A NEW feature-length documentary will seek to provide an answer to one of the great conundrums from Celtic’s history. Whatever happened to George Connelly?
In 1975 the Fifer was still regarded as one of the finest midfield exponents in Britain and Europe. A generational talent.
At the age of 16 he was sent out by Jock Stein to entertain the Celtic Park crowd by playing keepie-uppie during the half-time interval of a European Cup-Winners Cup quarter-final against Dynamo Kyiv.
He announced his first-team arrival by tearing Rangers asunder in the 1969 Scottish Cup final, turning John Greig inside out to score in a 4-0 win.
He then took a set of shears to the pristine white shirts of Don Revie’s all-conquering Leeds United team in the European Cup semi-final of 1970.
With Scotland he was equally effective, producing a stand-out performance when the national team swept past Czechoslovakia to qualify for the 1974 World Cup Finals.
Even then the demons were playing havoc with his mind. Connelly famously walked out on Scotland at the airport check-in desk as the team prepared to fly to Switzerland for a qualifying game in 1973. He would walk out on Celtic a total of five times before a final parting of the ways when his contract was torn up two years later.
Filmed over seven years a new documentary put together by film maker Ged Fitzsimmons has unprecedented access to Connelly and his family in Clackmannan and draws on rare archive footage, personal video diaries and interviews with the likes of Jim Craig, Lou Macari and Davie Hay to try to ascertain why a footballer who achieved so much walked away from professional football at the age of 26.
The project has also drawn the support of acclaimed actor and filmmaker Peter Mullan who has joined the production as executive producer.
“The reason that I decided to make this film was because any time George’s name came up in conversation there was an element of regret about his career,” says Fitzsimmons now.
“The reality is that 99 per cent of footballers will not achieve over the course of a 15 or 20 year career what George achieved in less than half of that time.
“My first priority when I got involved in this project was to ensure that we restored George’s colours and that we properly celebrated him as a success story and not just ‘what could have been?’
“At a time when Celtic were playing elite football at a European level George absolutely belonged there.”
A painfully shy, insular individual ill-suited to life in Glasgow, Connelly sustained a series of personal set-backs which would later lead to drink. Coming hot on the heels of the Lisbon Lions he had some high standards to live up to, taking his place in a much-vaunted group of young Celtic prodigys known as the Quality Street Kids.
“George will be remembered in the minds of the fans for three key things,” adds Fitzsimmons.
“He is remembered as a kid who was prompted by Jock Stein to go out and entertain the fans on a huge night in Celtic Park in Europe and perform this incredible, almost mythological, keepie-up session, the story of which has been passed down the generations.
“The moment when the Celtic fans realised that George really was a significant figure and solidified himself as an icon at Celtic was the Scottish Cup final of 1969 when he robbed John Greig, the best Rangers defender of all time, rounds him, rounds the goalkeeper and nonchalantly rolls the ball into the back of the net.
“It’s a cool head from a young talent on his way to becoming an icon.”
In European terms George is known as the guy who effectively broke the back of Don Revie’s Leeds United.
“In the very first minute of the European Cup semi-final of 1970 at Elland Road, Stein’s gamble on a surprise selection instantly paid off when young Connelly had the ball in the net.
“In the return leg at Hampden he is the man of the match if Jimmy Johnstone is not on the park that night in front of 137,000 fans.”
Living as a recluse for decades Connelly briefly resurfaced in October 2007 after a 32-year absence. Invited to make the half-time Paradise Windfall draw at the Champions League game against AC Milan he collaborated with the late journalist Bryan Cooney on his life story.
“That was his first step back into the public eye and I and I think he never had the greatest experience because he wrote that book at a time when he was still in a very dark place with alcoholism and mental illness.
“I got involved at that stage with the intention of telling George’s story and word that I got back through Davie Hay, his best pal, was that George didn’t want to resurrect it all at that time. He was still drinking, he was still in a dark place and he still wanted to remain pretty much a hermit.
“That is effectively what he has been since 1975.
"So I let it go for a while then and got on with my life and built a career in the film industry and worked on various other different projects and built up a bit of experience.
“And actually, I’m quite glad that it was a no at the time, because I would have been too inexperienced to handle the complexity of George’s story.”
In 2019 the project was resurrected when Celtic fan media podcaster Paul John Dykes made the introductions. This time Fitzsimmons found that he had much in common with Connelly’s son David. The two men hit it it off.
The filmmakers will launch a crowdfunding campaign today, supported by Creative Scotland, inviting donations of up to £250 per supporter with the trailer for the project promising to debunk some of the myths around Connelly and convey a deeply personal tale of genius, pressure, masculinity, mental illness, addiction and, ultimately redemption.
“We want to celebrate George Connolly as the player, but want to restore the colours and celebrate.
“Not what could have been, but what was. Because what was, was extraordinary.”
Franz Beckenbauer in a Scotsman’s skin, Connelly went to school in Dunfermline and hailed from a family of Celtic supporters.
He played as a winger, striker, midfielder and deep-lying, ball-passing sweeper behind Billy McNeill and asked for a transfer when Celtic seemed reluctant to increase his salary from £65 a week. When he finally signed a new contract he came to regret it when his close friend Hay left for Chelsea.
Behind the scenes his first marriage was a sham, his gift for football a burden. His drinking escalated, divorce became inevitable and his life was engulfed by the kind of flux they might treat with drugs and therapy these days. In the 1970s a footballer was expected to man up and get on with it.
“This is a story about a guy who, despite his genius and his talent and his extraordinary skill, never really grew up into manhood with any life experience,” adds filmmaker Fitzsimmons
“And so at the age of 15 or 16 he was thrown into the cauldron at Celtic Park and expected just to grow up pretty quickly. And yes, he would have had exceptional role models in the form of Billy McNeill and Jock Stein – Davie Hay was like a brother – he just came straight out of school and didn’t really know anything about the world.
“His own personal demons and own personal life became so intolerable and so excruciating that he decided he wanted to run away from everything and that’s precisely what he did.”
Relegated to the reserves he walked out for the final time in 1975 and remembers his last words before leaving being, “oh, f*** it, that’s me. I’m off.”
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“If I was to answer the question, ‘what did happen to George Connelly’ then the answer to that is that life is complicated, life is complex,” adds Fitzsimmons.
“The truth about George is that, when he went missing there was a huge vacuum of rumour that just filled the void and they were all pretty inaccurate.
“There was stuff about him wanting to become a long-distance lorry driver and all this sort of stuff and a lot of lurid, weird rumours floated around. We don’t want to give spoilers away.
“But the reality is that George suffered a series of problems in the background that makes his achievements on the park even more extraordinary.
“The fact that he was able to go out there, perform, while these really, really destructive demons were operating in the background, is a huge testament to the man.
“When George reflects on his life he talks about the fact that he was a league winner seven times, five Scottish cups, three league cups, a player of the year and qualified with Scotland for a World Cup finals and played in a European Cup final.
“Despite all of that, George maintains that his greatest achievement is his victory over mental illness and addiction.”
