Fergus flying the Atlantic 19 years ago today with the final piece of the jigsaw!

Discontent amongst Celtic fans was rife and it was getting worse in the early 90s when disgruntled fans were losing all faith in the Celtic Board. No investment, a very poor squad and a crumbling ground with debt getting out of control with the Celtic board at the time not wishing to pay it off. Fans were having meetings, the Shettleson Town Hall being an early venue with ‘Save our Celts’ rallying support. Unfortunately they disbanded, the work required to see this through was unknown, but it was going to have a big effect on peoples’ lives.

There are a thousand stories of grief, laughter, tears, immense commitment, disappointment, arguments, losing hope, constant re-building of motivation, but above all a belief/faith in this ‘Celts for Change’ campaign from people I hadn’t previously encountered before. To this day 19 years on I don’t know where that energy & drive came from. Well, I’m a believer, so maybe we were guided a bit from above?

 I’ll take a hop-skip and jump through events leading to today March 4^th 19 years ago. November 1993 I placed an ad in the paper. It said “If you care about your Club turn up at the City Halls in Glasgow” on a date about 3 days later.

About 30 people turned up. ‘Celts for Change’ was born. Another advert was placed for December 2^nd and the same 50 capacity hall was booked. In between Brendan Sweeney, Davie Cunningham & John Thompson made CFC the initial gang of 4. These were pre-internet days everything was done with leaflets and word of mouth. 500 people were queued up around Candleriggs and onto Argyle Street. My heart was in my mouth and I was cacking it big time.

The concierge quickly arranged a bigger hall for 450 with fans packed in. The energy in the room was dynamic. We had a huge banner which said ‘Back the team, sack the board’. Street campaigning, rallies, leafleting, demonstrations, meetings, more meetings, more of all the above went on spinning on a constant wheel of Celtic emotion.

Moving on-a meeting of around 1,000 fans was held in the Govan Town Hall at the end of 1993, it was partly televised, it was electric, debates from the table to the floor were constant. We were all trying to find a common ground and was heated. Colin Duncan attended all the meetings and sat at the front with his son. The 4 man CFC committee were at breaking point and all under pressure from our families reminding us that they existed also. I asked him aboard to help. Then there were 5.

The leaders of the Celtic Supporters Association of that time 93/94 were totally opposed to us, as were the Affiliation of Celtic Supporters. Both organisations backed the old board to the hilt, comfy seats and all and despite our meetings with their leadership as we went about explaining the critical state of the Club. It all fell on deaf ears. I’ve mentioned ‘leaders’ twice in the above regarding both organisations, because fans from within the above groups started to challenge their leadership to back us. Stand up the Kirkshaw Kangaroos CSC from Coatbridge, they ferociously challenged the Celtic Supporters Association to back us. Official backing never ever came but it did from individual supporters clubs within the CSA overall.     

We visited Dundalk in January 1994 in between constant meetings and rallies around Scotland. We needed their backing. The 5 of us were wilting a bit organising everything, we needed a jag of support. We put our points forward to the delegates from 52 member clubs of the Association of Irish Celtic Supporters groups who had travelled from all over Ireland to the town’s Imperial Hotel. All of us spoke, the bhoys had found their finest hour, and from nothing we were becoming public speakers, albeit the basic type. They were magnificent Davie, Brendan & Colin. John hadn’t made this trip. We got the backing of all 52 member clubs and we were filled with adrenaline to carry the fight on. The Irish Celts had given us the encouragement when we needed it most.

A particular demonstration was held outside the Bank of Scotland Head office on George Square (now the site of the Counting House pub) with about 350 waving banners outside saying ‘Bank of Scotland, stop backing a bankrupt board’. The police were all over the place. Davie & I went into the bank and brazenly asked for the manager. ‘He’s not in said the girl’. Hmmm we replied ‘We think he may be, if we can’t see him the 350 outside will come into the bank and open an account for a £1 then all come back in and close it down’. Banks don’t like chaos. She looked at Davie & I as if we were escapees from the local asylum. Minutes later we were sitting having tea and a custard cream with the second highest guy in the Bank of Scotland.

He listened intently to our case and we were at least pleased with that. Taking another hop, skip and jump we finally convinced the fans to bhoycott the Kilmarnock home game on Tuesday March 1^st 1994. To get to this stage took one helluva effort from the guys. We were all just surviving on adrenaline with our tanks about empty. Moments of laughter were few and far between but at least we were together and from that comes a strength. When their heads were down I tried to lift them. When mine’s was down they did the same.

This Bhoycott had to work. At this critical point we needed victory for all the effort the bhoys had put in. Everyone had a family hanging on in there with us along with thousands of Celts fans who had magnificently stuck with us.

Hugh Pym was the ITN correspondant who covered it (he’s now on the BBC news nightly and a top guy). We called him ‘Pym the Tim’ and he chuckled at it. He was young. One day he said to me “Matt, who handles all your PR? It’s absolutely brilliant”. We were all standing together and we just burst out laughing at the same time. “We do it ourselves big man, the 5 of us” A wee golden moment during a tense time.

Through bucket collections the fans had chipped in, we paid for banners, placards, posters, the hire of halls etc and we just about had enough left to hire a company called ‘Scotsearch’ a market research company. None of us at any point ever had a problem with the fans who went to the game that night. It was their Club and their choice. We pleaded and never demanded. We asked for one game of pain for a world of gain.

Scotsearch had 25 people covering the gates. 8,225 fans attended the game. 1,905 were in the away part of the ground. That meant 6,320 attended the game.

That season Celtic had around 7,000 season ticket holders. Therefore how many people had actually paid into that game?

The Bank of Scotland took notice and ordered the board in & told them £1m had to be paid into Celtic’s account by March 4^th by noon. Chris White, Michael Kelly & David Smith weren’t up for doing that and all three ran for the hills taking what they could from a dying Celtic. I don’t do hate, but for the critical precipice they took Celtic to for their own self-gain, they’ll remain unforgiven!  

Jimmy Farrell, Tom Grant, Kevin Kelly & Jack McGinn stayed in various small background roles for small periods, and although they had been part of the old set-up at least they never pillaged on the way out and kept their shares in the new set-up for a while at least. With another hop, skip & jump it then moved to Fergus who flew across the Atlantic overnight from Scotsdale, Arizona to Glasgow via London between March 3^rd & 4^th.

Make no mistake about it, the bank wanted £1m by noon today 19 years ago and a further £3.5m by the following Tuesday.

Fergus and David Low actually ran down St Vincent’s street from the Clydesdale Bank with money transfer paperwork (pre-internet days) to the Bank of Scotland in 110 St Vincent St at 11.52 with 8 minutes to spare.

We had previously booked the City Halls on Monday March 7^th for another rally but turned it into a victory rally instead. It held 2,500 but easily had 3,000 crammed in with several hundred outside. We had outstanding bills for hall hiring, £500 a pop, posters, banners etc and appealed for a bucket collection. We were about £750 short and Michael McDonald who along with Willie Haughey & Gerald Weisfeld were also interested in taking the Club over but had lost out to Fergus, heard about our shortfall. Michael stepped forward & wrote a cheque to the bank to save the CFC committee from owing the bank at the end of the campaign. That was class.   

There are thousands of trial & tribulations stories during the ‘Celts for Change’ campaign of 1993/94 and the above is at least a flavour of the journey.

‘The game is over the Rebels have won’, rang out from the steps of Celtic Park about 10.30 on that night of March 4^th 1994.

Davie Cunningham, Brendan Sweeney, Colin Duncan & John Thompson all played a magnificent role in ‘Celts for Change’ and without them it just wouldn’t have been possible. From the five of us two relationships hit the skids both heavily linked to the CFC campaign efforts. Three sons have also been brought into the world via those new relationships who wouldn’t have been here today.

Finally, Brendan Sweeney said to me at the end of the campaign “All we need from this campaign is our memories together, when we’re all sitting about when old men thinking about it all” Never a truer word! Hail Hail.  

* Via Twitter today there have been many nice messages posted to my page for all the ‘Celts for Change’ bhoys. They are all very much appreciated and will be passed on. Thank you.