In the last few hours Celtic have announced that a familiar name will be returning to Celtic. That name being Strachan. And I’m not just talking about Gordon Strachan returning to do a bit of punditry as part of the deal Celtic have agreed with Sunset + Vine and the well known BT Sport team.
His son, Gavin Strachan has agreed a deal with Celtic to become First Team coach and a key member of Neil Lennon’s backroom staff.
It was clear Celtic were going to need to look for a new first-team coach, when it was announced that Damien Duff would be leaving the Scottish Champions. He has now taken up a role with the Republic of Ireland but also returned to his homeland due to family reasons. Duff couldn’t have spoken in any better manner when it came to what he said about his time at Celtic. You could really tell he was speaking from the heart as a fan. He will be sorely missed but the club have had to act quickly with this being such an important year in the club’s history.
So when it was announced that Duff would be moving on, Twitter obviously reacted. There were rumours and suggestions flying everywhere of who could be the man to step up and fill into this position.
Some suggested would go down the route we have for the last couple of years by promoting from within the club. Of course, that is how Damien Duff himself first got into the role, being a reserve coach beforehand. So the obvious candidates were Stephen McManus and Darren O’Dea. Both are currently coaching at the club in the youth levels, whilst also having a connection to the club having graced the green and white hoops, not so long ago.
There was also shouts of people from outwith the club. One example of this was former Manchester United and Scotland international Darren Fletcher. He was linked to the role by a number of people and it didn’t seem to bad a shout. Fletcher has a lot of playing experience and has previously spoken of his admiration for the club so it could have been the perfect opportunity for him to make his way into the coaching side of the game.
The man has landed the role though is Gavin Strachan.
Gavin is not only the son of famous Scottish football character and of course ex Celtic boss Gordon Strachan but has also had a footballing career of his own. Likely not as good as his old man’s career but he did have a pretty impressive one playing for clubs like Manchester United, Leeds and Aberdeen at their European peak along with picking up 50 caps for Scotland.
Just as his dad was, Gavin was a midfielder. Funnily enough, he started his career at Coventry City when his dad was the manager of the club. Having just played 16 times for the club across six years, he ended up having two loan spells, here in Scotland with Motherwell and Dundee. Strachan has a whole host of clubs he played for after moving on from Coventry City including teams such as Peterborough United, Notts County and Hartlepool United to name a few. Playing the most amount of games at the latter of the three teams, running out 78 times for Hartlepool. In total he played for 11 clubs over a career spanning for 14 years, making 195 appearances overall.
As well as turning out for a number of clubs, he also made eight appearances for the Scotland under 21 side but never managed to get a call up to the full international side, which his dad later managed.
After retiring in 2011 he moved into the coaching side of the game, with the club in which he had two separate spells at as a player, Peterborough United. He was in this role for just under three years, before being promoted to first team coach in June 2014. After nine months in the job, Strachan moved on from the job when Darren Ferguson also left the club after a poor run of form in League 1 at the time.
In June of 2015, just a few months after he had moved on from his previous job, Strachan moved into his first role as the Head Coach at Lower League English side Ilkeston. Even though this was just his first role, Strachan already had the highest level of coaching qualification available, holding his UEFA Pro License.
He wasn’t in this role for long though, as Darren Ferguson came calling again. This time in the Doncaster Rovers job. The two seem to be a duo who enjoy working together and when the right opportunity arises, they will take it. Of course, Darren also knows what it’s like to have a former legendary player/manager as a dad, with him being the son of Gordon Strachan’s former boss, Sir Alex Ferguson. Whilst at Doncaster they had mixed success in their nearly three seasons at the club. They gained promotion from League 2 but also finished 15th in the league going on a long winless run towards the end. Even though Ferguson did leave it looked as though Strachan may have been staying put, but shortly after it was announced he would also be departing to focus on developing his skills in coaching.
After this short break, in January 2019 Strachan and Ferguson both returned to the club they had formerly worked together at and still currently do, Peterborough United.
For Peterborough, unfortunately, their season is now also over, having just missed out on the play-off spots due to points per game meaning they will have no more games to compete in and will have to settle with League 1 football again next season.
Now this is where Celtic come in. In the last couple of days, the rumours have been going around that Gavin Strachan will be becoming part of Neil Lennon’s background staff for next season. This was then confirmed by the League 1 sides, director of football Barry Fry who was speaking very highly of him as a coach but also admitted when a club like Celtic come calling there is no denying anyone of the opportunity to move to a club of this stature.
The links to Celtic don’t just end with his dad, who as mentioned before was manager at the club for around four years, winning three Scottish League titles, two League Cups and a Scottish Cup. But also there seems to be a link between current coach John Kennedy and Gavin Strachan as they both reportedly attended the same coaching course as one another.
After the success of Damien Duff and how popular he was with the squad during a successful period, it will be interesting to see how the 41-year-old will fit in. In the last few years, we have had a number of good coaches at the club with the likes of Chris Davies and Johan Mjallby, so he will definitely be in safe hands at the club.
Due to this success, I have no doubt that the club will have done their homework, probably knowing Duff was moving on a few months ago. So now they have struck a deal with Peterborough, it will give him more time to get settled in ready to do his job, in time for such a crucial season in which he would go down in the name of other legends at the club by being part of the team that won 10 in a row.
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