The words Bertie Auld sang in Lisbon, and did so ever so proudly

They say kids are intuitive, don’t they? And I think that is true. I spent today travelling north from London, before meeting a good friend who himself had lost a friend today and tried at least to keep his mind off his loss. However temporarily.

I then headed home, watched and reported on a Celtic team who made a Cup Final for The Celtic Star, before running a bath for my six-year-old and preparing for another ordinary Sunday night, in preparation for another run of the mill Monday morning.

It was then the phone rumbled with that first text message from that same friend, telling me of the passing of Bertie Auld.

Perhaps my mood changed, perhaps my heart sank, and perhaps the front you are taught to portray slipped for a moment. But my six-year-old sensed it. He asked me if I was okay and I told him a Celtic player had died. He asked me who it was, and I knew he’d be worried it would be the player he calls Mr McGregor, so I explained it was an old Celtic player, one of the Lisbon Lions. ‘You mean one form the photograph on the wall?’ Yes, one of those I said’. Another one I thought.

With every passing year, one by one, those famous men pass on. Such is the passing of time and the close proximity of their ages, I guess the inevitability of it being a regular occurrence now rings true. But they say legends live on in the passing of their stories. So, after towelling my lad down and drying his hair, he asked me to show him which player it was.

It was already therapeutic to talk about Bertie out loud, explain he was the effervescent character in a team of individuals who blended into the greatest football team in Scottish football history, never mind the legends of Celtic as a football club alone.

So, I explained for my own sake as much as his, why Bertie Auld was the fan with the shirt, the man with the stories to tell and the one who wore his heart on his sleeve.

But my lad just wanted to see the face on that picture, wanted to put an image to the story of the man he probably, even now as he lies on the couch beside me as I type this, has little idea of the significance of the man’s place in Celtic folklore and history. Not only as one of our most influential players, but also as one of our most everlasting supporters.

And just like you, me, and the lad lying beside me right now could claim to be a fan, Bertie can claim that first and foremost, but could also claim that place as one of the greatest legends ever to grace the Hoops.

Yet I wonder if he ever thought that honour was anything more than fortitude, an opportunity handed to him which other Celtic supporters may not have achieved, yet an opportunity and experience he simply wished to share with every supporter he came across from then until now.

Was he honoured to be a Lisbon Lion? You bet he was. But was he honoured to be a Celtic supporter who achieved that legendary and immortal status? I can’t answer that but I have a fair inkling as to the answer.

So now he has gone and with him another brick in the wall of Celtic’s immortal Lisbon Lions. Yet Bertie Auld lives on. He lives on with every intuitive kid who asks you tonight who Bertie Auld was and why you are sad. And when you show him that image on your wall and explain he was that man, the one with the shirt who sang in Lisbon and regaled us all with the stories for years to come, it doesn’t stop there.

Instead, you pass it on and your intuitive and inquisitive kid will soak it up, take the image and the stories to his heart and when you too are gone will pick up the baton and pass it on again.

Because that is the Celtic Song, the words Bertie Auld sang in Lisbon, and did so ever so proudly.

‘For its a grand old team to play for’, as it is to support. And when it comes to Bertie Auld, I doubt he differentiated between the two. It was just as much an honour to follow as it was to play for Celtic, and that is worth passing on tonight.

Niall J