Lisbon Lion inspiration for Bhoys, says Lennon

CELTIC captain Neil Lennon has recalled how a trip to see Jimmy Johnstone on film proved just how good the winger was in his prime.

The former Hoops and Scotland player died yesterday, aged 61, after a long battle with motor neurone disease.

Johnstone, who was part of Celtic’s European Cup-winning side in 1967, was voted the club’s best ever player by the Parkhead fans.

He also had a DVD - entitled Lord of the Wing - produced in 2004 to commemorate his time at the club.

Lennon and ex-Celtic striker Henrik Larsson went to a screening of the film where the pair were left mesmerised by Johnstone’s skills.

The Celtic captain said: “When people here speak about playing the Celtic way, I think they are talking about Jimmy.

“He was entertaining, exciting and pretty fearless as well.

“I remember Henrik Larsson and myself went to the opening of his film. We arrived late and just sat at the back of the auditorium.

“They were showing snippets of a game against Real Madrid and we were just chuckling away because it was great to watch with this wee man tearing strips off defenders.

“We just marvelled at him. There was footage I had never seen before and it was great to watch.

“He was voted the greatest Celtic player ever and rightly so.

“He would come into the dressing room every now and again and always had a good word for the players and the team.

“So it’s a huge loss. We’ve lost a talismanic figure, a cult hero, not just from the 1960s and 1970s, but from the last 40 years.”

The historic European Cup final victory over Inter Milan in Portugal was the pinnacle for Jock Stein’s team.

But many fans regard the Hoops’ semi-final, second-leg win over Leeds United three years later in the same competition as Johnstone’s finest hour.

In front of 136,000 fans at Hampden Park, Johnstone tormented England defender Terry Cooper in a 2-1 win for the Scots, which put them through to the final on a 3-1 aggregate.

The Hoops lost to Feyenoord in the final, but Celtic manager Gordon Strachan joked about the long-lasting impact Johnstone had on Cooper.

He said: “I had Terry as a chief scout at Southampton and you can’t mention Jimmy’s name to him because he actually starts shaking.

“When you think of Jimmy, you have a smile on your face because he was a wonderful character.

“I saw him at Christmas and he still had that waspish sense of humour I love. He had got to the stage where he was operating his chair with his foot. He still had that magnificent touch with the right foot to move the seat about.

“I told him ‘You’re lucky you’ve not got the touch of Bobo (Balde) because you could be right through that window.’

Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell will contact the Scottish Football League in a bid to incorporate a tribute to Johnstone into the CIS Insurance Cup final against Dunfermline on Sunday.

He said: “We’re looking at a number of ideas in the short-term and the long-term, but what we will commit to is that we’ll make sure we give him something special to send him off.

“It could possibly be the cup final at Hampden on Sunday.