Introducing Walfrid & The Bould Bhoys – Celtic’s Founding Fathers, First Season & Early Stars – out now!

The rather splendid new book from The Celtic Star, Walfrid & The Bould Bhoys – Celtic’s Founding Fathers, First Season & Early Stars  arrived back from the printers yesterday. Hundreds of copies have already been posted to everyone who pre-ordered, so these should start dropping through letter-boxes from Monday.

These copies have already been posted out to Celtic supporters

We have been running little extracts from the book all week, so hopefully you’ve had the chance to enjoy these. If not, you can always look back from our home page or use the search box to find Walfrid & The Bould Bhoys.

The book is in three parts, with Liam Kelly covering the fascinating and mostly untold stories of the men who played a significant role in getting Celtic off the ground. It’s been a labour of love for Liam, who has already published two books himself. This, though, is his first hardback book and he’s very excited about it!

Celtic Tour Guide Matt Corr made his debut as a Celtic author earlier this year, when The Celtic Star published Invincible right in the middle of the lockdown. It probably was a pretty crazy thing to do, however, the quality of the writing and the high production values in the book – with its paper as white as Brendan’s teeth – meant that it has been a great seller and Matt has had wonderful feedback from many readers. In Walfrid & The Bould Bhoys Matt takes us through every kick of the ball in that vital first season for Celtic FC. And just like Liam’s section, the research work done really enhances the importance of this new book to those with a keen interest in the origins of our fairytale club.

It was a busy day yesterday getting all the pre-orders ready to post this morning.

Then there’s David Potter, who has surely written more Celtic books than anyone else – although he’s yet to proclaim this as a random World Record. Maybe that’s something for the other side of the city to brag about?
David Potter is the eminent Celtic historian. He’s an absolute treasure for our club and just as Pat Woods was recognised by the club a few years ago at the end-of-season awards, maybe Celtic should look to do something similar for David? Pat Woods, incidentally, was the very first person to order a copy of Walfrid & The Bould Bhoys!

In Walfrid & The Bould Bhoys, David Potter’s allotted task was to write about the early Celtic Stars and, to be honest, no-one is better qualified to deliver on that remit. He tells so many entertaining tales about the various great characters and talented footballers who were amongst the first crop of Celtic legends.

And there’s more. Niall J, another of the talented group of writers on The Celtic Star, has a wonderful piece at the start of the book where he reports on the eye-witness account from Dan Drake, a supporter who attended Celtic’s first-ever match in 1888!  Dan’s interview first appeared in The Celtic View in the early 1970s and if you get this week’s View, you’ll notice that Walfrid & The Bould Bhoys is mentioned on the cover and there’s a great feature on the book inside, which also includes a competition to win copies signed by all three authors.

Can you imagine a supporter like Dan Drake, or the club’s Founding Fathers or the players who started the ball rolling for Celtic even imagining that they’d all feature in a book published by Celtic supporters just like Dan more than thirteen decades after that first game?

And more than that, can you imagine just about any other club’s supporters organising themselves to publish such a book to honour the men who founded, played for and supported their club in the century before last?

Speaking to an editor of a English club’s site recently, he reckoned that many of his readers would have no real interest in events of a decade before never mind the century before last! Frankly, he was astonished that The Celtic Star would even consider publishing a book about the events at Celtic 132 years ago! But as we all know, Celtic is different, special, unique even and in Walfrid & The Bould Bhoys, I think that we’ve done these early Celtic unsung heroes and stars proud.

First copy out of the box!

And the cover design is a modern version of the early Celtic graphics used by the club, which adds to the impression that we’re taking you back in time to the late 1880s, in and around Glasgow and over in Ireland, as Brother Walfrid and the other Founding Fathers got Celtic off the ground.

You can order Walfrid & The Bould Bhoys from celticstarbooks.com and also from late this afternoon from the online Celtic store. It’s also going into the Celtic stores and you can also order from Amazon if you prefer.

Wherever you decide to get your copy from, you’ll certainly enjoy Walfrid & The Bould Bhoys – Celtic’s Founding Fathers, First Season and Early Stars published by The Celtic Star.

ORDER WALFRID & THE BOULD BHOYS from The Celtic Star now! 

About Author

The Celtic Star founder and editor, who has edited numerous Celtic books over the past decade or so including several from Lisbon Lions, Willie Wallace, Tommy Gemmell and Jim Craig. Earliest Celtic memories include a win over East Fife at Celtic Park and the 4-1 League Cup loss to Partick Thistle as a 6 year old. Best game? Easy 4-2, 1979 when Ten Men Won the League. Email editor@thecelticstar.co.uk

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