Remembering David Potter – The historian who told the stories of Celtic’s legends

Remembering David Potter…So, what do I know about David Potter, who sadly died recently on 29 July 2023?

I’ve been collecting books about Celtic F.C. for many a year, probably getting really serious around the early 1980s.

I had a few already by then, The Celtic Story by James Handley (Brother Clare), a good few of the Lisbon Lions’ early autobiographies, such as Simpson, McNeill, Gemmell, Johnstone etc., and a couple by Gerald McNee. I mention McNee because his book on Jimmy McGrory – A Lifetime in Paradise – really introduced me in some detail to Mr McGrory’s playing career and not just his duties as manager, which I had grown up with in the late ’50s and early ’60s. That ‘pre WWII’ era fascinated me and it became a main interest. The Celtic Story helped with that as well.

So by the early ’90s I was really into Celtic books, buying them as and when they came out.

I bought a book in 1996 called Our Bhoys Have Won The Cup by a David W Potter, who was a new author of Celtic literature back then. The book was excellent, as it chronicled what was at that time Celtic’s favourite trophy, the Bhoys having won it 30 times, so a favourite because we had won it more than any other club.

This was the first book of its time to going through year by year our victorious campaigns in finite detail and it was a bible to Celtic fans at that time.

The Scottish League Cup was given similar treatment a few years later.

In between those two, David wrote a book on Patsy Gallacher, The Mighty Atom. That was the first time, other than the McGrory biography mentioned earlier, that a book had been published detailing the life and times of an early century Celtic player, in Patsy’s case a Celtic Park career which lasted from 1911-1926. As I said earlier, I loved this period, so from then on I paid attention to those David W Potter publications.

Over the years there were frequent releases to keep us all interested, books on Celtic Since McCann, Bobby Murdoch and a collaboration with Tom Campbell on Jock Stein’s Celtic… but there was to follow a period where I believe David excelled in, producing biographies on Willie Maley, Jimmy Quinn, Jimmy Delaney, Tommy McInally, Sunny Jim Young and Sandy McMahon.

All of these books introduced us to real Celtic Legends of days gone by and I’m sure they inspired guys like Celtic Graves Society, Brendan Sweeney and Ian McCallum to document in great great detail the Celtic history of the early 1900s.

I’ve left a book out of that list of biographies, and for good reason. That is David’s book on James McMenemy: Celtic’s Napoleon, written and published in 2012. It was around this time that I first started liaising with David via e-mail, and he sent me a pre-release copy with a nice wee dedication included, for which I was deeply honoured. With a nice wee dedication included.

So without David Potter, we in the ‘Celtic book space’ would have little or no idea of what went on. He produced many – 32, I believe to date, (with two on Kindle) – brilliant accounts of all things Celtic, history, biographies, match and season accounts and stats. The documenting of 125 Years of Celtic Competitive Matches and his Changing Face Of Celtic Park are much referenced pieces of work.

David has left us with a fantastic legacy, I for one am truly grateful

I do hope that there are a few more sitting in his archive yet to be unearthed.

I know there’s a “Forever” book somewhere out there and that David submitted his final manuscript to The Celtic Star which details the story of Celtic in the 1980s. I believe that Matt Corr will be editing that and that the book will be published in the next year or so.

…cannae wait.

Peter Marshall