The following February we are in Stuttgart. It is a special trip, as three generations of Matt Corr are abroad with Celtic for the first and only time. My dad has now been given just months to live, so my sister and I are with him and my teenage son for one last party in the Hoops.
The baton is passing on. She looks after dad while he rests, and we head into town to catch up with Roy, Paddy and the other boys for a few hours before returning for the match. The guys are arguing about whether they will order beer or wine in the Chinese restaurant and some poor German gets some good-natured abuse to the tune of ‘Dirty Old Town’. My son loves it. It is an incredible, emotional couple of days which see Celtic into the quarter-final, where we will face Liverpool.
‘See you at Anfield’, says the scoreboard.
But I won’t be there. I’ve been based down in Merseyside for work for a few years and so I’m chuffed to receive and happy to accept an invitation to hospitality from one of our software contractors. Then, just the night before the game, my mum unexpectedly passes away. Out of the blue. God has taken her first. He has his reasons. As the Hoops are stunning hosts Liverpool, we are hosting stunned family and mourning a loving, wonderful mum.
We were never losing that game. She will never walk alone.
I watch us qualify for the final on television, with my dad, on the longest night, then I take my sons to Seville. I am one ticket short, so my 9-year-old daughter misses out, something I regret to this day. She is the most devoted Celtic supporter you will ever meet, with never a word of criticism to be heard. She absolutely deserves to see the Hoops on that stage, and I have no doubt that her day will come.
In September, I have to cancel a trip to Munich, as some kind-hearted soul decides to break into our home and steal our car and possessions, whilst we are sleeping upstairs, just a few days beforehand. I sincerely hope you are/were lucky in life, my friend. You ruined ours, at a particularly difficult time.
I would catch up with Roy and the Bhoys in Brussels the next month, a city with more Irish bars than Dublin it would appear. A fabulous opportunity to break the European ‘away hoodoo’ is passed up, as 17-year-old Vincent Kompany and his Anderlecht team grab a 1-0 win. It will cost us qualification. That will be it for Europe for me as well this season. Three days before Bayern come to Glasgow, my beloved dad, having ensured that the love of his life would not be left alone here, took his leave to join her.
The following spring, there is a first trip to Barcelona with Celtic, our newly-purchased sombreros acting as gutters, as yet again the rain in Spain falls mainly on the Hoops support. We’re up in the gods beside the Camp Nou clock to watch David Marshall give the performance of his life, as the matchstick Bhoys far below defy Ronaldinho and co, to add the silky Catalunyan giants to our list of major scalps.
We will be back in Barcelona several times, and Manchester, Milan and Lisbon, to the point where the Champions League draw has become Groundhog Day. We want Madrid. Or Dortmund. Or even Rome. We get the latter but I am taking my daughter there. And now we are heading to Copenhagen again.
I’ve returned from Cluj with the mother and father of all coughs, feeling like my own time has come. It’s man flu at its worst, so, obviously, the women in my life don’t get it. ‘Can’t believe you’re floating about Romania in that weather, at your age. Hell mend you.’ No sympathy whatsoever. Wummin, eh? So, Christmas is cancelled and a horrible day at Celtic Park at the end of the month sees off Hogmanay.
But I’m in a better place now, as we set off for Copenhagen. My wife had reached a landmark age in the summer, which wasn’t forty or sixty, and we had booked some close-seas…I mean winter sunshine on a Caribbean cruise. Sunshine and travel are another two of my favourite things, which don’t always involve Celtic, and we have a brilliant couple of weeks ticking off ‘bucket list’ items.
Touring Havana in a vintage American car, then visiting the monument to Che Guevara before sinking a Mojito in the Nacional hotel where scenes from The Godfather were filmed.
Bizarrely, I find a replica of the trophy which the Lions won in the Lisbon estadio of the same name on display there. In the ‘Hall of the Famous People’. How very appropriate. Sailing down the Panama Canal on a cruise liner, with literally inches to spare on either side. A unique experience.
Then setting foot on South American soil for the first time, in beautiful Cartegena in northern Colombia. Lovely cold Corona beers are going down a treat in the hot afternoon sun until I give the waiter the local sign for ‘no more, finished’, which he seems to take great exception to. No idea what happened there but we leave, promptly.
There are stops in Mexico, Costa Rica and Grand Cayman before the highlight, a visit to the neighbourhood and former home of Bob Marley in Trenchtown, a suburb of Kingston, Jamaica. Bob had a love of Celtic, managing to squeeze our line, ‘If you know the history’ into his hit song, ‘Buffalo Soldier’, and meeting Dixie, Dixie, Dixie, Dixie, Dixie Deans, when both legends were in Australia. Only regret is that we are in Jamaica and everyone is extremely chilled about timings, so I don’t manage to hook up again with Simon, who I met on one of my Celtic Park tours last year and who lives there.
Next time, big man. Here a few snaps from this wonderful experience, then it’s back to the football on the next page.
