Fergus McCann

Main stand should be named in his honour imo , no fergus = no celtic, hail hail the bunnet

 

Cheers buddy

Just can't understand how anyone now can look back on what he done for us and STILL complain about some of the things he done.

Totally agree.

We stopped them getting the 10 and he saved the club from going under yet he got booed. First title in * years and what was the reception? A bunch of boos.

I remember the dark days of the 90s but I wouldn't even have THOUGHT about booing him.

I think this is a lot of it as well - the media. He wasn't the sort of guy to pander to anyone, he done what he believed was right for the LONG term future of the club and didn't bow down to the SFA or even UEFA. Or anyone for that matter, even with some of the players.

He may have taken this £40m - or however much it was - when he left but look at the effort, time, money and commitment he put into the club. He could have just thought "* it" and done nothing but he came in, acted as a guarantor against the £7m debt we had then, and started putting a plan in place to completely turn the club around.

If it wasn't for him we wouldn't have enjoyed the Seville run, the fantastic Champions League games against the likes of Barcelona, AC Milan and Juventus, STOPPING their 10-in-a-row effort, the 6-2 Demolition Derby and I don't think we'd be where we are today - 20 points ahead in the league and going for our second treble within the space of a decade.

All for naming a stand after him too

 

Just watched the celtic tv interview with wee Fergus. Very, smart, modest and honest man.

Good watch if you haven't already seen it.

 

I hated that guy. He ran Celtic in my late teens and I thought he was holding the club back unnecessarily with his old-fashioned penny-pinching ideas.
My point is I didn't hate him because I'm a *; I hated him because I was a naive young man, with no grasp of financial reality who uncritically accepted what I read in the newspapers. I think too many people get their thoughts second hand via the media rather than thinking for themselves. This is a problem; but the people booing him weren't all morons...just temporarily bamboozled.

Edit: clear thinking on this matter was not helped by the fact that the bullshitting media mentioned above were able to point to a Rangers who were no bigger than us, yet appeared to be able to afford all the things the columnists said we should be doing and that Fergus (thankfully) wasn't doing.

 

I want Fergus McCann to unveil the Championship flag next season so we can all show our gratitude to the man who saved Celtic. I would love that to happen and id be all for nameing a stand after him. The wee guy must be getting on a bit now...Cmon Celtic and the Celtic fans lets get him over here and show him our appreciation before its too late. Its not often if ever i can say im am ashamed to be Celtic fan but the day we booed him when he unveiled the league flag after stopping 10-in-a-row was a DISGRACE.

 

Like I said earlier in this thread it's easy to say that now because history has been kind to him but a lot of things happened in the build up to that day that caused that to occur.

It's amazing the amount of people who think it was a DISGRACE yet at the time most people seemed to be on the same page.

Anybody would think that there is a lot of revisionism going on...

 

Always thought any criticism of FM came from people who didn't know enough to have the right to open their mouths about it.
Celtic's saviour - a man maligned for saving a club when every time the hunfucks get some new * in the big chair, every man and his dog believe him to be some 'knight in shining armour' - even including said Celtic supporters jealous of a bunch of thieves and robbers.
Still, hopefully everyone will have seen the light by now.
I have to say I'm surprised there has been no lasting acknowledgement in the form of a plaque, statue, or stand named after him

 

I think the majority of the boos probably were from fans who thought he WAS penny pinching and not opening up the purse strings but I'm sure, now in hindsight, a lot of the fans that booed him can see now that he was just wanting to make sure the club was financially secure. He could have done what the owner of Dead Hun FC done and threw money about but thankfully he didn't do that, and he didn't do that BECAUSE he actually cared for the club and wasn't only in it to make a fast buck, just like Craig Whyte and Chuck Green for example.

I was 20 when he came in and rescued the club in '94 so I was in my early 20s when he was in charge of the club and being that age I was probably just as naive about the financial side as a lot of fans probably were, but I wouldn't have ever dreamed of booing the guy that saved our club from dying. He saved the club, acted as guarantor for the £7m debt that we had at the time, invested in the club, made the club a PLC which resulted in the most successful share issue for a football club which in turn helped raise the funds for the fantastic new stadium, and paved the way for the club to be financially secure.

We were already branded by the media as having a "biscuit-tin" mentality because of the previous board's lack of spending, and with McCann not throwing wads of money everywhere it just fed the media fire and unfortunately I believe a lot of fans were suckered into believing the media. Mix that with seeing Hun FC massively overspending on players which they couldn't afford made it seem as though McCann WAS just in it to make a buck for himself. But he never gave a * about that and stuck to his "5-year plan" and it worked out. Hun FC are dead because of their stupid "for every £5 Celtic spend, we'll spend £10" mentality and we, on the other hand, are on a really good financial footing.

The bottom line is, though, he rescued our club from death, and while we have gradually become more & more financially stable, we have all at the same time witnessed the club we loved to hate die and crumble into nothingness.

We have profited from having a "biscuit-tin" mentality while the filth have crashed and burned due to their reckless spending and I, for one, wouldn't have it any other way

 

the boo,s were for only one reason ,we went 9 year without the title and had just won the thing , we were still celebrating when it was confirmed we were getting rid of jannssen as he could not work with our chief exec and wee mccann was sideing with our chief exec.

 

Best post I've read on here for a while

 

I have to agree with this,i remember feeling a lot of pain over that and i despised that * Brown ,no way on *`s green earth should that man ever have set foot in our club.

 

On the issue of him being booed, let's not forget that this was in the middle of the Bhoys Against Bigotry stuff.

At that game, a banner was unvelied by Celtic fans that said "We're Irish and we're Celtic fans but we're not bigots Mr McCann." This was confiscate by the police during the game. There was a strong feeling at over that campaign and clearly this also had a part to play in the reaction which McCann got.

It was a bit of a sorry time and I am sure that McCann implied that Tommy Burns and Davie Hay were 'catholic bigots' around that time after they had lent their criticism to the campaign.

 

He still did not deserve to be booed on the day we unfirled the flag for the first time on 9 years. He saved is from dying. Despite all the other *, he deserved respect.

 

Watched the interview on Celtic TV, good to watch it since I would have been only 7 when this happened. Also good to see opinions on why people at the time had negative opinions of FM to put it all in perspective.

 

You know what's amazing about Fergus McCann? Unless you're a die-hard Celtic supporter, chances are his fellow Canadians (I'm one) know very, very, very little about the man.

Nothing is ever wrote about him over here. Nothing. No interviews. Nothing.

Grossly under-rated/underappreciated in his own country, sadly.

 

Jansen only wanted a one-year contract in the first place anyway, but he and the club agreed to a three-year deal with both parties agreeing to the option of terminating the contract after only just one year if Jansen still wished to do so. Plus the club never got rid of Jansen - Jansen resigned with him stating that it was due to having differences between Jock Brown & McCann.

Taken from the CelticWiki -

One thing I didn't agree with McCann on was the appointment of a Football General Manager (Jock Brown) to work alongside the manager (Jansen). For me, it should always be down to the manager and the manager only on what happens with the team.

Regardless of what happened between the club and Jansen, though, I just believe that there was a lot more to it than what appeared at the time and the boos towards the man that saved our club from dying was unwarranted. If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't be here today looking forward to playing Juventus in the last 16 of the Champions League.

 

l hope he's invited back and honoured properly for what he did whilst he is still with us.

 

As I've said before I booed that day for the reasons above I thought Wim Jansen was treated poorly by fergus saying he would have sacked him anyway,but I do regret it now the man done all he said he would and also saved our great club and yes it would be fitting to have him back sometime

 

Rumours around the club at the time were that Jansen was a very strange man, awkward and difficult to work with.

You should have a read of Jock Brown's book - 'Celtic Minded'.

I'm not saying Jock Brown was right, but there are always 2 sides to every story.

 

No offence but I wouldn't believe a word that comes out browns fat face he never sold Di Canio he was traded for Reggie Blinker plus £5 million thrown in