Lou Macari reveals unconventional way Jock Stein broke Celtic transfer move

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Jock Stein is immortalised in the history of Celtic.

The first British-based manager to win the European Cup, a clean sweep of domestic trophies in the same season and all done with a team assembled from in and around Glasgow.

An incredible achievement that will never be matched.

But Jock wasn’t just a brilliant coach. He was a fearsome individual and former Celtic striker Lou Macari gives a fascinating insight into how the legendary manager broke the news to him that he was leaving the club when he appeared on the BBC podcast, Sacked in the Morning.

Macari was at Celtic for six years from 1968 and won five league titles and two Scottish Cups scoring 58 goals.

He eventually left the club in 1973 after he told Jock Stein he had to leave the club for financial reasons.

The striker was asked how long the conversation with Jock lasted when he revealed, “It was very brief. I’d just lost my father, I was on £45 pounds a week at the time. I said, ‘I’ve got to support my mother and I just got married. I need a rise.’ And he said, ‘We don’t do rises’ or words to that effect.

“Well I’m not going to argue with him, I just said, ‘Right, I need to move then.’

“Because I’d just been in Scotland team and you’re with the English-based players and you know what they are getting. They were on £180 a week, which compared to the £45 at the time was massive. It was just huge.

“And I said, ‘Well, I’m gonna leave’, and he said, ‘Where do you think you’re going?’, I said, ‘Well, I don’t have a clue where I’m going. I don’t know what anybody thinks about me.’

“So I went into training every day and that went on for about two or three weeks.

“The phone rang one night, my wife was listening to the conversation and it was Jock, it was the manager and he said, ‘Get yourself ready, a car will come to pick you up in the morning, you’re going to England.’

“And then he put the phone down on me. So I get off the phone and the wife asked, ‘Who was that’ and I said it was the manager he said I’ve to get ready in the morning I’m going to England.

“She said where are you going? And I said, ‘I don’t know. He never told me.'”

Macari then goes on to tell how the journey took him to England and to Liverpool where he turned down Bill Shankly to sign for Manchester United.

Macari did eventually find his way back to Paradise when he became the manager in 1993 and won his managerial debut game against Rangers 2-1 at Ibrox.

He was eventually sacked when Fergus McCann took over the club in 1994 after another trophyless season.