Twenty years on from being forced out of Celtic Michael Kelly still hasn’t come to terms with the modern reality of the club.
In an interview with the Herald today the former director boasts of how he sold shares for £300 each to Fergus McCann as the club came close to going out of business.
While other members of the Kelly and White families have kept a low profile since taking the club to the brink Michael has popped up regularly to criticise the way that Celtic has developed into Scotland’s dominant force and regained some of it’s reputation in Europe.
“For all the fuss about a bungling board, it was not the old regime’s inability to run Celtic as a business that irked the fans,” he told The Herald. “It was the lack of performance on the field that caused the unrest.
“Celtic in the late 1980s had to contend with a Rangers team which, though cowboy-built on borrowed sand, proved too strong an outfit for Celtic on the field. The very fans who now laugh at the demise of our rivals were the same people who wanted Celtic to follow the same road.”
Extract from Kelly’s book Paradise Lost 1995, great forecast from the loser
Part of the reason for the ‘lack of performance’ was the appointments of Liam Brady and Lou Macari who were head hunted by Kelly and his cronies to bring the club success.
On the day he collected his cheque it was almost five years since Celtic had won a trophy, unless Kelly wishes to count the 1991 Tennents Sixes as an honour.
Kelly, a former Labour Party councillor, later described the crowds of supporters campaigning for his removal as mobs from peripheral housing schemes.
As well as being an overwhelming failure as a football club director and politician Kelly ‘enjoyed’ a short lived career as a television presenter with STV as well as failing with his own public relations company.
Continuing his lament against McCann’s takeover he added: “The discontent was exploited by a group who saw the chance to profit from the situation.
“Their plan was to drive down the value of the club by a campaign, which included a boycott, to create even more antipathy towards the directors. This scared the Bank of Scotland into stepping in, forcing the shareholders to sell despite the fact the club’s own plans for recapitalisation were only six weeks from fruition.”
If Kelly had been given a further six hours never mind six weeks Celtic would be in the history books alongside Third Lanark and Rangers (IL).
With farcical plans to relocate to Cambuslang and other pie-in-the sky schemes the fans had wakened up to realise that having the surname of White or Kelly didn’t mean that you were an able football club director.
Whatever the grievances that supporters may have with the corporate image of Celtic today they ought to be grateful that Dr Michael Kelly and his cronies were finally booted out of office in 1994 with his subsequent career illustrating that if it wasn’t for his surname he’s have been scraping a living in a dead end job renting a flat in one of the peripheral housing schemes that his class provided for the bulk of Glasgow’s citizens.
His time at Celtic was one of the darkest and despairing times the club has ever had. He and fellow directors just about sank us, thank god for Fergus !
Pathetic failure still seeking the limelight. Critics of the present board should remember the kind of duds like Kelly who used to be in charge of our great team!
Although Celtic were about to go into administration and his shares worthless, Michael fails to mention how many worthless shares he sold for three hundred pounds each.
Whether you like or dislike Fergus he did build a new stadium and stopped the ten.
HH
If memory serves me right I remember newspaper reports that Christopher White received £900,000 for his shares.
I think Michael Kelly is showing early signs of dementia.
We’re all aware that the Rangers of the day were creating a gap in Scottish football and that over time they were robbing Peter to pay Paul. What exactly did the Kelly’s and the other clans running the club at the time do about it?
They refused outside interference, lined their own pockets and alienated the supporters. Celtic were so bad they weren’t even 2nd best team in the league.
Of course Celtic fans wanted the club to challenge the old Rangers. In order to do that though the old board had to go because they didn’t have a clue.
Kelly is s deluded human being for not being able to see that after all these years he as welll as others were the sole reason Celtic could not progress. He’s a bitter old man.
So he is still boasting about the amount of money he screwed out of Fergus. He brought the club to its knees and if he had any morality or integrity he would have walked away for nothing.
His comments on business acumen are laughable. When the club produced the original Celtic Story on DVD they did not produce a copy for the American market . Brian Dempsey pointed this out to them and they asked if he would finance it out of his own pocket. Season ticket holders were limited to 7500 as they were considered an unnecessary nuisance.
Sorry Michael it was not just the performance on the pitch that led to your demise it was also the appalling lack of business skill. In case you are not aware Michael the two go hand in glove. Never mind though, you lined your own pockets !!
This guy is obviously still taking tablets..Headbanger.
Glasgows miles better without them. 🙂
Kelly is welcomed to his £300 a share but nothing will change the fact that that elitist snob along with the White’s will go down in the annuls of history as the worst scabs or club has had to pick off.
He must be so green with envy at the current discussions about wether to erect a statue or name a stand after the ‘Bunnet’.
Hail hail
a close friend of a “sir” DM by any chance ???
PS note the facial similarity to chuckles green !!!
I think st first Many fans wanted the mankies back .but as time passes and they continue to CHEAT im sure Many more want them away for good. CHEATING MANKIES
Was raging when I read the Herald late morning. Had to go out and have to say Joe, that you beat me to the punch, was intending to post more or less something in a similar vein.
Don’t get me wrong, During the tenure of the “Bunnet”, I had issues, did not agree with some of the the things he done or said.
But I was entitled to my opinions and thoughts. Reason being I was a paying customer, loved Celtic because they were Celtic.
What were the Kelly’s and the Whites? They were parasites who gloried in their association with our club, looked for plaudits but rejected criticism. Did any of them or theirs ever pay, like us, hard earned cash that some of us could not afford? Did any of them or theirs pay for overpriced bovril and pies? Answer to both questions, NO.
They were on a free ride and almost destroyed the club we love.
The man was a failure in every venture he was involved in.
If he had any conscience, the money he made from his shareholding should be given to charity Time for him to put up or shut up.
HH
joratim,
Well said.
The only one I would excuse from criticism, is Sir Robert Kelly.Stateman like
in his defence of us flying the tricolour.
Yes,they falsified crowd figures,so they
could skim off even more money.
I have a true story.My late father,helped
contribute,financially,to the cost of our
first foray’s into Europe.
As he was a businessman,and big Celtic
fan,along with others,met the costs of
chartered flights.
However,he soon realised,his blind loyalty,
was being taken advantage of.
This sums these families up.
This man knows no shame,if he had any decency he would shut up and go away but no he has to come out with absolute crap every now and again,a total embarrassment.
Some people lack self awareness. Michael Kelly is one such person, sometimes you have to accept that history has proved you wrong.
For all the current board takes criticism, the disorganised outdated mess that went before
makes you realise how lucky we were/are.
The old board wanted major investment
without giving up / sharing any control. Even the quality of people they brought in weren’t exactly top drawer.Remember Terry Cassidy, bloody hell it’s all coming back to me!
Lol mickelmac, I think they’d have been better signing Hoppalong Cassidy.
hail hail
Mark Biggins.. beltar
Great piece guys…im in Spain today and was absolutely irate and pissed off when I read his rant. Your response was brilliant. He is a failure and his family raped our club for years! Sad old bastard…and he dined for years on “Glasgows miles better” when all he did was pay someone to come up with this. He’s a sad old twat I work in business restructuring and well done Fergus. ..took the risk. Kelly doesn’t get this.
His description of supporters “as mobs from peripheral housing schemes” is typical of this hypocrite and gives away his true leanings politically. He was a total failure and his shameful comment about exploitation by the group taking over was disgusting. Mr McCann told us exactly what was going to happen and kept his promises. ‘The Bunnet’ was honest and transparent with all of us and left the club in a very healthy state. He has dignity and also has the respect of the Celtic support. Michael Kelly has neither. Perhaps that is what irks this man.
Well said Joe
Mr Kelly never fails to amaze with his arrogance, blindness and self-centredness.
His comments about Celtic (and his recent comments on behalf of “Better Together”) betray him as a neanderthal snob who despises the very people he claimed to represent both at Celtic and within the Labour Party.
Why the media ask his opinion about anything beats me.
Michael Kelly was, is and always will be a p**k!!!!!
Agree with almost everything, except he was a decent Lord Provost, the Glasgow’s Miles Better thing was a success, not all his own work, but his contribution was important.
But his analysis of the situation in 1994 is just ridiculous, on the park was the only problem? Yeah the fact that the stadium was crumbling beneath our feet was irrelevant and the situation of his family lining their pockets with money that should have been going to the benefit of the club was also simply by the by.
A horrible parasite of a man.
Yes the old board had great business acumen.
There foresight was tremendous.
I remember one outstanding decision which was the final straw for me.
It came after the double winning centenary year. I had a season ticket for the Jungle and, during that summer, I received a letter stating that the club were discontinuing ground season tickets.
This meant that essentially the entire club was being funded by stand season tickets. This a year after they had signed someone for £1M.
They had refused to sell season tickets which, after the season we just had, would have sold in large numbers. Instead of securing cash early on they banked on everyone showing up week after week which was not going to happen. They dug their own financial grave and tried to drag the club in with them.
They were abject failures then and history will not be any kinder to them.
They financially hamstrung the club at the very time when there was huge interest. It was this decision that finished me with them until Fergus stepped in.