. I didn’t ask for any of that.”
There were those who argued the opposite, accusing him of whipping up the Old Firm hatred and bringing the aggravation upon himself as a Northern Irish Catholic who lived up to the modern Celtic ideal of their manager as a feisty figurehead. “That seems to be the party line for a lot of people who wanted to excuse what went on,” he says. “There were times when I crossed the line. I did make some mistakes, but it was no different to a lot of other managers on the touchline . You can’t excuse what went on. I think people recognise that now. People realised it had gone too far.

“From a human point of view, the most difficult time was when the case was in court. There had been myself and two other people who had been pinpointed. One of them was Trish Godman [the Celtic-supporting former MSP] and the other was a high-profile barrister, Paul McBride, who was a good friend of mine. Paul had been very, very upset by what happened. Then he went on a business trip to Pakistan and, sadly, while he was there he got ill and he passed away. That was devastating. He was a brilliant, intelligent, ebullient guy. I never got to say goodbye to him.

“I ended up going to Paul’s funeral and then going straight from there into court to give evidence. A few days later we had the Scottish League Cup final against Kilmarnock, which we lost. And then to cap it all, Liam Kelly, one of the Kilmarnock players, his father died in the crowd straight after the final whistle, which was so sad. Everything that was happening was extremely traumatic. It was just one of those periods in your life where you wondered where it was all going to end.

“There were times when I thought about leaving the job. It was difficult enough without all of this. But I’ve worked really hard all my life. A job like this is a privilege. I didn’t want to give it up for non-football reasons. I had already lost my international career for non-football reasons. I found that once I came to the training ground and we closed the gates, I could focus on and enjoy the job. It’s a great job.”

That job feels different this season - more relaxed, in some ways for better, in some ways for worse. The dynamics of Scottish football - and in particular Glasgow football - have changed dramatically with Rangers’ liquidation and relegation to the Irn-Bru third division. As someone whose life was made almost intolerable by the worst excesses of the Old Firm rivalry, Lennon has more reason than most to welcome Rangers’ exile, but he does not see it that way. “Don’t get me wrong, it makes my life easier,” he says. “There’s definitely an edge that’s not there in the same way now. That edge can be venomous and the games can be fraught. With Rangers not around, the stress levels have diminished a little bit. But for the whole of Scottish football - for the glamour, the energy, the exposure - it would be better if it hadn’t happened.

“I’ve watched a few of Rangers’ games and it has reminded me of when I left Celtic and went to Nottingham Forest. At that time I found it difficult to adjust to a different environment and to playing at a lower level . I think in time Rangers will get to a level of consistency, but I can understand why they’ve found it harder than people might have expected.
“For us, it has felt a bit surreal. I think it took a bit of time at the start of the season for us to adjust to the fact that Rangers aren’t here. We’ve lost a lot of money from Rangers not being here, which made it even more imperative that we got into the Champions League. That has been a great distraction and something we’ve really enjoyed.”

The European campaign has been a slow-burner, but, having got through the qualifying rounds by beating both HJK Helsinki and Helsingborg, they started the group stage with a 0-0 draw at home to Benfica and then a thrilling 3-2 victory away to Spartak Moscow, which has been hailed as one of the most astute performances by a British team in the Champions League in recent years. Suddenly, perhaps for the first time in his managerial career, people are focusing on the sharp mind behind Lennon’s pugnacious exterior.

“The performance in Moscow was probably even beyond my expectations,” he says. “We’ve got a lot of young players and they played very well that night. Tactically, and in terms of the bravery and spirit they showed, they were excellent and that has given us a platform to go to Barcelona. I don’t think we’ve got the mentality or the players just to sit in and defend, like Chelsea did against Barcelona. We have to try to create chances, like we did in Moscow. It won’t be easy - it’s the ultimate challenge for the players and for me, too - but we’re going to enjoy it.”
So, what kind of manager is Lennon? “Good question,” he says. “I like my team to play football, but we can’t all aspire to be Barcelona. You can have a template, but you have to be pragmatic, too. I would describe myself as very pro-player. I’m not long out of the game; I understand how players are feeling and when confidence is low. I feel like I can help use my own experiences to help them.”
With Lennon, that goes far beyond the culture of “show us your medals” (and there are a lot of them). Perhaps the most valuable lessons he has passed on at Celtic concerned sharing his experience with depression. “I first suffered it when I was 29,” he says. “I had everything I could ever want. I had just won the League Cup with Leicester City, money wasn’t an issue, I was very happy and all of a sudden one day I hit this brick wall.
“It took me a long time to work out what it was. I got help. It’s not a good place to be. I would get it sporadically over a two, three, four-week period. I feel like I am in control of it now. I’ve not had a bout for a few years. But it’s an illness, not a state of mind. The more that people are willing to talk about it, the more it will help people. A couple of our young players have suffered with it and I’ve been able to talk to them about it. I actually think it has helped me rather than hindered me a manager.”

Certainly, management - and specifically managing such a giant club as Celtic, where the job is all-consuming - has occupied his mind. “It’s very fulfilling and it’s a constant challenge of your thought processes,” he says. “Sometimes when players hang up their boots, they worry that there’s a void in their life. For me, there could no better way of filling that void than managing Celtic.”

As for that other void, he expects Rangers to come back sooner rather than later. In a strange kind of way, he misses them. But not this week. Not when he has Barcelona on his mind.
Lennon backs Hooper’s England credentials
It was an endorsement of Neil Lennon’s judgment and of Celtic’s recruitment strategy, as well as the player concerned, when Fraser Forster was included in the England squad for the first time last week. Lennon expects Gary Hooper to follow Forster in forcing his way into Roy Hodgson’s plans and has backed him to underline his credentials against Barcelona tomorrow evening.
“Fraser deserved his selection, because he’s been an outstanding goalkeeper for us, and that has given Gary a real motivation to believe that he can be called up by England, too,” Lennon, the Celtic manager, said.

“I think Gary is good enough, certainly. He’s a brilliant goalscorer, a consistent goalscorer.

 

“He won’t be fazed by playing against Barcelona. He has done it at all levels and in all types of game — big games against Rangers, Europa League, Champions League, you name it. He has a great intelligence and appreciation as a footballer. People ask if he would still be scoring goals if he was playing in England. I’ve no doubt he would, just as I had no doubt he would score goals here when he came from Scunthorpe. He’s a quality player, like [Nikica] Jelavic, who went from Rangers to Everton.”

Hooper, 24, has been linked with a move to Liverpool in the January transfer window, but Lennon has no intention of selling. “There were bids from Southampton last January, but we’re looking to keep players like Gary,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of excellent young players, so there’s a lot of speculation surrounding them, but we want to build this team.

 

I know. I nearly didn't post it because of that.