When I arrived at Celtic Park in January 1965 and started training with the part-timers in the evenings, the coaches in charge were Alec Boden and John Higgins.
Both were good guys although their approach to the task was slightly different. Alec was a former centre-half, had been in the Army for three years during WW2 and had been a sergeant of physical training. He certainly knew his stuff – having played for the club from 1943 to 1956, with 158 appearances – and put us through some tough sessions in his time, making sure that we lived up to the expectations required to be first-team players for Celtic.
John was the more mild of the two. He had been quite a frail looking outside-right in his time at Parkhead from 1950 to 1959 but even so, he made full use of his talent, scoring 40 goals in 84 appearances for the first team. He was the one you spoke to about any problems you might have and he was always keen to lend an ear to listen and help out in any way.
I was lucky to have both of these guys as mentors when I first started at Parkhead and it was great that they were still there for the glory days of the late 60s and early 70s.
On this day in 1994, John Higgins died at the age of 61.
Jim Craig
