After Bolton’s recent Friday night draw away to Blackburn Neil Lennon returned to Scotland for the weekend.
Keeping upto date with local matters he listened in to the radio reports as Celtic beat St Johnstone 3-1, Aberdeen won 2-0 at Partick Thistle and Hearts lost 3-2 at Hamilton.
What happened next had a familiar ring to it although it was delivered in a different accent- Hearts boss Robbie Neilson demolished the credibility of Willie Collum dropping the heaviest of hints about the competence of Scotland’s leading referee.
“I was actually listening to Robbie on the radio, it reminded me a lot of myself,” Lennon said yesterday after taking part in the Jock Stein match at Dunfermline.
“I don’t know if he is going to get into trouble for it (No, I interrupted). Well I think that he chose his words pretty carefully about the referee’s performance.
“Sometimes in the aftermath of a game you can feel that way but he did pick his words very carefully.”
With no charge coming Neilson’s way Callum Paterson’s red card was downgraded to yellow putting Collum’s decision making further in question.
“It happens, that vindicates what Robbie was saying,” Lennon added. “He said that he watched it from different angles after the game. Even at the time he said that he didn’t feel it was a sending off. It’s a little bit of justice for him but it won’t change the result.”
Lennon’s next book, looking at his four years in charge of Celtic will make for compulsive reading.
On and off the park life was rarely routine or predictable. Three title wins and two Scottish Cup successes barely scratch the surface of what happened as he brought the thunder back to Celtic Park among the silverware.
Dougie-Dougie gate will certainly merit a chapter on it’s own as Dougie McDonald back-tracked on a penalty decision, decided to blame assistant Steven Craven and consolidated his lies with the match supervisor and former SFA refereeing chief Hugh Dallas.
Looking back Lennon said: “The general feeling was that it was my fault, it was some sort of conspiracy that I had started but it was nothing to do with me.
“I was called into the room, it was explained what happened then a couple of days later Steven came out and contradicted that and the whole thing blew up. It’s water under the bridge now but it might be good for my next book!
“I wouldn’t want anything to deflect away from the good times that I had at Celtic. We did have a few bumps along the way with the SFA and officials but that’s all part of it, it was fun, I enjoyed some of it.
“I had the fire in my belly at the time and I wanted to take people on. I felt at times that there was an injustice against my club, every manager is the same, it’s just on a larger scale when it comes to Celtic.
It’s 15 months since Lennon resigned as Celtic manager, quitting after the season had finished, a season that culminated in his third successive title.
With two failures since then to reach the group stages of the Champions League his achievements take on greater significance having acquired a team to reach the lucrative competition and turned around a very healthy profit on the players he brought in.
Managing Celtic into the Champions League seems a lifetime away from the demands of Bolton with the Irishman content that he made the right decision to quit.
“I did (step away at the right time) for me, from a personal point of view, I was a little bit tired and needed a break from football,” he added. “I can look back at it with immense pride. I had 14 years, I still have an affiliation with the club and I probably always will. That makes me very proud.”
Sunday’s match was a fund raiser for the PARS Foundation and also the Celtic Foundation.
