HE may have passed away decades ago, but he still performs to crowds of over 50,000 regularly in Glasgow. This is Glen Daly, singer of many a maudlin Scottish song that would bring a tear to a glass eye, who recorded The Celtic Song. And it is Glen's version which is still played to this day at Celtic Park when the team runs out.
Here he is being presented with a silver disk by Glasgow's Lord Provost in 1972, Sir Donald Liddle. Dapper Sir Donald has the distinction of being the last Lord Provost of Glasgow who was not a member of the Labour Party. He represented The Progressives, a loose amalgam of Unionist parties in local government at a time when the Tory Party did not put up council candidates. I cannot make out what the silver disc was for, but Glen had a number of records recorded "Live at the Ashfield Club" and perhaps one of them had sold in sufficient numbers to qualify for the silver disc.
Truly there was not a household of Celtic supporters in the sixties and seventies which did not have a Glen Daly LP at the bottom of the pile which was brought out at New Year parties to be dusted off and played on the Dansette while granny, nursing an Advocaat, hummed along.
And a footnote on The Celtic Song. It figured in the hit US drama Lost when Paisley actor Ian Cusick, in the role of Desmond Hume, was asked by the director to sing a song at one point and he broke into "Sure it's a grand old team to play for."
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