John Barnes has revealed that even the Celtic View was running an agenda against him from the moment that he was appointed manager in 1999.
The Liverpool legend has provided an incredible podcast for a Celtic State of Mind in which he goes into his eight months in charge as well as more topical issues.
Formed in 1965 around the time that Jock Stein became Celtic boss the View has provided unstinting backing to a variety of boards and managers down the years, in the mid-eighties it was known as Pravda for it’s blinkered support and dismissal of any opinion other than that favoured in the boardroom.
Barnes believes that the Celtic players and directors didn’t want him in charge of the club with Kenny Dalglish the sole reason behind his appointment.
Listen to “John Barnes with A Celtic State of Mind” on Spreaker.
After discussing the clash between Eric Black and Mark Viduka during the infamous Scottish Cup tie against Inverness Caley Thistle, after 75 minutes, Barnes turned his thoughts to the in-house publication.
75 minutes
So all of this is going on, and all through this, all through this, you are talking about the press. Every club has its own publication, there was The Celtic View and from day one the Celtic View were being critical of me and Kenny in terms of things we were doing and we had a meeting with Allan MacDonald about that and he said ‘We don’t want to be seen to be too biased’. And I said ‘No, no, no, that is the whole point, your publication should be biased towards you especially when things aren’t going well.
But the publication itself was criticising me and that forms a lot of peoples’ opinion. That’s where the arrogance came from. As much as it’s going to come from the press, you know, press men have their agenda, their own publication was selling this agenda about John Barnes being arrogant, aloof and egotistical which was crazy
As much as I had problems with the press, when you have problems with your own publication that makes it even more difficult.
Now into it’s 55th year The Celtic View is believed to be the world’s longest running club publication.
