{"id":7269,"date":"2015-06-12T16:26:53","date_gmt":"2015-06-12T15:26:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/etims.net\/?p=7269"},"modified":"2015-06-12T16:46:44","modified_gmt":"2015-06-12T15:46:44","slug":"close-encounters-of-the-celtic-kind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/etims.net\/?p=7269","title":{"rendered":"Close Encounters of the Celtic Kind"},"content":{"rendered":"

The summer\u00a0laziness continues and following\u00a0 the ‘Irish Soccer Demise’ discussion topic from last week, we\u00a0have yet another\u00a0 idea inspired\/stolen from the wonderful Football365 Mailbox<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Originality, schmality…hey at least we’re not just mirroring stories on line and claiming them as our own exclusives now are we? ( Hmmm, how many anti-Histamines have you taken? – Ed<\/em>)<\/p>\n

Anyhows..I\u00a0was reading\u00a0 the Mailbox and came across a\u00a0selection of mails about “I remember when I met such and such<\/em> footballer<\/em>” ..and lo and behold..there were 2 Celtic based stories.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Go<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

So that naturally got me thinking of my own Celtic encounter experiences, and not just the\u00a0“Around Celtic Park” style meets..although I will never forget watching Johan Mjallby signing autographs and getting pictures taken (\u00a0Celfies ( copyright Me!!)\u00a0\u00a0werent quite invented\u00a0back then) and his phone rang.\u00a0Johan politely\u00a0asked the crowd to be quiet, answered the phone\u00a0and said “Sorry, Im with the fans, I will call you back when finished”…1 hour later he was still signing away and no return call had been made. A true Gentleman and credit to the Hoops.<\/p>\n

I also remember being out in the town the Sunday after a Title win and thanking Paul Telfer for the trophy and him almost crying in his pint “But the fans just\u00a0love Jackie Macnamara!”. I remember Hector, Ralph and I\u00a0keeping Tom Boyd on a podcast chat for almost 3 hours..you could hear Toms wife sighing in the background as\u00a0the podcast\u00a0was only mean to last 60 minutes.<\/p>\n

I remember Mo Johnston(yeah\u00a0I went there!)<\/em> getting us youngsters a drink ( Whisky and Coke I think) at a Leeds Utd boys club end of year\u00a0awards dinner\u00a0in Shettleston in the early 80s..well okay, we stole\u00a0a drink from his table..well it was his or Jim McInally’s who was also there for the prize giving.<\/p>\n

A reverse of that, a NON-Encounter\u00a0was walking into the Corinthian Bar midweek to meet my wife and\u00a0sister a few years ago\u00a0and she said “Oh, that guy, him you like, oh whats his name, he was standing right there alone for ages,..then some big English guy joined him and then later a few more, then they literally just left before you came it…oh Henrik Larrson, thats it<\/em>!”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Seems the Seville\u00a0superstars were all up for a Celtic Park fundraiser and had met up the night before for drinks and a laugh in town, cue my sad wee frowny face!<\/p>\n

So folks, whats your favourite personal Celtic encounter?<\/p>\n

Give us the most obscure, the most surprising, the most insane, the most uplifting, the most disappointing i.e “I met Deadhead and he was actually quite an enlightened\u00a0fellow!”<\/p>\n

Hell you can even tell us funny stories about meeting Hun players (\u00a0I\u00a0remember going down\u00a0to Elland Road to see Leeds Utd play Brian Clough’s Forest with our boys club…Leeds run out for a warm up and my mate Joe shouts out to ex Hun Derek Parlane.. “Hey Derek, mon over for autographs, we’re aw Rangers fans down from Glasgow!” Cue a surprised Derek Parlane stop his run out and he then turns to face\u00a0us saying “Is that right lads” and cue “IS\u00a0IT FUCK!” being roared back by half of us.<\/p>\n

\u00a0You can even tell us about meeting other famous footballers or sports stars…and be honest…did your weans or wife laugh at your adoration filled face ?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The summer\u00a0laziness continues and following\u00a0 the ‘Irish Soccer Demise’ discussion topic from last week, we\u00a0have yet another\u00a0 idea inspired\/stolen from the wonderful Football365 Mailbox. Originality,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7272,"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\/2015\/06\/Yogi-Sporting-Goods-football-football-shoes-NIVIA-ENCOUNTER.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2J7If-1Tf","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7269"}],"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=7269"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7280,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7269\/revisions\/7280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}