Where is it now the glory and the dream?'

Tell us more about The Glory & the Dream. How did you approach the process, how did the club help or otherwise, and how well received was the book?

Tom Campbell: “The Glory & the Dream was a genuine collaboration. You could say that Pat did the research, and I did the writing… but that’s not entirely accurate. Often, I would recollect certain incidents or references and Pat would be on the trail like Sherlock Holmes and fill in the specific details, and frequently Pat would spot what he called ‘Americanisms’ in my writing and hasten to correct them.

How does it feel to now know that The Glory & the Dream is widely regarded as the greatest history ever written about the club?

Tom Campbell: “In a recent visit home (November 2016) I attended a book launch at Celtic Park, and was genuinely touched by the comments of so many. About a year ago I had some health issues, and I appreciated the best wishes of so many of my peers.

When did you decide to write the biography of Bobby Evans?

Tom Campbell: “Bobby Evans has always been a particular hero of mine, and I had often wondered at the lack of recognition he has received. I started writing segments of the biography about three years ago. If you are interested in the process, sometimes I don’t work chronologically (from the beginning to the end, as it happened). Instead, frequently, I treat a book like a jigsaw puzzle and do various sections as much as I can… and then at a later date join them all up. That’s what I did with this book: I started with his brief wartime period with St Anthony’s… and then went into the scandal he endured at the time he joined Chelsea in 1960… and then his squabble with the SFA round about 1950. After that, I was able to get back to a chronological order more or less. I should say that once again I got a lot of help (and material) from Pat at different times and had to go back and forth to insert that seamlessly if possible. Too often football biographies are merely a recounting of the highlights of famous players’ careers, complete with well-rehearsed anecdotes. I think that they deserve a bit more than that, and also (with my own advancing years) I’m aware that many readers are not old enough to remember the times or conditions Bobby Evans played in. So, there was an obligation, I felt, to attempt to provide a background for Bobby’s story.”