Debut Author Matt Corr’s brilliant Celtic Book is titled ‘Invincible’

In the coming weeks The Celtic Star will have the privilege of serialising the first of at least three books by the wonderful Celtic writer Matt Corr.

Regular visitors will know him from the many historical articles he has researched and written for The Celtic Star and my own personal favourites, the wonderful diaries of travelling abroad to watch Celtic.

Have a look at this one from the recent trip to Copenhagen or if you missed The Celtic Star’s Post of the Year from 2019 from Matt’s trip to Sarajevo then you really should take the time to read it. Both of these articles are superb and there are many others from a wonderful Celtic writer and man.

Matt also provides articles for each of the home League game programmes and has done for the last couple of seasons. First up Matt wrote about the nineteen title-winning seasons Celtic fans have enjoyed since Billy McNeill became the boss at Parkhead in 1978, ‘We are the Champions’.

This season the feature is called ‘A League of Their Own’ and looks at the nineteen men who have made most Scottish League appearances for Celtic since its inception in 1890. Some incredible players have been covered, spanning every generation.

Now the inevitable has happened. Matt has just completed his first Celtic book, titled INVINCIBLE and it will be the first of several books he plans to complete over the next few years.

The Celtic Star will build up to the book’s release by bringing you a few snippets from it, but first we can get to know the man. Kind of.

The Celtic Star’s Matt Corr with Olivier Ntcham and Odsonne Edouard and our three trophies.

To me Matt Corr is The-Travelling-Celt. His diaries of trips abroad following the Hoops can take you on a journey you just disappear into as if you really were there with him. He’s taken The Celtic Star readers on many of these journeys.

As mentioned above Matt’s recent article on the away trip to Copenhagen was another wonderful piece of work. Although the thread throughout was the trip to Denmark it was the wonderful stories of past visits to other European ties, interspersed with his own joys and indeed tragedies while doing so. If you missed it here’s one of my favourite parts and you can read the whole article here. https://thecelticstar.com/matt-corrs-european-diary-honours-even-in-wet-wonderful-copenhagen/

It’s a wonderful read and will make you laugh out loud and tearfully blur your vision in equal measure:

“The group of friends on that Copenhagen trip had included Roy. And in a strange quirk of fate, we’ll be going back to Denmark together again, after a period where we haven’t seen each other that much, as life gets in the way.

“We first met nearly thirty years ago, as work colleagues. A couple of Celtic-daft junior managers in a company which didn’t have too many of those at that point. We’re opposites in many ways but we hit it off. As you do. Last time we travelled together was to the Etihad, in December 2016. But in the nineties and early part of the millennium, there were countless trips and a thousand stories, which I’m looking forward to sharing again. Well, some of them not so much, perhaps.

“Earliest memories of those awaydays are what seemed at that time to be an annual pilgrimage to OId Trafford, in the mid-nineties, long before the Champions League clashes.

“We would head away from the busier fan meeting points to catch a few beers and some food ‘in peace’, ahead of the match. It worked well. There is one such day I recall. We’re sitting in a pub near the Old Trafford cricket ground. Late afternoon, in come the United supporters, and before too long we’re chatting away and having a few drinks with a couple of them.

“Soon, it’s ‘give us a song then, lads’ time, and we duly oblige, with some of our lovely Celtic or Irish ballads, which don’t qualify as lovely Celtic or Irish ballads unless several perfectly innocent people have died cruelly, and your audience is weeping uncontrollably.

“So, job done, it’s blonde-permed Manc’s turn. This time it’s Roy and I who are crying, with laughter, as he launches into a version of REM’s ‘Man on the Moon’, where the chorus involved several renditions of ‘Would you believe, I hit him with a brick, with a brick’. A poor Scouser being the victim. In fact, said Scousers are victims in every one of the songs belted out by our enthusiastic new friend, with the only variation being the method of pain inflicted. Many years later, at my 50th birthday party, Roy had this played as a special request. It had been one of my favourites at the time. Minus the bricks, obviously”.

So back to the man himself, Matt is if course in the middle of a his writing project, we may however have bagged the Quadruple Treble-God willing – by the time ‘INVINCIBLE’ is published, as such this recording of Celtic’s history may become a never-ending story. I get the feeling such an outcome would suit Matt down to the ground.

Matt Corr has another job apparently. Considering he took early retirement he doesn’t appear to be resting on his laurels. I make that three jobs. I’m certain my own retiral may involve a bit more downtime.

For this particular job Matt is a very popular tour guide at Celtic, showing people around the stadium and inner sanctum of Paradise. That’s what Matt says anyway I have my own ideas on Matt Corr.

From what I can actually work out Matt has inherited a fortune following the passing of a distant relative he had no idea existed. He spends this money travelling the world following Celtic. You see he’s never in The Celtic Star offices and he’s forever getting his phone stolen on trips abroad. As such he tends to communicate his articles to the editor via telegrams, carrier pigeons and messages from young lads who appear at the door like some latter day bookies runners.

Our Editor has in fact been known to sit at his desk trying to piece together thousands of these deliveries in the correct order and into the wonderful stories we get from Matt Corr delivered anywhere from Shawlands to Sarajevo.

Our poor Editor has burned the midnight oil on many occasions. I’ve often arrived in the morning to see a dishevelled pile of clothing slumped over a desk and as a head rises from it a face appears that shows creases in his forehead to match last night’s apparel. Not for the first time he’s fallen asleep slumped on the desk when trying to finish piecing together a masterpiece from Matt Corr. My word it is worth it though. There are not many Celtic sites offering what Matt Corr brings to The Celtic Star.

Let me let you into a wee secret, Matt himself is a bit of a hippy. When he does pop to grace us with his presence, he’s usually in a pair of faded Levi’s, a battered pair of Converse trainers and wearing any one of four Led Zeppelin T-Shirts he has on rotation. He carries a banjo that accompanies him on every trip and on his back you’ll usually find a rucksack and attached sleeping bag.

Matt doesn’t do tents though, not anymore, he’s more a youth hostel kind of guy. He tends to sit by his computer watching ‘Withnail and I’ on repeat and rolling a succession of roll up cigarettes into a silver cigarette holder. At least I think they are roll ups. They don’t half give off a funny smell.

Well that’s’ the impression I get of Matt Corr in my mind but of course I’m more than likely well off the mark…Possibly.

One thing I know for certain is Matt’s book ‘INVINCIBLE’ will be the first of three fantastic records of one of the greatest times to follow our great club. I can’t think of a better man to have cover it and have as a record to pass down to my family.

I’m looking forward to reading it and to sharing some of of it The Celtic Star readers. For now I’m going to get a wee shot of that Banjo.

Niall J

Also on The Celtic Star today…

David Potter on Bobby Evans – Celtic’s Forgotten Hero…

More exclusive photographs of Celtic Park reconstruction in early 1995…

Go see the loving tribute to Steve Chalmers from his family…

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About Author

As a Bellshill Bhoy I was taken to my first Celtic game in the summer of 1987. It was Billy McNeill’s return to Celtic Park as manager and Celtic lost 5-1 to Arsenal . I thought I was a jinx, I think my Grandfather might have thought the same. It was the finest gift anyone ever gave me when he walked me through Parkhead's gates.

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