Steve Clarke has revealed that in the summer of 2014 he was interviewed by Dermot Desmond for the Celtic job.
After winning three consecutive titles Neil Lennon resigned as manager with Roy Keane appearing to be the strong favourite to take over.
Desmond doesn’t tend to get involved until the latter stages of any decision making but met up with Clarke in London to discuss the Celtic job.
West Brom put the future Scotland manager on gardening leave in December 2013 following 18 months in charge with two options coming up in the summer of 2014.
Looking back at the period Clarke told The Sun:
At the start of that summer, I was quite confident I’d come out the other side in a job of some kind.
I met Dermot Desmond at his place in London and we had a good chat. I was interviewed by Brighton at around the same time. I had two really good interviews at two really good clubs and ended up runner-up in both.
Celtic appointed Ronny Deila and Sami Hyypia got the Brighton job. So, it was a little lesson for me not to be too confident about getting a job in future.
It’s nice to be wanted, it’s nice to be invited for interviews but it’s not always certain a job is going to result. A few months later I went to Reading. The job didn’t turn out the way I thought it would, but I made the most of it then moved on.
Deila lasted two seasons managing Celtic while Clarke took up the manager’s job at Reading in December 2014 where he stayed in charge for 12 months.
Like Keane, Clarke has regularly been linked with Celtic but this summer his focus will be on Scotland as they end a 23 year wait by taking part in the European Championships.
