He was always at my side when I started to fall about, there to steer me away from the potential trouble spots that became more plentiful after I quit Celtic. Within the last few weeks, we have had two candidates who ran against the BLP on behalf of the DLP, join us. I didn’t make any noise, I didn’t drag them across a platform, like how Woody [former BLP member Anthony Wood] was dragged, because I didn’t want to make it a cheap political act.

He’d left the door for me again. Again. But it didn’t last long. I had a groin injury that I couldn’t get rid of and soon enough I was working at Torness nuclear power station as a scaffolder’s labourer then playing junior football at weekends. I was always interested when Kenny was playing, Danny was playing, Davie was playing, Lou was playing. You took encouragement from that. The young boys now will the same. They will be saying: ‘If he can do it I can do it’. If they have got the ability the manager will put them in. Lennon isn’t scared to put them in either. Davie Hay came through to see me a couple of times and then when he became manager he phoned me one night to say come up whenever I wanted, but my head just wasn’t in it.

George Connelly has existed as an almost mythical character in the Celtic story for over 30 years; the man who apparently had all the gifts to play the game perfectly, in almost any position but who walked out of professional football at the age of 26 never to be heard of again. Connelly, who was one of the great talents of his generation, is less than enamoured by modern-day football but admits he would not mind the salaries enjoyed by some of the top players in the game. Connelly made 254 appearance for the Parkhead side in the late 1960s and 1970s and was a member of the Scotland squad which qualified for the 1974 World Cup.

The book has a slightly unusual format in that Connelly’s is not the only voice heard in the narrative. There are chapters from David Hay and David Cattenach (who were both in the reserves with Connelly), Billy McNeill and Connelly’s second wife and son. The long-range piledriver that Billy Bremner rifled in from fully 25 yards out to put the visitors ahead in the first-half was very much against the run of play. Second-half goals from John Hughes and Murdoch ensured a richly-deserved triumph. H Graphics Access v. Commissioner: Persuaded the U.S. Tax Court that the alteration of a document prepared by the IRS was not the product of fraud or malfeasance, such that the resulting agreement was enforceable. Quality Street Gang' Celtic's famed conveyor belt of talent for a decade from the mid-1960s, known as 'The Quality Street Gang,' gave rise to Kenny Dalglish, David Hay, Lou Macari, and Connelly.

The action moved to Hampden Park 2 weeks later and incredibly attracted a crowd of 135,000. The entire Celtic team were tremendous; Connelly, along with Murdoch and Auld, completely dictated the midfield and Celtic won 2-1 on the night. Hay gives more weight to the argument, however, and is convinced that they did indeed take Feyenoord lightly.

George was the sort of guy who if you said ‘What’s wrong with your hair?’ he’d worry about it all day. You had to be able to laugh at yourself although some of the jokes went too far.”How long do you think the dry passage will last? "I don't know. As the guy says to me: You don't get any warnings.' But I certainly don't feel any need to go and do it now. I'm strong in my heid. I'm fit and feeling so good now that I'm not doing the taxiing and doing all this power-walking instead. I'm starting to say to myself that maybe it was the stress of taxis that was making me drink. So, yes, I'm putting it down to that. Taxiing can be heavy gear." I’ll give you in a nutshell. When Billy was playing you had a chance against anybody, he meant that much to the team. Along with Jimmy Johnstone, George Connelly put Leeds to the sword scoring the winning goal at Elland Road as Celtic went on to defeat United over two legs in the ‘ Battle of Britain‘. George Connelly played a key role in these games and was attaining legendary status for many. What more could Celtic achieve with someone of his quality in the squad? The final may ultimately have been lost to Dutch champions Feyenoord, but with the youngsters in the squad – added to the experience of McNeill and Co – the future looked bright and it was Green.

Connelly, for all his genius, is cocooned in humility. Talk to him about his greatest games and he says that some of them are on DVD; playing, and scoring, against Rangers in the 1969 Scottish Cup final, for instance. But they come with a warning: "I'm no' going to show it and blaw myself up. I'm no big headed." Neither, it seems, is he suffused with envy. Those stories were nonsense but there did come a time when I was suffering from Delirium Tremens, better known to to you and me as the DTs, and I heard a voice telling me to kill my wife. In "Celtic s Lost Legend", George Connelly tells the full story of why he walked away from his dreams and from the team he loved and finally answers the question that has intrigued football fans for thirty years. Whatever became of George ConnellyThe Barbados Labour Party (BLP) has welcomed two former Democratic Labour Party (DLP) members into the fold. It's all out in the open now. The rise and fall, the attempt to explain it all. He kept it hidden for 30 years but there is no secret left untold at this stage, no detail of his life that is bottled up inside him. "What's the word? Is it 'candid'?" In the quarter-finals, Celtic beat Fiorentina 3-1 to set-up an all-British semi-final. Though they beat Don Revie's Leeds United, the consensus seems to be that Celtic became complacent for the final as a result. And like others in the game, before and after, his attempts to replicate the buzz of playing with drinking failed miserably.