Brendan Rodgers sets sights on 1000-club as he talks Celtic banners and life as a factory worker

The banner referencing Brendan Rodgers was hard to miss. No, not that one. This was at Tannadice rather than Tynecastle, in a moment of triumph as opposed to perceived treachery.

Rodgers clocked it above the tunnel after Celtic had dismantled Dundee United 5-0 earlier this month to clinch their fourth title in a row and second since he made his contentious return. The Northern Irishman is portrayed as a Celtic grandee in green and white striped tie and smoking a cigar. “We made our own history,” is the message above. And below? “Let’s have some fun.”

Both are quotes readily associated with Rodgers, the first dating from his first spell at Parkhead and the second to a pre-Old Firm match press conference in his second spell that was interpreted as him baiting Rangers.

Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers is covered in ticker tape as he celebrates with the league trophy. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images) | Getty Images

There are a few other ‘Rodgers-isms’ that might have been selected, including the one delivered outside the Celtic Park front porch two years ago next month. Many will remember the somewhat muted scenes as he was unveiled for a second time. “See you back here in May,” he told doubters, and he did. Indeed, since his return he has won everything there is to win in the domestic setting bar one League Cup. And this weekend, with Celtic having celebrated title day yesterday with a 1-1 draw against St Mirren, he has added another bauble: The William Hill Scottish Football Writers’ Association Manager of the Year award.

It’s the first time since he returned that he has won a title he picked up once in two full seasons during his first trophy-laden stint in Scotland.

Most fans back on board

Of course, as appreciative as Rodgers sounded, approval from football writers might not mean as much to him as the acclaim of supporters. It’s why the banner at Tannadice seemed significant. Granted, it doesn’t necessarily reflect the views of everyone. There will be some who still believe he traded “immortality for mediocrity” as that infamously barbed Green Brigade message put it before a Hearts v Celtic fixture after Rodgers had performed a midnight flit to Leicester City. They might not ever forgive him, something he has long since accepted.

But there are surely many more who are getting back on board with the man who led Celtic out of the Champions League group stages for the first time since 2012/13 and has wrapped up a title in the style only bettered by his Invincibles season in 2016/17. Hence the banner – and the image of a satisfied and perhaps vindicated Rodgers.

Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers, who has been awarded Manager of the Year, as voted by Scottish Football Writers Association, at Lennoxtown Training Ground. | Steve Welsh/PA Wire

"It certainly warms the heart more than the banner at Tynecastle when I left,” he smiles. The only thing that did not sit well with him was the cigar. “I’m not Michael Jordan,” he smiles, with reference to the basketball legend who liked to chew on a large Havana before games. It certainly does not fit with the health regime designed to keep Rodgers in management for 1000 games – at least.

Where it all began...

He is currently on 794, which means he will hit 800 in the first few weeks of next season. He was asked to reflect on the first one – Watford v Doncaster Rovers in November 2008, when he was just 35-years-old. “One each,” he says. “We took the lead…In the last 30 minutes of that game we were under real pressure and conceded but we hung on for a draw.”

From hanging on to a draw against Doncaster to well, immortality. He is already Celtic’s greatest living manager and now he stands on the cusp of being the first man to lead the club to three trebles. A win in next Saturday's Scottish Cup final against Aberdeen, the side swept aside 5-1 by Celtic at Pittodrie last midweek, is all that stands between Rodgers and this supreme claim.

He will address what that feels like if and when it happens. During a wide-ranging interview on Friday, he felt more inclined to look a little further into the future, as well as further back to his early days as a coach and player, when he drove a forklift truck to help finance studying for his coaching badges.

By his own admission he wasn’t much of a player though he had whatever progress he might have made disrupted by a bad knee injury. By the end of his career was playing for the likes of Southern League side Newport, who were based on the Isle of Wight. He’d get the ferry across to play games while working in a John Lewis warehouse in Bracknell. “I was in there with some amazing people,” he recalled. “The John Lewis Partnership were brilliant to work for and I would see staff that after they worked there for 25 years would get six months’ paid free holiday.” It might have been tempting to stick it out, but he had other plans. He says he “didn’t want to be that guy” sitting around waiting for a work-related bonus. “I loved football and that made me realise even more so how much I loved it,” he recalls. “It paid for me to get my qualifications and then eventually I was offered a full-time job at Reading. But I met guys in there who were football daft and it was a great experience for me for the four years I was in there.”

Brendan Rodgers pictured in December 2008 during his first managerial job as head coach of Watford. (IAN KINGTON/AFP via Getty Images) | AFP via Getty Images

Aiming for 1000 games

A youth coach role at Chelsea “dropped the seed” that he wanted to manage. Now he’s within sight of joining the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho in the 1000-club. “My initial target was 1000 games, the inspiration was to get to that,” he says. “Naturally as you get closer you want to continue the journey. I think I am still relatively young as a manager, 52. As long as the passion is there and I can work the way I want to with professionalism and commitment I will carry on.

“But I also know life is short. There are things I would like to be able to do more of, with regards to family and spending time with them. That is why I was going to have a break before coming back to Celtic. Now I am in, I am loving being here.”

Whether he hits 1000 games while still at Celtic, one would have to have doubts. He is sure to hit 800 while at Parkhead as he’s already made the extravagant promise that he’s “200 per cent” certain to see out his contract, which runs until next year.

He’s looking fit and well and can surely anticipate at least another decade in top-level management. He admits he lost focus amid a trying time in his personal life while managing – successfully it must be said – at Swansea, and before joining Liverpool. He resolved to eat better and keep in good physical shape.

“I lost my parents and went through a period of grief and when I look back now, I was probably so busy and it (the unfitness) was mixed in with that,” he says. “I wanted to live as long as I could and for that I needed to be fit and healthy. I still try to do that to this day.”

Trebles aren’t necessarily associated with clean living, but victory over Aberdeen next weekend will certainly make the sacrifices seem worth it.