Leading sports lawyer Gregory Ioannidis has taken to Twitter to detail a story about Shunsuke Nakamura during his time at Celtic. Ioannidis, who deals with football agents on a regular basis, said that he was at Lennoxtown for a player’s medical and was told that a castle nearby the training ground was the home to the Japanese superstar.
I took a client up at @CelticFC training ground for his medical back in 2008. There was a nice castle up in the hill. “That’s Nakamura’s house” I was told.
Truth is when he first joined, he asked whether he could live there!
Fun story about a great player! #football #agent— Gregory Ioannidis (@LawTop20) August 11, 2021
Back in 2008, Ioannidis took this player to Lennoxtown and was told the story about Naka wanting to buy the derelict mansion when he first arrived at Lennoxtown himself in October 2007 as they opened the new training facilities. The player clearly fancied a short commute to training when Celtic moved to Lennoxtown. The club must have found this funny and as a result, Ioannidis was told that “That’s Nakamura’s house”.
The castle was built as a manor for a wealthy Glasgow family but in the mid-1900s, the mansion actually became a hospital, called Lennox Castle. The site was also used as a psychiatric facility at one point during its span as an active hospital until it closed in early 2003. Nakamura’s status as a top talent in European football and Japanese hero made his move to Celtic quite surprising but during that time, he was a revelation for the club. During his time with Celtic, Naka won 3 League Titles, 1 Scottish Cup and 2 League Cups during his time with the club.
Well I’m never calling it anything but Naka’s hoose from now on…
It then was a maternity home from the early forties till the sixties. I know that because I was born there in 1949.
Eddie