An image of a Celtic Bookcase has attracted plenty of attention on Twitter.
It is doubtful if there is another club in the world that has had as many books written about their exploits with every aspect of the club recorded in book form.
The unique nature of Celtic’s founding has been well covered in recent years, through shared knowledge and access the internet has opened up numerous opportunities over the last decade.
Until the late sixties a Celtic book was fairly unusual, Playing for Celtic was published on an annual basis but only the very occasional history or a book by Willie Maley would surface until a build up from the Lisbon Lions era.
By the seventies player autobiographies were coming out, in the mid to late eighties a number of histories and reviews appeared. After 400 appearances for Partick Thistle. 200 at Hibs Alan Rough’s autobiography had his in his Celtic kit after five appearances during a six month swansong with the hoops.
The good and not so good times have been well chronicled, Pat Woods has produced great autobiographies of players from the past with maybe as many as 20 books a year now appearing.
Over the last years books on Willie Fernie, John Doyle and Harry Hood have appeared. With endless possibilities two bookcases just won’t enough.
They’re all there….? pic.twitter.com/GV1GkrhT6T
— Manus G (@ManusGOK) March 15, 2023
Cheers Matt. Yours is in the Sack The Board section ?
— Manus G (@ManusGOK) March 16, 2023
Cheers I’ve just rearranged & tidied them up so I can now find a specific book quicker
— Manus G (@ManusGOK) March 16, 2023
Thanks Matt. It took a while. Your crackers are there
— Manus G (@ManusGOK) March 16, 2023
All yours are (t)here Liam. Difficult angle of photo to display all of them
— Manus G (@ManusGOK) March 15, 2023
Cheers Bob. A true labour of love . you got Talking with Celtic? It’s a cracker. Unusual but brilliant idea for a book
— Manus G (@ManusGOK) March 15, 2023
I see a few of my Uncle’s there, nice to see. Tom Campbell ?
— Collyhurstlad (@collyhurstlad) March 16, 2023
Celtic books were popular well before the 70s. Quite a few of the Lions had autobiographies published in the late 60s, Jinky, TG etc. Before that, was the Charlie Tully book ‘Passed To You’. Two histories of the club were published in the 60s. One by James E Handley/Brother Clare, and one by Robert Kelly. Perhaps a defining moment in the history of Celtic books, was the publication in 1987, of THE definitive history of the club: The Glory And The Dream by Tom Campbell and Pat Woods. The authors claimed that the date of Celtic’s foundation should be the 6th of November 1887, rather than 1888 when the first game was played.
Since then, quite a few books on Celtic have been published annually, notably in 1997 and 2017. These dates were, of course, significant anniversaries for all Tims.
Hail Hail.
Mr White the Deputy head to Rector Mr Scally, were a black cloaked English teacher at OLHS in Motherwell 66-71. He stressed that reading books brought knowledge and wisdom only came after knowledge.
My home is full of books the majority I have read, collected from used book shops, they will be used to cremate me out here in Thailand.