The Official History of Celtic Football Club weighs in at four DVDs and more than seven hours. It is an impressive piece of journalism, a claim which cannot always be made for merchandisewith an official club stamp on it.

This is not the usual attempt to bathe a club's history in a rosy glow. History' delves into periods of turmoil and gives a platform to thosewhose contributions to the club are mired in controversy.

Michael Kelly, the former director eventually ousted by Fergus McCann, is allowed his say. Kelly's arguments defy logic but, as a leading protagonist, his inclusion remains justified. So, too, that of Jock Brown,who had a short but controversial spell as general manager in 1997-98. At one point, Brown rhymes off the successful 97-98 squad, most of whom arrived at the club during his time there, before adding: "Now, don't mistake me, I'mnot taking credit for that ..."

It is gold. Comedy gold.

However, it is the documenting of the McCann era which makes for the most fascinating viewing.

The Scots-Canadian emerges as the key figure in the club's history, along with Jock Stein and Brother Walfrid. In fact, McCann should be remembered as an important figure in British football. His five-year plan was the perfect template for the development of a modern club. He was first to introduce the season ticket culture on a grand scale, which proved to be the platform for the club's prosperous future.

McCann recalls: "The stadium had to be rebuilt and peoplewere saying why don't you just buy the players Fergus? We'll stand in the mud.

But the stadium was a tool. We had to have a season-ticket base.

"Jack McGinnwas saying, We don't want season-ticket holders, they are nothing but trouble.'Well, I just couldn't live with that marketing philosophy at all.The answer is that you have got to fill the park. The average crowd was 28,000 and we built a 60,000- seat stadium. How smart was that?

Well, it was the right thing to do."

McCann also pushed through football's first really successful share flotation. He did so shortly after the club's defeat to Raith Rovers in the 1994 Coca-Cola Cup final, hardly the ideal market conditions.

"I had many doomsayers saying you won't raise money from supporters'," he recalls. "They will talk a lot but they won't put their hands in their pockets'. I remember the night before the deadline I was standing looking out of the window of my office in the Jock Stein lounge. It was a Friday night, pouring rain and there were people lined up waiting to invest before the deadline. It was such a daunting moment that I felt I can never let these people down'. Twelve thousand fans came upwith cash.

No other club has had that happen."

That McCannwas a visionary iswell documented. That he possessed an acerbicwit is less so.

Andrew Smith, the former editor of the Celtic View and an entertaining contributor to History',was a witness to many of the millionaire's eccentricities. Such was McCann's parsimony that he would frequently admonish Smith for scoffing toast in the player's lounge and even administered a toaster' ban. "Noone ever worked with Fergus. You worked for him," recalled Smith.

McCann had a nice turn of phrase and Smith, a respected football writer onThe Scotland on Sunday, has included some of his favourite McCann quotations in his newbook, The Celtic Miscellany', a splendid stocking filler. Here are some of his best lines: "The Three Amigos."

On the big screen, they were the hapless bandits. To McCann they were Celtic strikers Pierre van Hooijdonk, Jorge Cadete and Paolo di Canio,who attempted to extort salary increases by crying to the press that the club's owners had reneged on (fictitious) verbal promises to improve their contracts. "Principles, sir? Sorry, I can't afford them."

From George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, McCann scoffingly recited this whenever it was suggested he occupied the moral high ground by not giving in to monetary demands.

■ "And all the stars that never were, are parking cars and pumping gas."

The lyric from the Bacharach and David song Do You Know the Way to San Jose,which McCann offered as a retort to a press man who asked if he was worried about losing stars' on pre-contract agreements.

■ "The dog barks but the caravan moves."

After the club's share issuewas an outstanding success, McCann offered the old Eastern proverb as a retort to critics, chief among them ousted director Kelly, who predicted it was doomed to fail spectacularly.

■ "Do you believe that stuff the old man was saying the other night at the Oso Negro about gold changin' a man's soul so's he ain't the sort of man as he was before findin' it?"

A line from The Treasure of Sierre Madre McCann would recite when despairing at the greed of footballers and their agents.

During the building of the stand on the site of the old Rangers end, the increased height of the new structure brought complaints from residents in the council houses behind it.They claimed the stand was causing interferencewith their television pictures and demanded compensation. McCann said he would make a payment to all those who brought their TV licences up to the club. No-one ever did.