In a great new series Record Sport has teamed up with BT Sport to bring you highlights from their new podcast ‘Currie Club – The Scottish Football Sessions’, hosted by Darrell Currie. The latest episode, out now, features former Celtic star and Record Sport columnist Chris Sutton. The episodes are available every Friday for free across popular podcast platforms. ‘Currie Club – The Scottish Football Sessions’ is part of a new line-up of podcasts, BT Sport Pods. Visit btsport.com/pods
Chris Sutton gets it. He knows football people can be thin-skinned at times. After all, he’s been there, done that, and sulked at the stick he believes unfairly came his way at Chelsea.
So now that he’s a goal poacher turned gamekeeper and part of the media he once shunned, Sutton can understand why there are people within football who don’t like the forthright opinions he spouts on TV, radio and in this very newspaper as a Record Sport columnist.
But the bad news for them is that this 49-year-old isn’t going to change anytime soon. Even if voicing his opinion harms friendships that he hopes can withstand truths that have to be told if he is to be seen as doing his job properly. The former Celtic striker doesn’t shrug off the impact that falling out with people he likes can have on him and the guy on the other side of the argument.
In this week’s episode of BT Sports’ Currie Club podcast, Sutton speaks of his now fractured relationship with former Parkhead team-mate Neil Lennon, whom he criticised in the latter stages of his second managerial spell in Glasgow.
There’s genuine regret that a once-firm friendship is now less stable but his contention that his comments were justified remain unshaken. Asked by Darrell Currie if Sutton found it difficult to admit that Lennon’s reign was in jeopardy after a 4-1 Europa League defeat at home to Sparta Prague during the Covid lockdown, he said: “It wasn’t difficult. You can only say what is in front of you but there’s always that nagging feeling in the stomach.
“Neil was a great mate of mine. We played together for four years at Celtic, I used to sit next to him in the dressing room. My wife chats to Neil’s wife.
“For example, when my son James was born at 28 weeks, Neil came in the next morning to visit my wife and little James, who wasn’t well. He showed great support in that particular time.
“We used to go out together as team-mates, as a lot of us did. That particular team was a band of brothers. I’ve spoken to Neil about this. Neil was a broadcaster as well and a really good broadcaster. I think he understands the game in that respect. He will be critical of managers and players.
“He wasn’t happy with me and he made that very clear. We walked down after the match and had to leave through a certain exit due to Covid and as we were walking down, Neil had turned the corner to walk up...I said, ‘alright Neil?’ and he said nothing...
“From Neil’s point of view, I totally got that because of the pressure. He was the Celtic manager and those Covid times were an absolute nightmare to manage in, because of the way the crowd can really lift the team and (not having that) was really difficult for him.
“But the performances at that particular time weren’t there. Now time has healed things a little bit and everybody realises what a brilliant servant he was. He might look back in years to come and think that actually I was right. But knowing Neil....”
If that one stings a little, Sutton has no regrets about calling out Leigh Griffiths’ lack of fitness on one occasion – even if the former Scotland striker took massive exception to it after a match when the player spotted the pundit in the press gallery. He smiled and said: “It was quite an interesting show of pettiness...’you come down here’, ‘no, you come up here’.
“That was how it started. He was really angry.
“I was critical of his physical condition. Don’t forget Leigh Griffiths was such an important player at Celtic – a brilliant natural goalscorer.
“I thought he’d let himself go and I wasn’t the only one thinking that. I said it – he took offence. But I stand by what I said and I told him that.
“I get it. I played and you don’t take criticism well. Leigh’s a passionate guy. He wanted to vent his frustration and I said to him that the best way to do that was to get himself fit enough to become an asset to the team.”
And he recalled an interesting trip south with Craig Gordon after he’d had a pop at the keeper: “I felt his form had dipped a bit at Celtic,” Sutton said.
“He was always a good keeper but there was a game in the League Cup (against Alloa) where he came out and should have been sent off for what I described as a Hong Kong Fu kick and he’d just lost a little bit of confidence at that time.
“I was critical of him and then I was covering a Dundee United v Celtic game and I always fly back to Norwich or Stansted, so I was in the tiny lounge at Dundee Airport. There was no-one else there, then Craig Gordon walked in. He’d spoken about the criticism I’d given him, so we were at war.
“We sat looking at each other and then he was sitting next to me on the plane. I gave him my view and he was fine. That’s the whole point of prepping and backing your opinion.”
While Sutton has had clashes with personnel at his former club, he believes – although it has never been confirmed – that he is banned from Ibrox. Certainly, he has not been allowed into Rangers’ stadium in recent times when BT Sport has been covering European matches.
And he reckons it may have stemmed from a column he wrote in which he described Gers skipper James Tavernier as a ‘serial loser’. “I called him that when he hadn’t won anything at that particular time,” he said. “I was factual at that time.
“I have got great admiration for James Tavernier and the way he has played for the last number of seasons and for the way he’s captained Rangers. They demolished Celtic by 25 points and last season he did brilliantly to take Rangers to a Europa League Final.
“I can’t call him a serial loser now. He’s answered in the best way.
“But are we really going to get offended by little snippets like that? I’ve not heard James Tavernier say anything about this.
“He’s done exactly as he should do and I have total admiration for him and the way he’s conducted himself and how he’s dragged the Rangers team up to a level where they are a real force back in Glasgow now.
“I don’t know which things I’ve said which Rangers don’t like. The easiest thing would be for someone to give me a call and say, ‘we don’t like that or you’ve said this or that’. It’s not for me to resolve.”
He’s not going to change his style, that’s clear. “I like what I do. Naturally there is a shelf life but I don’t want to stop,” he added.
“I used to tell Alan Thompson and John Hartson, ‘if you ever see me working in the media, you can smash me over the head with a shovel’.’ And here I am...”
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