The departure of Maurice Johnston from Celtic in 1987 was bad enough, but big Billy also had to contend at the same time with the loss of Alan McInally, Brian McClair and Murdo MacLeod.
He succeeded to such an extent that Celtic won the double in the Centenary year, but while the board had backed the manager that season with money to spend on players, it was clear that this was a team that wasn’t going to last much more than one season.
We waited to see what would happen during the summer of 1988 to strengthen the club from a position of success but the only new signing was Ian Andrews, a man who did goalkeeper impersonations.
The spirit of ‘88 soon evaporated in the wake of some poor league performances and the skids were promptly put in place under another title challenge. Rangers were being moulded into an implacable foe under the Murray/ Souness axis and they seemed determined to hammer as many nails as they could into Celtic’s coffin in as short a time as possible.
League form notwithstanding, Celtic had managed a more consistent run in the cup and were due to meet Rangers in the 1989 final. The bad news was that Frank McAvennie had been sold for £1.25 million to West Ham and Andy Walker was suffering from an eye injury that would keep him out of the game. With such a shortage of striking power the prospect of finishing the season with a trophy looked like little more
than wishful thinking. Until, that is, hope arrived from a most unlikely quarter.
With the final looming on May 20th, we awoke bleary eyed on the 12th to the headline “All One Big Happy Family Again”.
Maurice Johnston was coming back.
It was scarcely believable. Not only were we about to re-sign a potent striker, but the board had allowed Billy McNeill to spend a new Scottish record fee of £1.2 million.
In the understatement of the decade McNeill paid tribute to the new all-singing, all-spending board: “I have not spent a million pounds before. It is something you could worry about but not in this case. Of course it’s a lot of money but I had the easiest job in the world persuading the board that it was good value.”
If Jack McGinn’s embarrassing coin tossing to pay the restaurant bill when Johnston had originally signed was anything to go on (see NTV 173), Billy had clearly won the best of three.
The player himself had appeared on national television to confirm that he was signing for Celtic and that he still had appalling taste in clothes as he sported a pullover that resembled the aftermath of an explosion in Remnant Kings.
Positively beaming, he declared in front of the cameras that he had rejected other offers in order to come back and play for his beloved Hoops: “I always wanted to play for Celtic and I still do.”
On a more intimate note, he revealed that his spell on the continent playing for Nantes had matured him – made a fine Camembert out of a Kraft cheese slice – and he wanted his daughter to grow up in Scotland and go to a Scottish school (something Johnston himself did on a rather ad hoc basis).
As it transpired later, Johnston had been making noises about coming back to Celtic some months before while on international duty. Roy Aitken made it clear to him that Billy McNeill was interested and told Johnston to phone McNeill, which he duly did.
In his autobiography McNeill recalled this telephone conversation with Johnston: “I warned him that I was no mood to be messed about, but he insisted that his intentions were honourable. I then asked Mo if his agent, Bill McMurdo, would be involved in any negotiations, but he again assured me that he would be handling that side of things himself.”
At this juncture the manager discussed the putative transfer with his board of directors and they then made overtures to Nantes that were received favourably. The clubs agreed the fee and the money was to be made available from the Frank McAvennie transfer.
Arrangements were made for Johnston to travel to Celtic Park to begin talking about his personal terms and a car was hired for his use. According to Billy McNeill, discussions went without a hitch and a deal was quickly agreed.
Jack McGinn, and director, Chris White, travelled to Nantes to finalise the transfer fee and lodge a deposit of £400,000.
Johnston, meanwhile, signed a letter of agreement, outlining his personal terms, which he appeared delighted with. However, when he returned the rental car, he left his copy of the agreement lying on the front seat. Later it was returned to the club, so Celtic not only had their own copy, they were also in possession of the player’s documentation.
Celtic checked the documentation with representatives of FIFA and were assured that the agreement signed by Johnston complied with their regulations. It was watertight and binding.
In view of this, they felt that it was propitious to go ahead with the press conference on May 12th to announce the return of the prodigal on a four year contract.
In the Glasgow Herald, James Traynor summed up the thoughts of many who were baffled by Johnston’s desire to return to the scene of so many of his personal problems: “Few will be able to comprehend his decision to return to the goldfish bowl existence of top class football in the divided city of Glasgow, but it seems that everyone underestimated the persuasive powers of Billy McNeill.”
It wasn’t all we underestimated.
What we couldn’t know was that things were far from watertight as far as Johnston signing a contract to play for Celtic was concerned. Indeed, like many a venture floated by the board at that time, one or two leaks had already begun to spring.
One of them was that Johnston’s contract was not owned by the player, nor indeed by Nantes, but by a completely separate company, the representative of which was “the flamboyant Bill McMurdo”.
Aware of Celtic’s interest in signing the player, but claiming no knowledge of a press conference arranged at Celtic Park, McMurdo sent his client to Paradise that day armed with a letter outlining the situation. In essence it stated that he couldn’t sign for Celtic until the club had spoken to McMurdo.
These days it doesn’t seem unusual that the ownership of a player’s contract could be held by a company, or a consortium of businessmen, but it appears to have been incomprehensible to Jack McGinn, who still maintains that Celtic would have been prohibited from dealing with any, as he puts it, “outside agency” on the basis that “clubs deal with clubs”.
Not content with leaving important documents lying around in hired cars, Johnston also neglected to show Bill McMurdo’s letter to anybody inside Celtic Park.
At which point the show degenerates into Grand Guignol as they might say in Nantes.
Although he was made aware that Johnston couldn’t put his name to anything meaningful, Jack McGinn is alleged to have put his head round the door of one of the offices and said, “Just kid on you’ve signed, we’ll sort the situation out later”.
The fans travelled to Love Street the following afternoon for the last league game of the season in better spirits than of late and with the distinct feeling that although Johnston couldn’t become a Celtic player until July 1st, it would be alright on the night.
Johnston attended the match as well, travelling on the team bus, and was happy to sign autographs and wave to the fans as one returned from the wilderness.
Celtic won by a single goal courtesy of Joe Miller while at Ibrox, Aberdeen beat the home side by 3:0 in a meaningless show of defiance, the league having already effectively been won by Souness’ men a long time before.
With the feelgood factor far from dissipated, a week later Celtic beat Rangers in the Cup Final by 1:0, Joe Miller again netting the winner. It was some consolation for relinquishing the title in such abject fashion.
As a measure of the balance of power between the respective sides, though, the swingometer had barely twitched back in the direction of the East End. It was actually about to take another rather severe lurch towards Ibrox.
The first hint that all was not well with the Maurice Johnston transfer came as soon as the Monday morning after the game at Love Street when the player failed to show up for a meeting scheduled with Billy McNeill and Jack McGinn.
By the time the SPFA Annual Dinner came around, two weeks after Celtic had done the deal with Nantes, McNeill was becoming aware of rumours linking Johnston with a move to Rangers.
On May 26th Johnston confirmed that there were problems about coming to Celtic. Some points in the contract bothered him, he said, but the trouble was all at the French end. However, two days later the deal had collapsed
According to Graeme Souness, the Rangers manager chanced upon Bill McMurdo inside Ibrox two days after Johnston’s picture had been in the paper showing Maurice bedecked in his Celtic jersey and said, “What are you doing letting Maurice Johnston sign for Celtic?”
Instead of informing Souness that it was what Johnston wanted and that he would be doing everything he possibly could to make sure his player got what he wanted, McMurdo informed Souness that his client was still available. A long-standing admirer of the player, Souness put the idea of signing Johnston to David Murray, got the go-ahead and arranged for further talks with McMurdo.
Although Johnston had been trying to avoid speaking to Billy McNeill, he was finally tracked down at a Scotland training camp. McNeill was clearly not happy at being mucked about: “As soon as I met Johnston my suspicions were confirmed. He was both evasive and, I think, a little embarrassed”.
McNeill left Troon knowing that Celtic had a fight on their hands, but also encouraged by the fact that FIFA had assured the club the letter of agreement was binding. He flew out for a family holiday convinced that the board would be able to put a stop to Johnston and McMurdo’s plan to conclude a deal with Celtic’s arch rivals.
We were all coming to terms with the fact that Johnston wouldn’t be signing for Celtic after all. But it was also important that a weapon we were about to unleash on Rangers was not about to be turned round and used against us. The Celtic manager’s avowed intention was to prevent what he termed “any further monkey business”.
He was given to understand that all Celtic had to do was pay Nantes the balance of the transfer fee. Once they received the £800,000, which was still outstanding, Johnston would officially become a Celtic player.
Whether Celtic could have succeeded in getting Johnston to play was, of course, a different matter, but had they followed the course McNeill implored the board to take, Johnston could not have signed for any other club without Celtic’s blessing and, as far as McNeill was concerned, he would never have been allowed to become a Rangers player.
Talk about having your holiday spoilt. McNeill learned while he was away that the board had dropped all claims on Johnston and were now going to concentrate on signing players who actually wanted to play for the club.
The way was now clear for Rangers to step in, although Johnston himself still insisted on denying rumours that he was on the verge of signing for Souness: “Certainly I won’t go to Rangers. They don’t sign Catholics and anyway, I don’t want to go to Ibrox.”
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