Happy Faithers Day – Celtic’s most famous Faither…
Happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there. Let’s hope you all get spoilt and get treated to the day you deserve from your own Bhoys and Ghirls.
Talking about fathers, Celtic’s most famous father, or faither as he was affectionately known was none other than Ronnie Simpson. The man who was between the sticks that famous day in Lisbon back in May 1967.
Ronnie stood at 5ft 10 inches tall which was seen as small in goalkeeping terms, but he made up for that with his superb shot stopping ability and his ability to play with the ball at his feet. A heart stopping moment in the final itself against Inter will testify to his confidence and ability with his own ball control!
Although Ronnie is best remembered for his role in the most successful period in the history of Celtic football club he enjoyed a great career that spanned 25 years.
Ronnie made his senior debut just two weeks shy of his 15th birthday when he played for Queen’s Park in 1945. The son of a former Rangers player, Ronnie incidentally also had a loan spell at the Ibrox club in 1947 without playing a first team game and wasn’t deemed good enough by the Ibrox side. Oh how they would regret that!
He would go on to play for Third Lanark before heading down to England with Newcastle were he won two FA cups in a nine year spell making over 200 appearances for the Magpies before heading back north to join Hibs in 1960 and then on course Celtic three years later.
Ronnie also became the oldest debutant to get a Scotland cap at the age of 36. He would win 5 caps in total for his country. He was dubbed ‘faither’ due to being the elder statesman of the famous Lisbon Lions. Ronnie joined the club at the age of 33 in September 1963 a month before his 34th birthday.
Ronnie was signed from the Easter Road side who were managed ironically by Jock Stein who Ronnie had a fallen out with and was seen as surplus to requirements in Leith. When Jock took the reins at Celtic Park it was assumed by the goalie himself that he would have to be packing his bags again, but big Jock bore no grudge and kept Ronnie as his number one and the rest as they say is history.
188 appearances, and 13 trophies later seen Ronnie Simpson secure his place as a legend at Celtic football club.
Happy Faithers day to the Celtic Da’s everywhere!
Just an Ordinary Bhoy
