So it’s Tony Mowbray, then. My initial feelings of disappointment and apathy have abated slightly, in no small part because of our Manager’s performance at his inaugural press conference. Words like integrity and dignity are banded about too often, particularly down G51 way, but I couldn’t help be impressed by Mogga, even if his nick-name is a bit crap, and sounds like it belongs to one of those Grange Hill baddies with acne scars and skinny ties. Perhaps we’ve all become a bit punch-drunk in recent years at “Manager’s Question-Time”, with WGS’s attempts at humour sometimes losing a smidgeon in translation. I’m sure we’ve all thought our friendly neighbourhood hacks were serial killers but you don’t say that out loud. They might know where you live. Suffice to say, Tony’s performance was like a breath of fresh air and there wasn’t a serial killer in sight. Well, not in the assembled media ranks, anyway.

There is no doubt that Tony Mowbray can communicate. He has a natural enthusiasm, an air of authority, and a gravitas that makes you want to listen to what he says. His credentials for the job may not necessarily be top drawer but they are in the upper echelons of the filing cabinet. I remember when he signed for Celtic. We had just been pumped by Neuchatel Xamax (who give you 138 points in Scrabble) and the sieve had genetically modified into a yawning chasm. Terry Cassidy was mouthing platitudes, as befits the best CEO, and playing cliché bingo like a demon, running things up flag-poles, sticking pins in them and then taking them on board. Brian O’Neill was trying hard and even scored a goal in Switzerland but there was no 4-4-2. It was a kinda 0-4-2. So Mogga was identified as the answer. 

He assured us all that he wasn’t a silky footballer, that he knew where Row Z was and that he was above all else, honest. Unfortunately his arrival coincided with a bleak period in Celtic’s history but that really paled into insignificance when his own personal tragedy began to unfold. It was interesting to hear Mowbray speak of Lou Macari, who was his manager at that time. Now Luigi is not generally regarded as the best ever Celtic manager but Mowbray has gone on record saying that Macari couldn’t have been any more supportive and was a source of true comfort to him. It does make you wonder what football can do to a man. Or maybe that should read whether bad results, an impatient support, surly players and a parsimonious board make you any less of a human being. I don’t think it’s stretching the point to say that it is life-changing experiences that make you who you are. Listen to Mowbray talk. He uses words like loyalty and honesty a lot and that counts for a Hell of a lot in my book. I believe that he believes.

He believes that a football manager should and can make a difference, that he can bring out the best in people and instill beliefs in them. He’s gonna have to do that to a section of the Celtic support too but if his team can perform half as well as he did at that press conference then there is room, and reason, for optimism. Watching Celtic is hardly “something to do” but for some I fear that is what it has become. Certainly in the last two years it wasn’t exactly entertainment. It was sometimes entertaining but more often was just entropy. Supporters, some at least, turned into spectators but I suppose you can’t really blame them. The love has gone for a lot of people - Bedford Falls would vouch for that. So that’s where Tony comes in. He’s gonna have to rekindle that spark, and find some kind of catalyst from somewhere. Whether that comes in the shape of Marc Antoine Fortune, who knows, but we’re certainly making the headline writers’ jobs very easy. Fortune, Venus, Mogga. Arrange into a meaningless phrase.

Some have said that he’ll have to hit the ground running (a CEO maybe?) and others have said that he’ll have to sacrifice his footballing principles or will be found out. Quite what we’ll find out no-one has ever bothered to say but they said that we’d get the answers to Lost so you never know, maybe it’s something to do with that? Sure, West Bromwich Albion were relegated but their fans knew what Mowbray was trying to achieve and gave him a standing ovation the day they went down. I also know that the League Table doesn’t lie but it can sometimes be bloody economical with the truth. A criticism levelled at Mowbray’s teams was that they couldn’t change the way they played. Well WGS was never one for wholesale changes and his consistent methods and tactics secured him three League Titles and two last 16 places. In Scotland, Mowbray’s Celtic will only ever realistically have to be better than Rangers but that is where WGS’s plan went a bit wrong. The just enough policy and tippy tappy brand of football failed eventually.

The truth is, Celtic as a Club needed a change and we’ve got one. The Manager is a proponent of attacking football and that didn’t always work in the English Premiership. Will it work in the SPL? I reckon so. Thinking back to Mowbray’s time at Hibs, I remember watching his team gub Celtic 3-1 at Celtic Park with a display of attacking verve, speed and even a dash of elan at one point.  I’d settle for some of that. A team that attacks quickly, that passes accurately and plays football. I know a few fans who are happy if Celtic win and Rangers lose, preferably at the same time (a simultaneous footballing orgasm, if ever there was one) but I’m thinking above the waist for a change. Maybe it was because I was lucky enough to be in Rome to watch Barcelona play Man United off the park but my head has well and truly been turned by foxy football. Dourness be damned, I’m with the artisans.

What I also hope for is that Mowbray is given time and that he maintains his dignity. No job is worth sacrificing your principles for. I’m not some misty-eyed Romantic with delusions of the beautiful game. We are not Barcelona. Hell we’re not even Burnley but we’ve had three years of a footballing brand that was as expressive as antiseptic and I’m ready for some flavour. My wish for Mowbray is that he is talking at press conferences in six months time the way he was talking a few weeks ago. He has a helluva job on his hands but believes in his own methods. Whether they will be enough remains to be seen.

Like Bedford Falls, though, I’d just like to fall in love with Celtic again.