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Ange Is Entitled To Crow About His Success, But It’s Just Not The Celtic Boss’s Style.

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If I were Ange Postecoglou I might think that I was entitled to gloat a little with the way this season is going at the moment. Even if it were over, though, I don’t believe for one minute that he would.

The man has too much class for that, too much by far.

I remember hearing about Dick Advocaat going up to get his manager of the year award from the hacks, who were slobbering about his greatness. He took that literally, and if he wasn’t arrogant enough before he arrived at Ibrox he certainly was by the time their sycophancy reached its height that night when he got up in front of them to get his gong.

He gave a speech which was as preening and arrogant as one could imagine. He closed the speech by telling the hacks “see you all next year.” On the way to Holland for a brief family holiday he stopped to taunt a young Celtic fan in the airport.

That’s a true story, that actually happened.

You cannot even imagine, stretching every sinew of your brain, Ange ever doing something so crass or egotistical. The man is the epitome of class.

I watched his latest interview with the media back in Australia today.

He was fantastic. The best moment came when he was played a clip of Alan Brazil and Ally McCoist laughing at his work permit situation when he had just been appointed.

I had looked into that matter myself and I thought we might be in big trouble.

It was during that early spell when I thought the appointment might be a disaster.

I was delighted to see how he responded to that early mockery … Brazil was so blithe and arrogant about it that he hadn’t even bothered to learn how to pronounce his name.

What a mug he looks now, and he’s not the only one.

And no-one is laughing anymore of course.

No-one except Ange. But his was the laughter of someone who was genuinely amused by it all.

He is not in the least bit big-headed about any of it.

Last weekend was his 50th game in charge of our club.

The one little indulgence he allowed himself was to joke to the hacks that many of them didn’t expect him to reach that milestone, and of course some of them must have squirmed in their seats because he was right and there were a couple of them – at least a couple – in the room with him.

But this man is the complete opposite of arrogant, and he will not be gloating even if he secures the domestic grand slam. Look at what he did when he won the manager of the month award; he shared it with his backroom team for the second time this season.

That is a man who understands that success is a team effort.

He will never be a Rodgers, hogging the limelight.

He will never be a Lennon, passing the buck.

He embraces his role as a leader and knows that a leader does so first by example, and he is clearly an outstanding mentor and role model. Our players, especially our young players, are going to learn a lot from him.

So could many of us.

Not for the first time, tonight I am struck by just how lucky we are to have such a genuinely good man at the helm.

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  • REBELLIOUS says:

    Struck gold when they stumbled onto his CV, by fault or sheer luck the board got one right for a change. In fact, they couldn’t have got it any more right, thank FQ Eddie whatever his name shat the bed.
    And again you’re spot on James, we All can learn from his humble and polite manner.

  • Mark B says:

    We all like him, that is clear, he speaks very well. He has rebuilt the squad well. We have won the League Cup we are now top of the league. Its quite a turnaround from September when we were sixth having lost 3 of first 6 league games. We all really want him to go on and win the league, but he has not done that yet so lets get behind him and support him to that achievement. There is a lot to play for the title race is very tight – and often when its tight we lose out (2003, 2005 and 2009 and 2011). Thats 4 titles right there we should have won to be honest, lets not slip again. I maintain we still need a CH, LB and DM to make the squad strong enough to at least get us winning the league more easily and competing in Europe a bit better. Lets go on and win it.

  • Peterbrady says:

    God bless Ange and his family James the anniversary of the appointment of the great Manis coming how about a article on it and must be acknowledged at next game a real celebration

  • Peterbrady says:

    We have to show all the young supporters all about JOCK that’s why we are CELTIC hail! hail!

  • NICK66 says:

    Well done James, a true realisation that sometimes we make kneejerk reactions on little info. Ange, who? Well we know who he is now and i hope we all know we have a proper Manager at the helm of Celtic.

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