I was reminded of a story about Fergus McCann this morning as we approach the 20th anniversary of his saving Celtic from administration and possibly liquidation in 1994.
Many people will already be aware of this story, but it bears repeating as we consider the impending collapse of the new Rangers, and also calls from certain quarters for Celtic to splash the cash in pursuit of Champions League progress.
Back in the summer of 1995, the late, great Tommy Burns approached Fergus and asked if he could sign Gordan Petric from Dundee United.
We'd met Petric before he ever pitched up at Dundee United, after running into him in a European Cup Winners Cup tie against Partizan Belgrade in 1989. One of the greatest ever European nights at Celtic Park, but one that ended in bitter frustration and disappointment as a rollercoaster of a match saw Celtic throw away their lead in the final seconds to go out yet again on the away goals rule.
Jackie Dziekanowski was particularly disappointed, having scored four of Celtic's five goals on the night.
Fergus asked Tommy how much he felt Petric was worth, to which Tommy replied £800k.
Fergus gave him the nod and a bid of £800k was submitted to Dundee Utd.
To digress for a moment, it might be difficult for younger Celtic fans to appreciate how desperate we were for a centre half at that time. We are spoiled at the moment with Virgil van Dijk but he is a rarity at the club.
My Celtic memories go back to the late 70's, with the first central defensive partnership I remember being Roddy McDonald and Pat Stanton.
McDonald was a previously erratic centre half, who was steadied by the arrival of the experienced Stanton in 1976 and became a very competent defender. Unfortunately for Celtic and McDonald, Stanton's career would be ended by an injury sustained on the opening day of the 1977-78 campaign and McDonald was never quite the same again.
It's fair to say to say that following the retirement of Billy McNeill in 1975 it took Celtic the best part of two decades to adequately replace him.
McAdam, Munro, Garner, McGugan, Whyte, Baillie, McCarthy all filled the centre half berth with varying degrees of success (or very definitely not!), but apart from the all too brief Celtic career of Paul Elliot from 1989-91, no one who could be so much as spoken of in the same breath as Billy McNeill.
So it was in the summer of 1995 that Tommy Burns turned to the perennial problem of signing a reliable centre half.
Tommy had to go back to Fergus later that week to inform him that the now defunct Rangers FC had trumped us with a £900k bid.
Fergus acquiesced with Tommy's request for another £200k and a £1m offer was submitted to United.
You can guess what happened next, as the defunct Govan club duly bid £1.1m.
Contrary to his penny-pinching image, so beloved of the Scottish media back then, Fergus then allowed Tommy to put in a £1.2m bid for the player.
Rangers then, you got it, bid £1.3m and incredibly, if you bought the media image of him, Fergus allowed Tommy to go to £1.4m.
Following Rangers' inevitable £1.5m offer, Tommy again approached Fergus, asking if we could go to £1.6m?
Such was our desperation for a good centre half, Tommy was incredibly frustrated when Fergus now gave him an emphatic, "no."
"Tommy, you told me he's worth £800k, right?" he is said to have asked.
"Yes," replied Tommy.
"And now you want us to pay DOUBLE that amount? No, at that price, Rangers can have him."
I well remember the STV news that evening, as they went through the headlines at the start, "Gordan Petric on the move to Glasgow, but to Rangers or Celtic?" they breathlessly teased? "Find out in a few moments." (It's always the grammatically incorrect "Rangers or Celtic?")
I knew before finding out in a few moments that Petric was signing for Rangers. We couldn't compete with them for players in those days and there was no way he was coming to us if Rangers wanted him - they'd spend whatever it took to get him, but the sense of disappointment, frustration and, yes, humiliation was still overwhelming.
It was a sickener and so many of us felt then that Fergus should have spent whatever it took to get a hold of this decent, but no more than that, defender.
To borrow a line from Rod Stewart, I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger.
That story perfectly encapsulates why Celtic and Rangers followed such different trajectories in the following 20 years. In fact, Rangers did not survive the next 20 years, having shuffled off their mortal coil almost two years ago.
I only wish I knew than that Rangers had already embarked upon a course of financial steroids that would eventually kill them and that Fergus McCann was right while so many of us were wrong.
Next to that, missing out on Gordan Petric shouldn't have amounted to a hill of beans.
Fergus McCann is a colossus of a figure in our history. He deserves a hero's welcome when he comes back to the club, and the stadium he built, in August.
In fact, it wouldn't be too over the top if he was given a triumphant procession the length of London Road in a horse-drawn chariot, with a wee guy to whisper in his ear every few moments, "Remember that thou art mortal."
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