His Name is McNamara

Jackie McNamara

Description

His Name is McNamara is the riveting story of the life and career of football manager and former player Jackie McNamara. Jackie played for a series of clubs but is best known for the trophy-laden decade he spent at Celtic, culminating in a spell as club captain and a Scottish international career. His departure from Celtic in 2005 was controversial and abrupt, taking the football world by surprise when he signed for Wolves despite a last-minute attempt by the club to keep him in Glasgow. After spells at Aberdeen, Falkirk and Partick Thistle, he finished playing and moved into management with Thistle, Dundee United and York City. Jackie pulls no punches as he gives us the inside track on a career at the highest level of the game and the battling qualities he needed to succeed. It was those qualities that he drew on when his life was threatened by a brain aneurism in early 2020. His Name is McNamara is a story of success and survival.

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 06 septembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781801500265
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2021
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
2021, Jackie McNamara
Ghost written by Gerry McDade
Every effort has been made to trace the copyright.
Any oversight will be rectified in future editions at the earliest opportunity by the publisher.
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A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 9781785318580
eBook ISBN 9781801500265
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eBook Conversion by www.eBookPartnership.com
Contents
Foreword by Henrik Larsson
Prologue
1. The Pressure Pot
2. Beginnings
3. Playing to Par
4. Progress
5. Welcome to Paradise
6. Stopping the Ten (Part One)
7. Stopping the Ten (Part Two)
8. The Doctor
9. A Matter of Trust
10. Extraordinary
11. Born of Frustration
12. Reality
13. The Change
14. Wee Jackie
15. New Era
16. Jagged
17. My Time on Tayside
18. A City Interlude
19. Aftermath
20. Reflections
21. Looking Ahead
Acknowledgements
Photos
His Name Is McNamara, He s The Celtic Bhoys right-Back
His Forte It Is Turning, Defence Into Attack
He s Here, He s There, He s Everywhere, The Best You ve Ever Seen
Young Jackie McNamara In The Hoops Of White And Green
He Joined Us From Dunfermline, Where He Shone Bright For The Pars
His First Game Versus Rangers, He Outshone Their Megastars
He Ran Them Ragged Everywhere And Drove Their Fans Insane
You Can Bet Your Bottom Dollar; We Have Found The New McGrain
- Chorus -
Jack s Old Man Played For Celtic, When They Did Nine-In-A-Row
Then Off There To Auld Reekie, To The Hibees He Did Go
Of His Son Jackie Junior, He s Rightly Mighty Proud
His Chest Swells Out Like Blazes, When We Chant His Name Out Loud
- Chorus -
Now Jackie Bhoy Don t Worry, Your Future s Mighty Bright
For 15 Years, Like Karl Marx, You ll Be Charging Down The Right
We ll Chant Your Name, And Spread Your Fame, Throughout
The Football World
You ll Enjoy A Reputation, When The Celtic Flag s Unfurled
- Chorus -
(Lyrics reproduced by kind permission of Charlie Devlin and Joe O Sullivan)
Dedicated to Mum, Linda McNamara (1954-2003)
And to Samantha, Erin, Sidney and Evie
Foreword by Henrik Larsson
IT WAS so important to me, when I joined Celtic in 1997, that I and all the other new arrivals were welcomed into the club by the players who were already there. Jackie McNamara was one of that group who helped me with the transition.
He was clearly a talented player who could operate as a modern wing-back, but he always had that sense of mischief about him as well - especially when he teamed up with his buddies, Simon Sid Donnelly and Phil O Donnell. They could be torture together and no mistake; always joking around and up to something but, with hearts of gold.
Jackie was one of those guys who was always on cue with a killer line. I hear he has a reputation for being a quiet man in the dressing room, but nothing could be further from the truth. He was someone who was involved in all the conversations but just had that knack of coming up with the right comment at the right time.
We played together in a great era for Celtic and their supporters - stopping the ten and winning the Treble, then reaching a major European final - and a big part of that success was the camaraderie that we all shared with each other, not just out on the park. We forged a bond built up over time by playing snooker, table tennis and golf and I know that, somewhere in this book, Jackie will tell you that he is a better golfer than I am and that he beats me - do not believe it!
But he was a fantastic footballer with all the attributes required for the game. He was tenacious in his approach to training, which gave him a superb engine and he was as hard as nails. Equally, Jackie relished a tackle but loved to get forward, supplement the attack and score a few goals as well.
I will always remember him scoring the vital first goal for us on that day in 2001 when we beat Hibernian at Hampden Park to clinch Celtic s first Treble in over 30 years. I was so happy for him as he had been flung on early from the substitutes bench, adapted to the game quickly, delivered as he always did and set us on our way.
He endured a period when he was not a first pick for a while, but you never saw his head go down. He worked hard on his game, was 100 per cent loyal to his team and never gave up on his ability. The end result was that he got his place back and, of course, went on to captain Celtic to great success.
That was another of his qualities. He could lead players, they listened to him and it was no surprise to me that he went on to become a manager. Jackie has that natural intelligence about him and a good football brain. He planned the move for a while, having watched, observed and learned from some of the coaches he had worked with and respected.
It was, of course, a great shock to me to find out that my friend was extremely ill in 2020. The suddenness of the illness was scary enough in itself but he is a such a young guy. It speaks volumes for him that, with his characteristic single mind, he pulled through and is now, I sincerely hope, on the road back to full health. Naturally, I know that he did so with the support of his loving wife Sam, his family and his friends of whom there are many, but his recovery was typical of Jackie. His motto could be Never Give Up for that is how he has played his football and lived his life.
I am proud to say that Jackie is one of my friends, one of those guys with whom I have enjoyed a friendship built upon the times we spent together over the years. It has been difficult, as it has been for everybody this past year, to meet up and share those happy occasions but, I am hoping to do so within the near future. Eternally competitive, he will want to beat me at golf - but that s not happening!
The Jackie McNamara I know is one who was a great footballer and is a great friend, but more importantly is an even greater human being.
Henrik Larsson
May 2021
Prologue
ME?
I m a fighter.
Always have been.
Maybe it s something to do with being a middle child, coming along as I did a year after my brother Steven and four before Donny to my parents, Jackie and Linda.
In a house with three boys, I was always going to have to punch above my weight just to be heard.
My career was the same. Always fighting to prove my worth, my value to a team whether it was school or district right up to senior professional level.
In ten years at Celtic, I had six managers and to every single one of them I had to fight to be a part of their plans.
Football is like life - you have to scrap for everything - but it s not more important than life.
Nothing is.
* * *
Saturday, 8 February 2020 was just like any other Saturday in my world.
For the past two years, my wife Samantha and I have lived in Malton. It s a beautiful, quiet market town in North Yorkshire, close to the breathtaking scenery of the scattered, lonely Moors and not too far from the great city of York itself.
We moved there in 2018 with our children, Erin, Sidney and Evie, just after I left my job as chief executive of York City Football Club where I had also been, in the first instance, manager from November 2015 to October 2016.
That first week in February, I had travelled through to Edinburgh on business with my company Consilium Sports Group, caught up with a friend or two and then grabbed the train back to Yorkshire on the Friday night.
Erin is actually living in Edinburgh with my mother-in-law as she is studying for a journalism degree while Sidney goes to school there as he is also an aspirant footballer with the Hibernian FC Academy.
Therefore, it was just ourselves and Evie back in Malton for the weekend. She attends St Peter s School in York on a Saturday, so Sam dropped her off there in the morning.
It was a cold weekend but perfect for dog-walking so, just ahead of lunchtime, Sam and I took James and Gerry, two of our three dogs, for a walk. The surrounding countryside is gorgeous and we took our usual route through the fields and then down into town before picking up coffee to drink on the way home.
Nothing strenuous, just a normal walk on a lovely winter s day.
Getting back to the house, Sam started working in the garden and she hollered out to me to come down and cut away a troublesome branch that jutted out of a large tree. I duly grabbed a saw and started hacking away at the wood when something happened. Something not right.
1
The Pressure Pot
I WILL never forget the sunshine.
The warmth that bathed you in heat, the feel of the sun on your face and yet, that freshness in the air as well that reminded you that it was still only late spring rather than a full-blown summer.
To me, there were two Celtic Parks.
European nights. Always a midweek fixture, invariably through autumn, winter and possibly, spring.
Floodlights fully on, trained down on the pitch but also a beacon in the night sky that could be seen for miles across Glasgow to let everybody know that Celtic were in continental competition at home.
The night-time match brought its own excitement. It was like a transformation at the ground with CELTIC FOOTBALL CLUB lit up in huge green lettering across the top fa ade of the North Stand. Unmistakable, unavoidable - this was the home of the Celts. Coming out of the tunnel, into an a