JIMMY REID and MARTIN O'NEIIL

AT first glance it is far from obvious what the link is between the late Jimmy Reid and former Celtic manager Martin O'Neill.

However, both have been lionised and mythologised to such an extent they  could  almost be placed in the same category as Camelot and the Loch Ness Monster.

In commenting on Reid I will be forced to break an instruction handed to me more years ago than I care to remember by my old Presbyterian granny, who told me never to speak ill of the dead.

But it is not as much a case of directing ill will at the memory of the old Communist Red Clydeside firebrand, as putting him into the sort of context which has been missing from media coverage of his death and funeral.

First, the absurd notion that his 1972 speech, on being installed as Rector of Glasgow University, was the greatest since Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

The subject of Reid's speech was freedom, at a time when he was a member of the Communist Party, and when memories were fresh of how the tanks of the Communist Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics had rolled into Prague to crush any notion of freedom there.

Placing what Reid said ahead of any number of Winston Churchill's calls to arms, in  real rallying cries for freedom, is even more utterly absurd than comparing his speech to what old Abe said so succinctly.

And then there were those eulogies about Reid the journalist, in which the writers appeared to be suffering from selective amnesia, failing to mention what many in the old inky trade at the time though actually defined Reid.

It was when ,at the height of Margaret Thatcher's power, Reid joined the then hard line Thatcherite Sun as a £25,000-a-year columinst - nearly £100,000 at today's values.

Of course, politcally, Jimmy Reid had a coat of many colours. After standing as a Communist and failing to be elected he moved to the right and joined the Labour Party, but still could not get elected, before finally ending up as a member of the Scottish National Party.

Watching television coverage of his funeral - a humanist service - I was reminded of another such service I attended three years ago.

It was for a journalist I had known since we were both 17, and who was a drinking buddy of the old Red Clydeside firebrand, Evening Times sportswriter, Alan Davidson.

Reid spoke, and his lecturing tone about the evils of drink offended many, myself included. We all knew big Alan took a good bucket, but his funeral service, with his grieving family sitting in the front row, was hardly the time and place to talk about it.

Fortunately for Reid's own grieving family, none of the oratory at his funeral alluded to the fact  he too could lower more than was good for him, and, having spent many a night in the same company as him, I can vouch for that.

And so to the Blessed, a man I must confess I grew to like very much when he was in Glasgow, and who always treated me with courtesy and respect.

Let there be no doubt,  O'Neill was a fantastically successful Celtic manager, but the depth to which the club had sunk by the summer of 2000 when he arrived, has perhaps coloured and distorted the perspective of what he achieved.

First, there is the claim that when O'Neill was manager, Celtic dominated Scottish football. It's true, in his five seasons in charge, Celtic won the title three times. Rangers triumphed twice, both championships won with Alex McLeish in charge.

It is also true he became the first Celtic manager since Jock Stein to win the Treble, achieved in his first campaign. But Rangers too managed to eclispse their rivals completely, and the 2003 Treble collected by McLeish came in direct opposition to O'Neill.

McLeish also won the first two trophies realistically available to him after he took over at Ibrox in December 2001, the League Cup and the Scottish Cup, beating O'Neill's Celtic in the semi final and final of the tournaments.

None of which give O'Neill's Celtic any sane claim to domination during that period. It is a fact that in his five years in charge O'Neill won seven trophies, exactly the same total achieved by McLeish in the shorter time of four and a half years.

In fact O'Neill's record as a Celtic manager does not stand comparision with his successor, Gordon Strachan who, on the sort of meagre budget restrictions O'Neill never had to operate under, and without anything like the same day to day control of the club the Ulsterman enjoyed, won three titles in four seasons.

There was also the significant matter of Strachan's Celtic qualifying for the last 16 of the Champions League twice, a feat O'Neill, for all his big spending, could not manage even once.

Returning to Reid, and many of the people I have spoken to who were on the inside of  the trade union movement during the time when he fronted the UCS work-in , were of the view that the real power belonged to the man who was the architect of the victory, Jimmy Airlie.

I once met Airlie socially and was impressed by his quiet authority, utter lack of ego and ability to listen to others.

 Airlie gave no hint as to whether he resented the way his contribution had been overshadowed Reid's celebrity, and the cash rewards which came with it, just as Strachan has never spoken of the lack of credit and respect he received from Celtic supporters for the greater success he gave them, compared to the deification of O'Neill.

Camelot and Loch Ness put together can just about match the myths attached to Reid and O'Neill.

ENDS