CELTIC fans are beginning to put their minds to celebrating the life of Cesar, just as the McNeill family requested in their saddest of statements on the club’s official website yesterday morning where the official news of Billy’s passing was announced.
The scale of media attention from around the world has been incredible, but Big Billy was incredible and it was no more than he deserved for everything that he achieved in his life.
One idea that will be going ahead is displaying these posters across Glasgow on and around 25 May, the Scottish Cup final day when Celtic can win an historic treble treble at Hampden. Of course 25 May is also the date that Billy lifted the European Cup aloft in Lisbon.
The Celtic players will want to pay their respects too and just as was previously done for Jimmy Johnstone at the League Cup Final in March 2006, days after Jinky’s passing when the team all wore Number 7 jersey, the Celtic players should all wear the Number 5 jersey on their backs and their shorts on 25 May against Hearts.
To celebrate the life of King Billy,looking at printing 100 odd of these to give out for free,to plaster city centre and route to Hampden with night before the cup final just trying to see people’s thoughts @CelticFCSLO @CelticGossip @StandForCeltic #billymcneill #onekingbilly pic.twitter.com/jKxeKgkviU
— leftwing badges (@Leftwingbadges) April 23, 2019
Then there is the North Stand. We have the Lisbon Lions Stand and the Jock Stein stand and now the North Stand should be remained the Hail Cesar Stand to honour Billy McNeill.
On Sunday Celtic dropped a few points at Easter Road and it is fair to say that the support was pretty much displeased with both the performance and the result that meant there would be no title party this Saturday.
Big Billy has even in his passing, transformed all of that. Celtic Park on Saturday is going to be more emotional that any title party, because it’s a much more important day now. It’s our chance to come together – 60,000 Celtic Supporters – to collectively pay our respects to our centre half, our captain, our leader, our manager, our Ambassador, our iconic figure, our greatest ever captain, ‘a Celtic God’ as David Potter called him yesterday.
And in doing that the support and the player will all raise their game – because of Billy McNeill. Because of Cesar.
The posters that are going to be splashed around Glasgow on phone boxes and the likes happened in 2017 when we celebrated 50 years since Lisbon. Last night the new BBC Scotland channel broadcast the brilliant Lisbon Lions documentary from 2017 (I was pleased to get a mention in the credits at the end of what was a superb documentary).
Another thing that happened back in 2017 was at Firhill when as a tribute to the Lisbon Lions the away support had a brilliant display of Lisbon like Celtic flags and banners.
Have a look at the images from Firhill in May 2017. We should look at doing this again on 25 May and if the guys that organised it last time need any help and financial backing to get this sorted for Hampden on 25 May then they should let us know and we’ll be happy to lead the crowd funding effort to cover the costs.
