Charlie Mulgrew has revealed how he and Paddy McCourt mercilessly teased Celtic’s Head of Security, Jamie Church in the latest episode of Open Goal’s Keeping the Ball on the Ground podcast. The former Celtic defender was joined by Si Ferry, Paul Slane, Andy Halliday and Kevin Kyle as he told the story about how the players and Peter Lawwell were involved in winding up the club security chief.
On the way to face AC Milan in The Champions League, Mulgrew and McCourt convinced Church that the Green Brigade were planning to stage a protest against him in The San Siro after he ejected a member of the Ultras group at the weekend before.
“We’re on the bus. Me and Paddy McCourt are chatting away to Churchy and he says, ‘I’m all stressed’ and we’re like, ‘What’s wrong, you’re not the same’.
“He goes, ‘Did you not hear about the weekend? I had to go round to the Green Brigade and put somebody out. They were acting up and throwing flares.’
“I said, ‘No way Churchy’ and he told us about it, all stressed. He goes away up the back of the bus on the way to the airport and me and Paddy are like, ‘We need to get him’.
“Paddy’s changed my name on his phone to his brother’s name. I’m texting as if I’m Paddy’s brother.
“So I’ve text him saying, ‘Who’s this Jamie Church? He’s put one of the Green Brigade out so there’s a big banner going up tomorrow night in the San Siro.’
“It started out with who’s this Jamie Church so we’re like, ‘Churchy, Paddy’s brother has just text, he’s in with the Green Brigade and wondering who this Jamie Church is.’ He goes, ‘You’re joking? Oh no you’re joking me.’
“We just kept this going up the back of the bus. One thing led to another, it got to the point he’s shaking and everything.
“There’s a text, ‘There’s a banner going up tomorrow night, Jamie Church must go, big banner we’re holding right across, Jamie Church you’re not one of us or something like that.’
“We show him, he’s reading it and puts his glasses on and he’s still like, ‘You are joking’, and we’re saying, ‘No that’s from Paddy’s brother Leroy.’
“He goes, ‘How would he know that?’ We said, ‘He’s part of the Green Brigade, what have you done?’
“He says, ‘I just put a boy out, he was acting rowdy and I think he had flares’. We say, ‘You can’t do that to one of the Celtic fans!’ He says, ‘You’re joking! I need to tell Peter Lawwell’.
“We’ve got off the flight, straight to Peter. We say, ‘Peter we’ve got Churchy on toast here, telling him the Green Brigade are putting up flags saying Churchy must go, get him out the stadium, not welcome, all sorts. They’re going to kill him!’
“We didn’t know what reaction we were going to get from Peter, he’s the boss. But he started giggling and said ‘Right no bother, we’ll keep it going.’
“So we’re standing at the carousel and Churchy went over and we can see him talking to him. Peter says, ‘I don’t know what we can do’. Honestly we had him going but eventually we had to tell him on the bus we were only winding him up.
“He was nearly greeting. He was on a high after it, the biggest buzz ever.”
Mulgrew was a big presence in the dressing room at Celtic and his personality shines through in all of his interviews. However, Celtic won’t have characters like him, Mikael Lustig and Scott Brown in the dressing room next season as the long-standing captain departs in the summer.
It is a good episode with some funny stories from all involved.
