Crerand Blasts "Dreadful Gers"

[Briton 394]

Yes we are poor but we are two points off his beloved Celtic with a better goal difference. He's dead right about the standards but it applies across the board not just to us. Shows where he's coming from. As for Broadfoot being a Junior player, a stupid thing to say.

[kingtom28 8]

crerrand is just an arse hole

[papaguy51 912]

crerrand is just an arse hole

Mate, you don't NEED to put an emoticon at the start and end of everything you type!

[ross1873 1]

Right he is Right by saying Broadffot is shite,but saying he should be playing non League is just showing his biassed, and with him being a plastic paddy and slagging Rangers like this just shows he's a fenion bastard.

how come none of our managers come out and defend some of our players that are getting slagged of wankers like him

hope this makes Broadfoot more determind now.

Early contender for the worst post of 2009?

It can absolutely count on my vote.

count my vote too.

[wallaceIII 0]

the guys a typical cuntbag but can you really argue? the teams pish right now and thats either due to the players or Walter Smith or both. Kirk Broadfoot has to be the worst football player I've ever seen in my life...even my side's right back over here in Canada would do better then him.

[BLUEDIGNITY 33,684]

Remind me here again who had the ghypsy in his ticket pocket in the 4-2 game ?

[BLUEDIGNITY 33,684]

How many lies can you spot in this shite ?

FROM an impoverished childhood in the Gorbals to fame and fortune at the top of the beautiful game, Paddy Crerand spent his lifetime rising to some of the toughest challenges a sportsman can face.

But the Manchester United and Celtic legend has now revealed the most frightening and dangerous fixture of his career: a midnight meeting in 1970s Derry with the leadership of the Republican movement, including several IRA men.

Crerand reveals in his memoirs, published tomorrow, that he travelled to the city in a bid to resolve a split in the nationalist community caused by the rent strikes of 1975. And although he does not reveal the identities of those he met in Never Turn The Other Cheek, Crerand has told Scotland on Sunday that one of the IRA men present at the meeting was Martin McGuinness, now Deputy First Minister of the province.

Having won a European Cup winner's medal in 1968 - the year after Celtic's triumph in Lisbon - Crerand had retired from playing in 1972 after 396 appearances for United and 16 caps for Scotland. In 1975, he was the assistant manager of Manchester United, and was rumoured to be a possible successor to the legendary Jock Stein as manager at Celtic.

Crerand came from a Republican background and was even accused during the 1970s of having connections with the IRA - a claim he flatly denies. But his own account of a secret nighttime dash into the heart of Derry to meet Republicans, including IRA members, will astonish the football world.

"I was a big friend of John Hume, who was then a teacher in Derry," said Crerand, whose aunt rented out her house in Donegal every summer to the man who would later win a Nobel Peace Prize. Crerand and Hume met in 1960 and Crerand was struck by Hume as "an impressive figure".

The friendship would lead to Crerand's personal intervention in 1975 in the simmering row between Hume's Social Democratic and Labour Party and the more extreme Republicans.

They had fallen out over the tactic of trying to hurt the authorities by refusing to pay rent. That had resulted in electricity and water being cut off in some cases, and the movement was torn between moderates who wanted to negotiate a deal and more militant Republicans who wanted to press on.

Crerand said: "I got to know John very well and used to go out for a drink with him, which was a big problem in Donegal because everybody wanted to hit him. John was a middle of the road type and it was a very Republican area, so I had to defend him all the time.

"In 1975, people weren't going to pay their rates or rent in Derry, so I said to John: 'This can't go on. Ordinary people will suffer and you are never going to solve this unless you speak to people.'

"He said: 'They [the Republican movement] won't speak to me.' I said to John: 'I'll see what I could do,' so, with the help of a friend of mine, the late Jim Harkin, I organised a meeting with them in Derry."

Crerand was under no illusion that the Republicans agreed to see him because he was a "master of political dialogue". Rather, they spoke to him "because I had been a well-known footballer". The encounter took place in a 'safe house' in Glenfada Park in the Bogside, and Crerand recalled there was no doubt about who was the senior person present.

"Martin McGuinness was obviously the leader of the pack," he said. "I know there were 10 because they were all in the 'team picture' that was taken. They were all football fans of whatever teams they supported - Celtic, Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool. All different teams, but mostly United.

"I just went in to talk to them. They weren't political at all. They were all working class lads and right, left or centre, all they wanted was the Brits out of Ireland. It was not a political movement, and only became political afterwards.

"I said to them: 'Why won't you speak to John Hume?' I pointed out to them the people who were against the Republicans were all together, 'but you lot are all fighting with each other. What chance have you got? If you all get together and become one, it gives you a bigger voice', but they didn't want to know.

"We spoke mostly about football, but they were adamant they were going to do their own thing. I told them they were all f***ing mad. You get six Irishmen in a pub anywhere and they'll all fall out with each other, and they were all just like that."

In his memoirs, Crerand adds: "I told them they needed to become political and renounce violence if they wanted to achieve their aims, and that the only way of solving their problems was by dialogue, and by not shooting each other."

He added: "I didn't think of it as a courageous thing. It was 2am and the army was everywhere and the relative who had come with me was petrified, especially when we had to drive back across the border at that time in the morning, which was not a healthy thing to do.

"I went back and told John what had happened and nothing came of it. I never met Martin McGuinness again until George Best's funeral [in December 2005].

"We were sitting in Stormont, Martin McGuinness was sitting behind us along with [Progressive Unionist leader] David Irvine. I was a big admirer of Irvine. He was one of those fellows I thought could get them all together. I spoke to him that day and he told me that he and Martin were as close as anything. Unfortunately he died a few months later. He was a leftie like me - he was a big loss to Northern Ireland."

Crerand's views of the Troubles emanated from his lifelong socialism, instilled in him by a childhood in abject poverty in the Gorbals.

"The Protestant people in Northern Ireland were used and abused by the British - how could you have working-class people living in poverty voting Tory? You looked at two working-class people shooting each other and you asked how was that possible. It was divide and conquer, the British trait from the year dot."

But Crerand is "amazed and delighted" that peace has come to Northern Ireland: "I never thought I'd see Martin McGuinness sit down with Ian Paisley, and I thank God for it."

Key moments on and off the field

Born at 260 Crown Street in the Gorbals on February 19, 1939. Both parents were immigrants from Donegal. His father Michael is killed in the Clydebank Blitz in March, 1941.

• Crerand's brother John, a Rangers supporter, dies at the age of 12 of rheumatic fever.

• Educated at St Luke's Primary and Holyrood School, Glasgow.

Debut for Celtic, October 4, 1958 in 3-1 defeat of Queen of the South. Plays 120 games for Celtic.

• Makes full debut for Scotland in May, 1961, against Republic of Ireland, for whom he was also qualified to play. Refuses to sing God Save the Queen. Wins 16 caps.

• Transfers to Manchester United for fee of £43,000, February 6, 1963.

• Marries Noreen Ferry, June 24, 1963. Children: Patrick, Lorraine and Danny.

• Meets republicans in Bogside, 1975, but fails to persuade them to meet John Hume.

Memoirs published tomorrow: Paddy Crerand - Never Turn the Other Cheek, HarperSport, £18.99.

The full article contains 1266 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.