" I didn't know what to do"
Phone the police is the obvious answer.
Unfortunately like many at that rancid club the macaroni munchkin seems to have forgotten the number.
The incident he's talking about took place in Kearny, NJ in 1993. He says there was no mechanism in the club to deal with it. Which is odd, considering how quickly
Paedophile #2 was given the choice of 'resign or face a police investigation', for an incident in the same place, only two years earlier.
You'll also notice that, near the end, he says he wishes "
he could have done more for the lad.
It was a police matter, if anything." He didn't say anything about actually calling the police.
Then, right at the end, he swiftly turns his attention away from boys being abused to management takeovers.
This is the full extract from the book.
"Away from first-team and club matters, which were bad enough, another issue was beginning to raise its ugly head at the club. Within a month of my arrival one of the young players asked to see me in my office.
‘
Here we go,’ I thought. ‘
That didn’t take long. Here’s a youngster in to complain about not being in the team. Straight away he’s going to be into me to give him his chance.’
He sat down and told me that he had had problems on a trip to North America with the youth team. One of the fellas in charge had made advances towards him.
As a manager you expect to have to sort out all sorts of problems. But this wasn’t one I ever saw coming. I was staggered. To be frank, I didn’t know how to respond for the best.
Clearly the kid was distressed about what had happened, but I felt I couldn’t just approach the accused and ask him to explain himself without proof. My hands were tied, in a way. I felt completely stuck and out of my depth.
I spoke to my staff. They were shocked. My gut feeling was that the kid was speaking the truth, but there was no mechanism within the club or within my experience to deal with it. It was a police matter if anything.
Any investigation had to start with them. And that’s exactly what happened. A couple of years later it all came out.
Paedophile #1 was convicted of sexual abuse of three players.
Paedophile #2 was charged but not convicted.
It emerged that years earlier Jock Stein knew all about
Paedophile #1 and kicked him out of the club. The wish to maintain the good name of Celtic, if that were ever a good enough reason, was the only thing that kept the issue from coming to light at that point.
There was a string of allegations by young lads whose dreams of playing for Celtic were exploited, but it was the testimony of Alan Brazil, David Gordon and James McGrory that brought the matter to court, and
Paedophile #1 to justice.
Before I was approached, I knew nothing about it. I joined Celtic as a youngster in 1965, the year before the Boys’ Club was set up. It was completely off my radar then. I had never even heard of
Paedophile #1, and subsequently never met him.
The details were sickening. I wished I could have done more for the lad, but it was awkward. I had hardly been at the club five minutes. And there were other fires burning.
It seemed only a matter of time before Fergus McCann, who was conducting a clever campaign and who had people inside the club agitating on his behalf, took over.
Kevin Kelly was fighting a losing battle. McCann eventually claimed the prize he wanted late on a Friday night in March 1994. It was obvious something was going on from the number of solicitors coming through the door."