Aidan Smith: Mowbray, the hippy manager who's proud to wear flair, man

Published on Saturday 20 June 2009 19:37

I'VE MENTIONED before my admiration for the film Airplane!, and in particular the scene where the journalists smash into the telephone boxes. But I reckon I'll keep being reminded of it as long as there's Scottish football, an excitable press, slow news days, the close season, and a couple of clubs – precisely, two, both based in Glasgow – who really fancy themselves.

Last week Tony Mowbray was appointed manager of one of them. Celtic, of course. He invented the huddle, by the way. He's Cellic-minded, by the way. If you cut him open, he'd be red and white all through. Red and white? Yes, for Middlesbrough, his home-town team. Anyway that's by the way (by the way), for he's in Paradise now and he has grand plans.

On the day he got to hold up a new-stylee, polyester version of the world-famous Hoops and call the club his own, Mowbray – a fine, upstanding man and a deep-thinking coach – evoked the name of Barcelona. What he meant was that the dream football with which Bara won the Champions League was an inspiration to him. He did not mean he would turn Celtic into Barcelona, and stressed this point to the journos.

Too late. They were already sprinting across the hall and piling into the phone-booths – metaphorically-speaking; now they can contact the office via Twatter – and the next day's headlines were quickly heaved into position: "I'd love Celtic to play like Bara" ... "Let's play like Bara." And 24 hours after that, legend had become fact. In an interview with Parkhead's suddenly-sexy Nou Camp flop Marc Crosas, one hack wrote almost matter-of-factly that Mowbray had "insisted" the Euro champs were his template for Celtic.

Right now my guess is that Celtic fans, the discerning ones, have had enough of this paella frenzy of Bara-linked madness. They're probably seeking a range of opinion on their new boss and Hibs supporters should have an insight or two. It's four years since he strode into Easter Road and some of us remarked: "Tony who?" I remember his first home game, a pre-season friendly against Leeds, and my first reaction to football played the Mowbray way was: "Who's the fatso at left-back?"

My second reaction was: "That French guy in the centre of midfield, the one who could be reading Le Figaro, smoking a croissant and waiting in a boulevard cafe for Franoise Hardy for all the sweat he's expending – how's he going to survive in the SPL?"

The left-back was David Murphy and he got fitter. The midfielder was Guillaume Beuzelin who was like an existential Foreign Legion poet in his reluctance to ever hurry up. They were Mowbray's best Hibs signings, and his best outfield ten – those two, plus Scott Brown, Gary Caldwell, Rob Jones, Ian Murray, Garry O'Connor, Derek Riordan, Craig Rocastle and Kevin Thomson – might have won the Sc*tt*sh C*p if he'd stayed, kept them together and found a goalie. Just maybe, if the Old Firm could be trusted to be as poor again, the league.

That said, his Hibs had flair and hair but lacked luck, steel and a plan B, and Paul, my West Brom chum in our office, says the same about Mowbray's Baggies. "James Morrison, Robert Koren, Borja Valero – too many small, neat players," he argues. Paul witnessed West Brom outplaying Liverpool at Anfield, prompting a Scouser to ask: "How come you're bottom?" Then Liverpool woke up. I've got similar tales from Parkhead – 1-2 and 2-3 we beat Celtic; moral victories but no points.

After losing his first Edinburgh derby, Mowbray moaned about Hearts' physical approach. Three times the following season the Jambos put four past Hibs. Understrength for a cup semi, Mowbray refused to go mean and defensive for a replay to try and buy time for players coming back. He's a hippy manager who believes only in beautiful football. And, mirroring a famous photograph from the Summer of Love, it's like he's sticking a flower down the barrel of a rifle with these principles, refusing to countenance the use of muscle.

They should love him at Celtic, a luckier team with less need of an alternative gameplan. Hibs fans won't ever stop loving him for two seasons of peace, love, daft haircuts and fabulous goals.