John Glass was born in 1851, at the Broomielaw, in one of the poorest slums in Glasgow. He hailed from proud Donegal stock, his parents having fled Ireland to escape the devastation of An Gorta Mor. A glazier by trade, John took up employment as general manager of his brother’s successful wood merchant and builder’s business in the Gallowgate. The business employed many of the city’s Irish population, which inspired Glass to meet regularly with Dr John Conway and Brother Walfrid, to discuss ways of tackling the poverty that surrounded them, particularly within the Irish community.
As a strong and stocky individual, Glass is said to have possessed a presence and sense of authority which was impossible to ignore. These qualities were invaluable when he became Celtic’s first President, Brother Walfrid’s right-hand man and, ultimately, the man who made things happen for the club. He worked day and night to ensure that Celtic had a stadium and team good enough to prosper, and so devoted to the Celtic cause was Glass that he never missed a single committee meeting from the club’s inception in 1887 to his death in 1906!
The importance of Celtic’s progression was key. Celtic was one of an estimated 40 Irish football clubs in Scotland at the time. Most failed to survive, including at least two other clubs that were also named Celtic! The foresight and financial support of people like John Glass enabled Celtic to maintain its competition with the establishment clubs of the time, such as Queen’s Park, who treated Irish-influenced clubs with much disdain and, indeed, refused to sign players of Irish Catholic extraction. Thus, the involvement of those like John Glass, after the founding of the club, was essential in terms of allowing the initial ideas of Brother Walfrid to come to fruition.
His finest hour in the battle for the club’s survival was when he persuaded James Kelly to join Celtic on 28 May 1888. That same day, Kelly scored in Celtic’s first-ever match, a 5-2 victory against Rangers at the original Celtic Park! James Kelly was an exceptional talent who had been capped for Scotland, and his capture was a star signing, ensuring that an early interest was generated in Celtic Football Club. Enticing a player of this calibre to a fledgling Irish club was not easy, particularly when faced with stiff competition from more established clubs of the type, such as Hibernian.
John Glass died on 2 June 1906. His legacy lives on in the sense that without him, there would be no Celtic. He is laid to rest at Dalbeth Cemetery in Glasgow’s East End.
Willie Maley, perhaps perfectly, summed up his importance to Celtic in his book, back in 1938.
“John Glass is the man to whom the club owes its existence, as he never shirked from that time till the day of his death to further the project which to him appealed as his life work.”
