Memories of... Brian McClair

Saint Anthony looks back on a great Celtic striker of the mid-80s

There wasn’t a great deal of fuss when Brian McClair joined Celtic from Motherwell, in the summer of 1983, for a modest transfer fee of just £75,000. Brian had hit the headlines the previous January with five goals against what was once referred to as the Old Firm. Three against Rangers in a 3-0 Motherwell win, then two against Celtic win a 2-1 Motherwell win. Celtic’s defeat at Fir Park was a sore one and was partly responsible for the Celts losing their title to Dundee United at the season’s end. On his arrival at Parkhead he was asked if he regretted scoring against Celtic and he replied that he had no regrets and that had he not done so, then he may not have got such a great opportunity to move to his boyhood heroes.

When he arrived at Parkhead, Celtic were in the process of losing their hugely popular strike duo of Charlie Nicholas and George McCluskey, and most Celtic fans were indifferent to Brian’s arrival. Only days after signing Brian, the Celtic manager, Billy McNeill, left Parkhead in acrimonious fashion, and was replaced by David Hay. This was good news for Brian, as Hay had been his manager previously at Motherwell and they knew each other well. However, despite scoring on his debut in a Glasgow Cup tie at Firhill, Hay signed the experienced Jim Melrose from Coventry City for £100,000, which shunted Brian temporarily to the Celtic sidelines.

Things all changed on 24 September 1983, when Celtic travelled to Dens Park for a difficult league game. Brian delighted the Celtic support by rattling in four goals in a 6-2 Celtic win. Like most good goal scorers, he hadn’t contributed much overall during the game, but he had clinically finished every chance which came his way that afternoon. It was with some surprise that Hay dropped Brian four days later for the important UEFA cup tie against Aarhus in Denmark, although his decision was merited with a 4-1 Celtic success in a rare European away victory.

Melrose later fell out of favour as Brian held down a deserved place alongside Frank McGarvey in the Celtic attack. By the end of the season, he was the Premier League’s top scorer with 32 goals in all competitions. Brian was strong and a had a good turn of pace. He was also decent in the air for a man of his size and had a ‘spring’ on him. The two goals which stick out from that season was his great effort against Sporting Lisbon when he had raced through the Portuguese defence in exciting fashion to give Celtic a vital third goal in a memorable 5-0 win. The other one was a sadder memory, a fine finish against Rangers in the 1984 League Cup final at Hampden when Tommy Burns cute chip over the Rangers defensive wall allowed Brian to score and give Celtic some hope, but alas they lost 3-2.

Hay had made it clear he was looking for another striker and in October 1984, Maurice Johnston arrived in a blaze of glory in a record Scottish transfer move from Watford. Johnston was initially paired with Frank McGarvey which allowed Brian to show his versatility as an attacking midfielder, a position in which he was to excel in, in later years at Manchester United. On 17 November 1984, Brian ran out in the number 6 shorts at Tynecastle, much to the surprise of the travelling Celtic support. To their great delight he scored a perfect hat trick in a 5-1 win as Celtic blew Hearts away. He then alternated between midfield and attack until the end of the season with the highlight being his winning goal at Ibrox on New Year’s Day in a 2-1 win on a bright but freezing cold day.

Frank McGarvey departed in the summer of 1985, and this allowed Brian to develop a new strike partnership with Mo Johnston. For the next two seasons they would score an enormous number of goals but there was never the feeling that they were a true partnership like Celtic had enjoyed in the past with the likes of Deans and Dalglish, and McGarvey and Nicholas. They had totally different personalities. Johnston was brash and outgoing, wore expensive clothing to night clubs, and courted the odd bad bit of publicity. In contrast, McClair was a university student who had married early, started a family, and had a keen interest in music, especially with obscure bands.

The 1985-86 season again saw Brian as Celtic’s top scorer as the side enjoyed the most remarkable end to the season, when they won the league title against all the odds at Love Street, on the day when Hearts blew their big chance of glory at Dens Park, to win their first league championship since 1960.  Brian was on top form that day and scored two important goals in Celtic’s 5-0 win. He also had a hand in one of the greatest goals any Celtic side has ever scored, when he linked up on the right flank in a McGrain/Aitken/McStay move to set up Johnston for a most wonderful goal, which no one who witnessed that day will ever forget.

1986-87 saw Brian in his best form as he scored an amazing total of 41 goals in 57 games. The downside to this was that Celtic had defensive problems and by not bringing in quality defenders they surrendered the initiative to Graeme Souness’ Rangers side who won the league when Celtic folded badly in the second half of the season. Brian had showed commendable coolness on 4 April 1987 against Rangers at Parkhead when a Rangers fan ran on the pitch to attack him shortly before he was to take a penalty at the Rangers end of the ground. Happily, the police apprehended the would-be assailant before he reached him and it’s doubtful if he ever hit a harder penalty, Chris Woods having no chance of saving it. Celtic won 3-1 on the day but it was all too late to repair the damage which had already been done.

The Celtic board had blundered by allowing the contracts of several important Celtic players run down during the course of that season. This was a foolish thing to do with freedom of contract now in place. They had placed their attention primarily on Mo Johnston, who at that time was the darling of a large element of the Celtic support. In later years Brian was to declare that he would have signed for Celtic had they offered him what they offered Johnston. This was curious as Brian had outscored Johnston every season, and a player who had scored 122 in just four seasons was due better treatment. As it was Johnston moved to Nantes in France having declined the advances of the Celtic board.

In a curious twist of fate, David Hay was sacked and Billy McNeill was restored as Celtic manager, but Billy was never to see Brian play for him. McNeill made overtures to McClair but his head had been turned by offers from big English clubs who looked to take advantage of freedom contract by signing him for a much reduced price. Manchester United won the race for his signature and a tribunal was required to set a fee, and they decided upon £850,000, which was an absolute steal. On the downside, Billy McNeill’s account of Brian leaving Celtic in his autobiography, does not paint him in a good light.

There was much disappointment when Brian left as he was hugely popular with the Celtic supporters who admired his work rate and loved the goals he scored. In later years I interviewed Davie Provan for a book I was writing, and we discussed the strikers he had played with at Celtic. There was McGarvey, Nicholas, McCluskey, McClair, Johnston and Mark McGhee, which is a tremendous array of talent. I asked him who was the best and he was reluctant to pick one, but he did say that a winger sometimes has to cross a ball into the area early without looking, and hope someone is on the end of his delivery. He said it was uncanny the number of times Brian McClair got on the end of his crosses with great success. He had that knack of timing and judgment which is a natural talent and cannot be coached.

Possibly my favourite memory of Brian McClair, is his winning goal at Dens Park in 1987 when it took three epic Scottish Cup games to separate Celtic and Aberdeen, with Brian scoring the all important winner in a 1-0 win which was played on a raw Dundee night played in the most awful weather of strong wind and heavy rain. It's a great pity the Celtic board never concentrated more on keeping Brian during that spring of 1987. He could have gone on to break many records with his goalscoring feats.