Henrik Larsson was back among the Celtic support on Tuesday evening as the King of Kings made a special appearance at the club’s Glasgow city centre store.
The former Hoops striker was at the Queen Street superstore to meet supporters and sign copies of Larsson: A Legend in Focus, with fans getting the chance to spend some time with one of the greatest players ever to pull on the green and white Hoops.
The signing session was limited to competition winners, 120 supporters won entry for themselves and a guest after pre-ordering the book and being chosen at random.
It meant plenty of Celtic fans, young and old, getting the sort of photograph and signed book that will be kept for a long time.
For some of the younger supporters in attendance, Larsson is a player they know mostly through stories from parents and the endless collection of goals still doing the rounds online. For those of us fortunate enough to watch his seven years at Celtic first hand, very little introduction is required.
Larsson scored 242 goals in 315 appearances for Celtic between 1997 and 2004, but the numbers only tell part of the story. He arrived as a relatively unknown £650,000 signing from Feyenoord and left as one of the biggest figures in the club’s modern history.
More than two decades after his final competitive appearance for Celtic, the affection has grown rather than wilted.
Larsson has been spending a bit of time back in Glasgow this week. On Monday evening he took centre stage at the Royal Concert Hall for An Evening with Henrik Larsson & Friends, alongside former teammates Johan Mjällby, John Hartson, Jackie McNamara and Alan Thompson.
Scott Brown even made an unexpected appearance on the night, having spent time golfing with Larsson beforehand.
Tuesday’s event was a little more intimate and also gave Celtic the opportunity to make use of their relatively new flagship city centre store.
The Queen Street shop opened its doors in September last year after Celtic closed the Argyle Street store which had served supporters in Glasgow city centre since the 1990s.
There is, of course, another side to the story of Celtic retail at the moment.
The Celtic Fans Collective launched its “Not Another Penny” campaign last October amid widespread anger with the running of the club. The campaign called on supporters to boycott purchases from Celtic, with match tickets excluded, as a way of registering their unhappiness with those in charge.
Many supporters have continued to observe that boycott, and there is an irony that one of the biggest Celtic retail events of the year arrives with a sizeable section of the support still deliberately keeping their wallets closed.
Henrik Larsson, though, has always had a habit of bringing Celtic supporters together.
Judging by the scenes in Queen Street on Tuesday evening, the pull of the King of Kings remains every bit as strong as you would expect.
Twenty-two years after he left Celtic Park, there are not many former players who could walk into a Celtic shop and instantly turn an ordinary Tuesday evening into an event.
Keep Reading
