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I never saw Tommy Gemmell play for Celtic. By virtue of the fact that I was born after he had finished his playing career I never had the pleasure enjoyed by my father\u2019s generation. However, the Celtic I have seen in approximately 30 years of going to games is largely down to Tommy Gemmell.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n One of the great thrills of being a Celtic supporter is that, more often or not, you will see a team going out to attack and entertain. This was the undisputable mantra of Jock Stein \u2013 he demanded it from his players, rightly so, and although we have yet to attain that quality since, it is the eternal benchmark of the club. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \n \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The European Cup final of 1967 is noted not just as the finest victory of a Scottish club anywhere at any time but the first major victory against the highly-effective and tactically impressive Catenaccio system of Helenio Herrera. Let\u2019s not mess about here, Celtic pumped that mob that day yet, for most of the game, Celtic were behind. Tommy Gemmell\u2019s goal was a true delight \u2013 20 yards out, right foot, high into the corner, leaving the keeper without a prayer. You don\u2019t need me to tell you to watch it again as I\u2019m sure you will but look who provides the assist, from inside the box. It\u2019s Jim Craig, the right back. Against a team set up for incisive counter attacking, and the Celtic players knew it, the right back supplied the left back with the opportunity to draw Celtic level. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \n As Tommy said himself, if Inter had sprung a counter attack then he was getting it \u2013 as Jim Craig was already up the park. So, what exactly am I trying to say here? Well it\u2019s a matter of belief. Not only did that team have ability, each and every single player had the unshakeable belief that they could win that match. The belief to go forward against that team, the belief to strike from that distance and the belief to go on and win it. That belief in many respects has been the catalysts for many of the great achievements our club has made in the 50 years since.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s also a more fundamental point here about the expectation and the footballing culture at Celtic. If Tommy hadn\u2019t scored that iconic goal in Lisbon would we have stuck to our attacking and entertaining principles? Would we have adjusted? Would we have gone down a different route? I\u2019ll allow that debate to pass as we\u2019ll never really know but I would say that the bravery, the belief and the ability of Tommy Gemmell, 50 years ago, have legitimised and validated the approach and indeed the core footballing philosophy of our club.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n As Celtic supporters, we are all too aware that we owe so much to those involved in that triumph of 50 years ago, they didn\u2019t just win a football match, they didn\u2019t just win a cup; they set the standard and the tone forever more and Tommy helped to make that possible.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Sleep well Tam.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Andy offers his thoughts on the passing of Lisbon Lion and Celtic Legend, Tommy Gemmell Thank you, Tommy. I never saw Tommy Gemmell play…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":10944,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/etims.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/tommyg2.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2J7If-2Qs","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10940"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10940"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10947,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10940\/revisions\/10947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"tg1\"](\"https:\/\/etims.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/tg1.jpg\")
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