KTF Reviews

THE CELT

Keep The Faith is a mere infant in comparison, for there is a Celtic fanzine out there that is 22-years old – The Celt.

The oldest fanzine in Timdom, narrowly edging out the great Not The View!

David W Potter reviews The Celt and gives you, dear reader, good reasons as to why you should subscribe and get your hands on this little beauty (or a Kylie as it's known in the trade).

THE CELT – A REVIEW

By David W Potter

Fanzines rise and fall, but the best and longest lasting has been The Celt, which has now reached 88 editions, spanning more than twenty years.

The Celt focuses on the history of Celtic Football Club, but has its say on contemporary matters as well, mainly by a man called Cyclops, who claims to be "unbiased". Aye right!

But, there is never anything offensive, and when appropriate, credit is given to opponents. During the awful days of the Kelly regime, The Celt was one of the few Celtic publications that actually retained its dignity and restrained its wilder contributors, like myself who was all for a public guillotining.

Edition no 1 was back in August 1983, a traumatic summer for the Club with the loss of Charlie Nicholas (who did not come out of it all well) and Billy McNeill (who did). The first editor was a saintly Glaswegian called George Sheridan, a Primary teacher whose statistics on the Club are quite awesome. I recall when I was in the throes of writing my book on Patsy Gallacher and I asked George if he had anything on Patsy. A few days passed, then a detailed account of every match in Patsy's career appeared through the post, all lovingly written out - and on a school jotter, which belonged to Strathclyde Regional Council!

The Celt is now in the hands of Eugene MacBride, another venerable Celtic polymath whose fascicles on every single game that Celtic have ever played I consult regularly. Eugene (along with George Sheridan and a man called Martin O'Connor) was also responsible for "An Alphabet of the Celts", a reference book for every man who ever played a first team game for Celtic.

"The Wee Rag" or "The Comic" is lively, informed and absolutely oozes with information about the Club that we all love. Tom Campbell, who has been associated with The Celt since the early days was last heard of trying to write an Index of The Celt. What the files of this magazine contain are a wealth of information about Celtic.

Eugene once mentioned Willie Kivlichan wearing "scapulars". Being a Prot - er, coming from a different cultural and religious inheritance, I did not know what they were, other than that "scapula" is the Latin word for shoulder. So I asked him. A few days later a couple of brown tea bag like things arrived through the post. I now own a pair of scapulars. I once wore them when I went to the Ki - er, I mean, when I went out one Sunday morning.

The fanzine is well worth a subscription. It costs five quid per 4 copies and can be had from E. A. MacBride, Celt House, 31 Harrowby Lane , Grantham , NG31 9HY , Lincolnshire .

David Potter