Life and times of a man who realised all his dreams

COUNTLESS thousands of Celtic supporters have dreamed of playing for their club or of taking charge as manager. Tommy Burns was one of a very select few who was able to turn that dream into a reality.

Born in 1956, he came to the attention of Celtic while playing for Maryhill. He signed for them as a teenager, and after brief spells as a reserve and then as a fringe member of the first-team squad, he established himself as an essential member of the side.

Scottish football has known gifted players who lacked application, and hard workers whose technical ability was limited. In Burns, Celtic were fortunate to find a midfielder who was both richly talented and utterly willing to give his last ounce of energy for the cause.

His first major honour, the league title of 1976-77, was won when Jock Stein was still manager. His second, two years later, came under Billy McNeill. He won six in all as a player, in addition to three Scottish Cups and one League Cup, but he was far more than a player who could be relied upon to come good on the big occasion.

At times, in the first half of the 1980s when Alex Ferguson's Aberdeen were the dominant force in Scotland, Celtic were a poor team, at least judged by their own high standards. But even when some of those playing alongside him were hardly worthy of appearing on the same pitch, Burns would not let his commitment waver.

His enthusiasm for the sport, his commitment to the cause, and his belief in the necessity for honest hard work could not be separated into distinct ingredients. Instead, they were intertwined elements of his personality which reinforced each other – and that personality, in turn, gave hope to the Celtic support even in situations when they might have succumbed to despair.

Burns was not the only player in the squad to have a never-say-die attitude, but he was often the only one skilled enough to turn defiant hope into a tangible result. That attitude and the ability which went with it ended up by inspiring virtually every player at the club, and at times they all appeared to believe they simply could not lose.

The 1985-86 season, when Celtic won the title on goal difference on the last day, was a case in point. So too was the centenary season, 1987-88, when the Scottish Cup joined the league flag among the trophy haul.

Celtic should not even have got past their first match in the cup that year, as Stranraer had a penalty saved and another excellent chance missed before Frank McAvennie popped up to score the only goal of the game. And they would not have got past Hearts in the semi-final, when they were a goal down with minutes to play, but for the kind of late rally which Burns had led them to believe they could make. They won that game 2-1, then won the final, against Dundee United, by the same score.

It was towards the end of that centenary season that Burns realised another long-held ambition, when he was capped against England at Wembley. Andy Roxburgh was the manager then, and Craig Brown, the assistant who would succeed him, yesterday recalled the gratitude shown by Burns.

"Before he went on to the pitch (as a substitute], Tommy stopped at the bench to thank Andy for giving him something that meant so much on a personal and a family level," Brown said. Burns, who went on to win eight caps, later said himself that even coming off the bench to play for Scotland against England "fulfilled a boyhood dream".

In 1989,at the age of 32, Burns moved on to Kilmarnock. He served three years at Rugby Park as a player, and then in 1992 became player-manager. The club were promoted to the Premier Division in 1993, and Burns was earmarked as one of the brightest young managers in the game.

His promise was not lost on his former employers at Celtic Park, and in 1994 he returned to his old club as manager. He was still under contract to Kilmarnock at the time, and Celtic were disciplined for tapping him. The reality, though, was that Burns required no untoward inducements to go back to the East End of Glasgow as boss.

In retrospect, it can be seen that the move came too soon. But he knew that, if he turned down the chance once it might never come again. Therefore, he had little choice but to accept it.

Celtic won the Scottish Cup in 1995, beating Airdrie in the final, but it was Burns' misfortune to have taken the reins during a period in which Rangers were utterly dominant. This was the great Ibrox nine-in-a-row side in which players such as Andy Goram, Ally McCoist and Paul Gascoigne all played their part.

For Burns, it was the goalkeeper Goram in particular who proved crucial in prolonging Rangers' success and securing that ninth title. "On my gravestone it will read: Andy Goram broke my heart," he said at the time.

Goram and colleagues possibly also ended any hopes Burns had of making a success as Celtic manager, and in 1997 he was sacked. He would later become Reading manager, but from the time he left Celtic Park on, he tended to have more hands-on coaching roles. It was in that capacity, for example, that he worked with Kenny Dalglish at Newcastle United in his first job after his dismissal from Celtic.

Burns became Scotland's assistant manager in 2002 under Berti Vogts, and he held on to the job when Walter Smith took over from the German. In the last few years of his life he was also able to contribute once more on Celtic.

He was given a post in charge of youth development by Martin O'Neill, and then under Gordon Strachan he was also appointed first-team coach. At first these activities were done in tandem with his Scotland role, but at the start of 2007, following Smith's departure for Rangers, Burns announced that he too was quitting the national team.

By then, he had had one course of treatment for skin cancer, and had apparently responded well. When the illness recurred earlier this year, however, he was given a leave of absence, one which in the end proved permanent.

Sir Alex recalls buzz-bomb midfielder who played the beautiful game

ALTHOUGH they would later become friends, Sir Alex Ferguson yesterday reflected on the time when Tommy Burns was the infuriating buzz-bomb midfielder whose talents he felt compelled to single-out prior to matches between his Aberdeen team and Celtic in the Eighties.

The Manchester United manager paid tribute to Tommy Burns the player at the club's training academy at Carrington, and recalled a "beautiful, educated" footballer.

"He was a talented player," said Ferguson. "He was such a nice, quiet guy off the pitch. But he had a bit of fire about him. He was red-haired, and you expect those with red hair to have a bit of fire – players like Billy Bremner and Jimmy Johnstone. He had fire but he was a beautiful, educated footballer in terms of his left foot. He was always worth a goal. When we used to play against Celtic I used to say to the players all the time: 'watch him coming late into the box'. He was good at that. He was a competitive wee lad. I think he got sent off against us at Pittodrie once."

"When you look at the careers of players you know they can't be an angel all the time," he continued. "I am doing a foreword for Willie Johnston's book and I make that point. You can't use one blip in a person's football career (to define someone], because you'd have to examine every tackle made and every bad deed ever done on a football pitch. What you can talk about is what the player contributed to the game in general. The excitement (Tommy] brought a Celtic fan – and not just for a minute or two, but for more than a decade – has to be acknowledged. When a player makes a contribution to a football club it's not because he has just played there a year or so, it's because he's been there ten years or, like Ryan Giggs with us, he has stayed for 20 years."

ALAN PATTULLO