By the time I was old enough to be aware I was a Celtic supporter, all I knew was that Jimmy Johnstone was the best player there ever was, even if I had never seen him play. Every Sunday afternoon would be spent at my granny's house and after Glen Michael's Cartoon Cavalcade it would be time for Scotsport and my dad, my granda and my uncles would settle down to watch what was at the time, comparable in quality to Match of the Day in terms of coverage and analysis of Scottish football.
Arthur Montford and Ian Archer were the expert voices on the programme and all I can remember from those days back in the early 70's is that we supported Celtic, who played in green and white hoops and we always won.
The first Celtic match I have anything more than vague memories of was the 1977 Scottish Cup Final against the now-defunct Rangers, a 1-0 win via an Andy Lynch strike from the penalty spot. I was 6 years old and one of the memories that really sticks out is of the slow motion replay as the ball bounces on to Derek Johnstone's hand and Billy McNeill, co-commentating that day, saying emphatically, "Most definitely a penalty!" I don't think he was ever asked back.
Watching that match, I'd no idea how things were about to change, just as I was becoming old enough to know what was going on. By the time the 1977-78 season kicked off, our hero, Kenny Dalglish, had left for Liverpool. Within weeks, Danny McGrain and Pat Stanton were out with what turned out to be a career-ending injury for the latter and an 18 month lay off for the former.
That season very quickly went to pot and so the first season of my proper Celtic-supporting life was a heartbreaker for a 6 year old. I remember bawling my eyes out when the result came through on Final Score that we'd lost away to Ayr United and things didn't get any better from there.
So here I was, too young to have known the Lisbon Lions, too young to really remember Kenny Dalglish in a Celtic shirt, and shouting on stellar names such as Frank Munro and Joe Filippi. Rangers went on to win the treble that season.
We finished fifth in the league, failing to qualify for Europe for the first time since the early 60's and at the end of the season Jock Stein, a revered figure in my house, was replaced by Billy McNeill.
Things seemed to turn around very quickly, although looking back the 1978-79 season was fraught at times, but it ended with that incredible 4-2 victory over the Forces of Darkness in May, following a very long winter break due to the worst winter in years.
My formative years as a Celtic supporter then coincided with the Billy McNeill/Davie Hay era and our main rivals were not Rangers, but Alex Ferguson's Aberdeen, as Rangers went into a tailspin they would not recover from until the Souness years. I remember asking my dad some time around 1985 if he thought Rangers would ever have a decent team again?
We never finished out of the top two from 1979-88, and despite the much-vaunted Aberdeen side of that era being a genuine European force, we outdid them 4 titles to 3 in the Ferguson years, Dundee United winning the other.
The one disappointment of those years for me was that we failed to make any impact at all in Europe. We came so close to reaching the European Cup semi-final in 1980, taking a 2-0 lead to the Bernabeau, only to lose 3-0. It was a game we really could have taken something from and I remember my dad telling me not to be too down about it because, "they're a young team and can get a lot better."
Unfotunately, that was as good as it got, with defensive lapses and tactical naivety costing us time after time, despite hugely impressive two-legged wins over Ajax in 1982 and Sporting Lisbon in 1983. These were followed by disappointing exits to Real Sociedad and Nottingham Forest.
We were knocked out of Europe in 1981 by Politehnica Timisoara, but in general, the teams who beat us were very decent, like Juventus, the despicable Rapid Vienna, and Dynamo Kiev. The teams who put us out generally went on to the latter stages, but the fact remained, every half-decent side we came up against would beat us, usually because of tactical ineptitude and defensive frailty. Sound familiar?
One of my favourite TV programmes back in the late 70's/early 80's was BBC1's Sportsnight.
It was my dearest wish to see a Celtic match on Sportsnight, because that would mean we were in Europe at the business end of the tournament. It was a wish that was never to be fulfilled.
By the time we beat Celta Vigo in 2002, our first ever away goals win in Europe (that's how tactically useless we always were), I was 31 years old and it was only the second time I could remember us being in Europe after Christmas. In my lifetime, it was just the 6th time. From 1971-2003, we managed to play European football after Christmas on average once every five years. From 1975-2003, it was on average once every 14 years.
If you are a Celtic supporter under the age of 30 today, it must be difficult to appreciate just how poor our European record really is. We've been totally spoiled by how we have performed in the 21st Century, with a European final in 2003, a quarter final in 2004 and some respectable showings in the Champions League and last 16 qualification since 2006.
Which brings me at last to the point and the current maelstrom of anger surrounding Ronny Deila and our failure to make much impression in Europe these past two seasons.
For the first time I can remember, a Celtic manager, and a successful one at that, is facing calls for his head not because of domestic failure, but for one disappointing season in Europe.
Let's not forget that Ronny Deila took us past the group stages just10 months ago. We lost to Inter Milan after one of the most exciting European nights ever seen at Celtic Park and if Virgil van Dijk hadn't been sent off in Italy, who knows what might have happened? Even playing with ten men it took a late goal to settle it for Inter.
When I was writing the Raily Decord earlier this season, I jokingly prefixed every reference to Ronny Deila with, "the under-fire Celtic manager." Not for a moment did I think he would be under any kind of pressure. He'd just won a league and cup double in his first season, as well as taking us to the EL last 16, and came within an honest mistake of a shot at the treble, something only two Celtic managers have ever achieved.
Yet here we are. If success in Europe was a prerequisite to keeping your job as a Celtic manager, we'd have been like Atletico Madrid under Jesus Gil.
It is absolutely ridiculous that Celtic fans are calling for Deila's sacking. Success in Europe is not something that Celtic have any right to expect as a matter of course.
We play in a European backwater and every other Scottish team gets routinely bounced out before the pre-season friendlies are over. It is thirty years or more since we produced decent international standard players that could hold down a regular start in the top division in England (when I was growing up it seem like the star player at nearly every English club was a Scot).
The football we play in Scotland is of a poor standard and that's not something Celtic alone can deal with. Over the last decade and a half we have punched way above our weight in Europe and we should enjoy every success that comes our way in that arena and count our blessings to be living through what is our second best era in European football.
1964-74 was our golden era in European football, bookended by semi-final appearances in the Cup Winners' Cup v MTK Budapest and the infamous European Cup semi-final v Atletico Madrid.
Following that, we had a generation in the wilderness. A quarter century of disappointment and heartbreak.
Seville apart, we've never come close to emulating that decade under McGrory and Stein. The 21st Century has seen us reach the Champions League last 16 a few times, but that's still not as far in the competition as the quarter-final reached in 1980 (albeit it's much harder to get there now).
The 21st Century hasn't been so much a Golden Age as a Bronze Age for Celtic in Europe. But it has still spoiled us, deluding us into thinking we could be "a force" in Europe. We have not been anywhere near a force in Europe since the early 1970's.
The club embarked on a strategy when we employed Ronny Deila. We've given up trying to spend millions on reaching the Last 16 in Europe. And believe me, as long as we play our football in Scotland, that's just about as good as we can expect it to get.
The strategy we embarked on is a long term one. We're in season 2 of that strategy and so far, it hasn't been that bad, no matter the perception you'll get from reading the Daily Record or listening to Superscoreboard.
Deila's plan will take time to come to fruition. We should give him that time because judging him by his European record (one decent season, one disappointing season) would be ludicrous.
We play in Scotland and winning in Scotland is all any Celtic manager should be judged on. Sacking Deila now in hopes of succeeding in Europe really would be like setting off in search of that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
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