Parkhead supremo looks to a new dawn

Glasgow Celtic's new director of football Kenny Dalglish made a brief visit to Dublin yesterday to promote next Tuesday's friendly with Bray Wanderers at Tolka Park, but inevitably the media's focus was on Celtic's fresh ambitions heading into the opening weekend of the Scottish league.

Although Dalglish's consortium's bid to buy the club failed, his new appointment brings him back to the club where he started his career. With John Barnes also starting a new venture as manager, the millennium seamarks a new dawn for Celtic.

"Obviously we're all looking forward to it," said Dalglish. "It's a whole new set up with a lot of new players on board and it's a challenge for everyone. As you know, myself and a couple of other lads tried to get involved in buying the club but then I was asked to come on board for this position, which is more or less the job I would have been doing anyway."

Being installed as director of football operations by new chief executive Allan MacDonald looks to have compensated Dalglish for the disappointment of Fergus McCann refusing to sell last season. The question on everybody's minds, however, is whether Celtic can close the gap, albeit narrow, on city rivals Rangers.

"Well everybody starts the new season fresh," he said. "Rangers had a great run last year but there was never much in it. It's up to us now to get things going. I know John Barnes is going into a whole new venture as well but he's always had tremendous respect as a player and I'm sure he'll quickly get the same respect here as a manager. We've a new chief executive and a new managing director and overall the surroundings are certainly a lot different to the last time I was there. But we're all excited now and once the season starts we'll know a lot more about what we have to do."

Celtic begin that campaign at Aberdeen next Sunday evening, but Dalglish is adamant that their meeting with Bray two days later is still going to be an important part of their season's preparations. "We certainly do need the game for our own fitness. We'll be using it for the benefit of all our players, and everyone on the first team squad will be coming over. They all need games and especially at this early stage, so flying in here on Tuesday morning is no problem to us."

Bray manager Pat Devlin is also seeing the game at Tolka Park as an ideal build up for their EUFA Cup first round meeting with Grasshoppers Zurich, which starts with the away leg on August 12th.

"I think this game could be a little bit more than a friendly," said Devlin. "This is fantastic preparation for us and a chance to play at a standard that we're going to get in Zurich. I was taken aback with the St Pat's result so it's a chance for us to try and get a better show in Europe. Our preparation has been thorough and we're unbeaten in our last three friendlies, so the form is good.

"It's great for all our supporters as well, although it would have been nice to play at the Carlisle Grounds. But there were a lot of considerations involved and our priority was to make it safe and ensure everything goes well. We're playing our European game there as well, so it's good to get used to it as much as we can."

Dalglish will also be keeping his eyes open for some potential Irish recruits. "Celtic has a great tradition in youth football and that's something we want to maintain. It's been a pleasant surprise to see how well that part of the club is organised behind the scenes, and we're always looking to spread our wings, at home and in places like Ireland. We've a lot of Irish support anyway and that's one of the reasons we're coming over here to play the game with Bray in the first place."

The return to Parkhead, meanwhile, although he wouldn't admit it, completes something of a full circle in Dalglish's career. In 1967, Celtic became the first British club to lift the European Cup, and it was also the year that Dalglish, an apprentice joiner, signed for the club on a provisional contract. Dalglish turned professional the following year and went on to win four championships before his £400,000 switch to Liverpool in 1977, where he was involved in eight championship-winning teams and won three European Cup medals.

People described his choice of Barnes as manager as a gamble, but at the time Dalglish responded by saying that "it's a gamble just getting up in the morning".

It will take a few months, however, before we know whether it's a gamble that will pay off.