Neil Lennon

What's this Hibs beating the zombies was up there with Celtic beating Barcelona ? Did he really say that or was he taking the pish?

 

It’s just more prevalent in his mind.. but aye a stupid thing to say.. he just loves smashing them..

 

Cheers mate . It was a great listen

 

Having a listen to it now.

really good stuff.

 

Some good indepth stuff, still got 20 minutes. You got the Sutton one?

 

Think the sutton one might be added soon.

 

* hero.

 

Two words: Back, heartbeat

 

One of the greatest images in history..

GBNL

 

NEIL LENNON has recalled the comical story behind his move to Celtic – where he walked out on a mega-bucks deal with Leicester City.

In the summer of 2000, Lenny was desperate to seal a dream move to Parkhead and be reunited with former boss Martin O’Neill at his boyhood heroes.


O’Neill, who had just left the Foxes to take charge of Celtic, made several attempts to prise the midfielder away from Filbert Street.

But the Premier League side were determined to keep hold of the Northern Irishman, demanding an £8million fee.

And Lennon has lifted the lid on the great lengths he went to in a bid to push through the move, which eventually landed him an unexpected bumper contract.

In an extensive interview with CQN podcast, Lennon recapped the moment he urged O’Neill to move north – and bring him too.

On O’Neill’s Leicester exit, he said: “I thought he was going to go to Leeds at one stage.

“After David O’Leary had left, he was at the top of his game and Leeds were one of the big clubs and they had made waves for him.

“But he pulled me in in the summer of 2000 and said ‘look Lenny, I’ve been approached by Celtic’. He said, ‘what do you think?’

“I said ‘you’ve got to go, you’re from the same background as me’.

“He said ‘would you come with me?’ I said ‘f****** right I will!’

“So that’s how it started. Leicester were very vigilant in not letting me go. The funny thing was, I said to the agent at the time, I really want to go.

“So Celtic offered round about £5m at the time, Leicester wanted £8m.

“So Leicester called my agent and I said to my agent, ‘just go in there and ask for stupid money, a stupid contract and once they turn it down then I can hand a transfer request in to go.’

“And then my agent went in and two hours later he came out and said- ‘they’ve agreed to everything!’

“That backfired! So in the end, a mega-contract, I must be the only person in the world unhappy to f****** sign it!”

Despite penning the new contract, Lenny’s extension only delayed the inevitable and Leicester still had an unhappy player on their hands.

In the end, the 29-year-old finally got his wish after O’Neill returned with an improved £6m offer months later.



He said: “Anyway, things took a turn later on, Celtic got off to a good start, Chris Sutton, Joos Valgaeren, Alan Thompson came in, they had that great run at the start, beating Rangers 6-2 and then they lost at Ibrox heavily 5-1.

“Paul Lambert had broken his shin so Martin made it clear, and I made it clear to Leicester that I was unhappy and I wanted to go.

“We were actually sitting third in the Premier League at the time. But I just thought I couldn’t miss that opportunity.

“I was 29 and I would have regretted it the rest of my life if I hadn’t made it happen and thankfully it did.

“And the other thing was Martin was there and I had great success under him previously so in the end, round about December, it came to fruition.”