CELTIC'S greatest captain Billy McNeill is to be honoured with a statue outside of Celtic Park.
The man who became the first British footballer to hold aloft the European Cup is to have a permanent tribute to him at the stadium. The statue will be unveiled on December 19 ahead of a league game with Motherwell.
Big Billy, know to all as 'Cesar' won nine league titles, seven Scottish Cups, six Scottish Cups and the European Cup, making 790 appearances and scoring 35 goals. No player has played more times for Celtic.
On the Celtic website, Celtic Chief Executive Peter Lawwell, said: “Billy McNeill is all that’s great about Celtic. He’s been voted our Greatest Ever Captain by supporters, and rightly so.
"He stands for everything that Celtic stands for and he’s a leader. He has the right values in terms of family, respect, humility - a magnificent man on and off the park and this statue is a fitting tribute to him as one of Celtic’s all-time greats.”
Billy is also delighted to be honoured in this way and when the creation of the statue was announced earlier in the year Billy said: “'When Peter contacted me regarding the statue I was completely taken by surprise.
He said: "Whenever I walk up the Celtic Way, I look on with a great sense of pride at the sight of Brother Walfrid, Big Jock and my old team-mate and friend Jinky rightly taking their place almost as guardians of Celtic Park.
"Every time I look back at this special club's history and what we achieved it fills me with joy, and now to be told I am to be honoured beside these Celtic greats, this really is a special day for me and all my family."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel