Former Celtic defender David Moyes is still going strong in the English Premier League.
After leaving West Ham United during the summer of 2024, where he won the Europa Conference League, Moyes returned to where he made a name for himself in management when he re-signed for Everton last season.
Whilst the likes of Celtic visited Italy and Portugal during their pre-season trips this summer, the Everton players, like many English Premier League sides, are in the United States of America.
Moyes would have done this many a time during his career, after starting in the dugout in 1998 at Preston North End, but this latest trip is a little different and special for one reason.
Everton manager David Moyes relives his Celtic days in New Jersey
Moyes still has Celtic blood in him, and he speaks fondly about Scotland’s most successful club, even though he hasn’t been associated with them since his playing days.
But, as Adam Crafton from The Athletic reported, Moyes has taken a ‘trip down memory lane’, whilst his Everton players are in New Jersey for pre-season.
The Athletic journalist reported how, as an ‘apprentice at Celtic‘ in the 1970s, Moyes and his teammates would ‘travel to Kearny, New Jersey’, a place that is ‘deeply rooted in Irish and Scottish immigration.’
And that’s where the 62-year-old would visit the Scots American Club that ‘served as a base for those Celtic trips.’
What Celtic fans would love is that Moyes made sure to revisit that place, and he took several Everton players with him – Dwight McNeil, Jake O’Brien and Tim Iroegbunam.
Moyes on Celtic trip being the ‘making of me’
After playing for Celtic for several years, including winning the title, Moyes’ name would explode during his management days.
Now that he can reflect on his career and life, the former Hoops star spoke about those trips as a youngster, and how they were the ‘making of me.’
“We played on the pitch just up the road,” Moyes told The Athletic. “It was a big Celtic area, they used to invite us and we stayed with the families here. They were so good to us. It was a great time.
“You represented Celtic, so you had to play well. I was captain of the team, and I had to give a speech at one of the big evening dinners. It is the kind of thing you don’t realise until you’re a bit older, why you’re doing it.
“It was the making of me a little bit, one of those things where you look back in life and see things within yourself which were starting to develop.”
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