Martin O'Neill: The Biography

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Some analysts like to talk about “Creative Destruction”, the idea that once a disaster occurs it enables the entity to rebuild better than if it were trying to rebuild from being at the top. This can be applied to this season. Hopes were high, and the players were now fully accustomed to each other and more importantly to the manager. Martin O’Neill’s imprint on the side was unmistakable, moulding the squad into an efficient side, and all was heading in the right direction.

Do you know what, that has never occurred to me,” O’Neill replied. “It’s such a great idea I am going to start that next week. The only problem is I’ve been so busy winning matches I haven’t had time to do it!” O’Neill was making the point that managers are judged by the matches they win and not necessarily for the team’s style. He is a clever man but even he could not have anticipated the success achieved during his short time in charge. ”

Resigns on December 17 after a series of clashes with chairman Robert Chase over money for team-building. Appointed manager of Leicester on December 21. He was clear about what he wanted. He took the players he needed from the previous era – the ones with character, fire and quality – and built his own team. He brought in Alan Thompson, Chris Sutton, Neil Lennon, Bobo Balde, Joos Valgaeren – huge players for us. Martin knew how to build a team of warriors. We didn’t fear anyone; we played Barcelona, Lyon and Liverpool, and we weren’t scared. Teams feared us when they came to Celtic Park. We had such togetherness and we had winners, and we were hungry for success.” From 2001-2004, Celtic remained undefeated at home until Aberdeen won in Apr 2004. A remarkable record under Martin O’Neill.

The glory moments are something none of the support will ever forget, and he will forever be a Celtic man first & foremost. On the penultimate day of college I went up to the Illustration department with a suitcase of collages and had a chat with Illustrator / tutor Jo Hassell. She gave me a list of Design agencies, publishers, ad agencies and said ‘Go see them. They’d love your stuff.’ They included Penguin, Legas Delaney, Vaughan Oliver and the lads at Tomato. I made it my mission to show them my work in person, which I did, over a year or so. I was obsessed with graffiti & art when I was at school, mates in my class said I should ‘be an artist’, I went through all the hoops and found myself on a graphic design & printmaking BA in 1992. I had a collage epiphany in a paper recycling centre in Germany in ‘93 which fed 2 years of experimental collage and printmaking. Then I kind of fell off the end of the course with no direction or training on how to make a living in the art/design world, but I was making a lot of work everyone on my course seemed to love.

The changes at Ibrox don’t affect our job one jot, certainly nothing that happens over there will influence what I do.”