Neil Francis Lennon signed for Celtic on the 12th December 2000 for a fee of £5.75 Million from Leicester.
Born on the 25th July 1971 in Lurgan, Northern Ireland Neil like many boys dreamed of being a professional footballer. The Irishman was initially employed as a striker, but after an operation to correct a spine problem left him with a rod in his back he was dropped into midfield due to his lack of pace and limited mobility.
Neil started his professional career as a trainee in 1989 with Manchester City. Various attempts to get a professional career, including a trial at Motherwell and Rangers led to young Neil signing his first professional contract with Crewe Alexandria.
Neil spent six years at Crewe, scoring unprecedented 15 goals prior to his move to Leicester City in 1996.
He won the League cup with Leicester in season 1996-97, beating Middlesborough 1-0 nil in the replay after the first game was tied 1-1.
Neil had by this time refined his unique style of play. His trademark combative style of play was an asset to then Leicester manager Martin O’ Neill whom had as much of influence on Lennon’s career as Lennon had on the pitch.
Never blessed with a great passing range, vision or instinct for a killer pass, Neil more than made up for in his intuitive reading of the game and short quick passing that always kept the ball moving.
When Martin O’ Neil moved up to Scotland to try and resurrect the fortunes of Celtic, it wasn’t long until Lenin was asking to join his gaffer at his Boyhood heroes. On the 12th December 2000 Neil got his wish. He became an integral part of the Celtic Midfield that season playing in the anchor man role in a five man midfield. The fruitfulness of his partnership with Paul Lambert was made all the more sweet by fact that most of the pundits had claimed that the two could not play together in the same team, that they were too similar!
The secret of this success was held in its simplicity. Lennon sat deep and picked the ball up while Lambert concentrated on patrolling the entire midfield, Lennon would perform the simple passes whilst Lambert either made the forward movements or fed Petrov.
However, the protection that Lennon offered the back four was the real asset he brought to the team.
Whilst never being blessed with any pace whatsoever, what he lacked in speed he made up in positional sense and his reading of the game. He could get into position to thwart an opposition attack not by speed of foot, but by speed of thought.
Lennon was an integral part of the team that won the league in his first season at Parkhead but it wasn’t without cost. Lennon was forced to retire from international Football due to the heinous crime of being a Northern Irish Catholic playing for Celtic. The Bigots in his own country could not bring themselves to accept a player they had previously adored and the subsequent death threats were too much for any man to take.
With the league being won Celtic were to gain access to the group stages of the Champions League for the very first time. It was on this stage that Neil really shone and his attributes of breaking up play and always seeming to be halting the opposition made him invaluable in the games against Ajax, Rosenburg, Porto and Juventus.
Celtic narrowly missed progression from the group stages and were eliminated from the UEFA cup fifth round at the hands of Valencia.
Celtics performances in Europe were a joy to behold given the many years of living in the European wilderness unable to beat teams like Young Boys of Bern and Neucahtel Xamax. Lennon was integral to this new-found belief that we were to be feared again in Europe.
The next season’s European campaign initially took turn for the worst. We were paired against Swiss Champions FC Basel. In the first leg they were despatched with relative ease in Glasgow but would only require to score 2 goals in the second leg, which they duly done. The 3-3 aggregate score was enough to see us eliminated from the competition on the away goals rule.
That result however lead to us parachuting into the UEFA Cup competition and the rest, as they say is history.
The O’Neill era came to an end in 2005 after losing the league to Rangers on the last day of the season and in came a new manager in Gordon Strachan who instantly bestowed the honour of being made Captain on our hero. It was a role that Lennon approached like everything else in his life, committed and combative!
Lennon was to lift 4 trophies as Captain of Celtic and he announced on the 25th April 2007 that he would be leaving Celtic at the end of his current deal. He signed for Nottingham Forest this week.
When I was recently asked to name my standout memory of Lennon I was reminded of a game at Rugby Park on the first day of the 2001-2001 season. Neil had stopped to deal with a problem with his left boot deep in our territory when the ball suddenly broke to Paul Di Giacomo. Sensing the danger Neil instantly gave chase and made a goal saving challenge inside the box with his ‘stocking soles’! Such was his commitment to the Jersey.
Hail Hail Neil, we wish you all the best.
Yours in Celtic
Clydebuilt