TO say John Barnes' eight-month reign as manager of Celtic between 1999 and 2000 was turbulent is a complete understatement. It makes for a wonderful case study in Scottish football though.
The football legend turned out for Watford, Liverpool, Newcastle and Charlton and earned 79 caps for England, scoring 11 goals. He is widely regarded as one of the finest footballers of his generation. Rightly so.
Revisionism is pretty much in vogue when it comes to footballers and managers and their tales of derring-do. However, Barnes has a Celtic story to tell and then some.
A phone call from former Liverpool team-mate Kenny Dalglish led to his left-field appointment as manager in the summer of 1999.
A follow-up phone call saw Barnes hired on King Kenny's say-so as the man to succeed Dr Jo Venglos in the Paradise hotseat.
Dalglish was installed as director of football and Barnes was named as head coach. The Celtic legend was supposedly to act as a mentor figure and provide support.
However, Barnes says that he was met with hostility from day one when he arrived in Glasgow's east end.
Dalglish felt like his only ally and his appointment was frowned upon by then chief executive Allan MacDonald and several members of the Celtic board.
The duo were unveiled as the managerial "Dream Team" by the press. Behind the scenes, though, all was not well with MacDonald and his cronies admitting that it was a "high-risk" appointment.
Barnes insists that he felt instantly that he was being set up for a fall in his first-ever job in football management. That he felt undermined at every turn.
He was the most important man at the football club - or indeed that's what he thought the job remit was. Yet from day one he felt subservient to Dalglish and a suspecting board.
When his credentials were questioned at the first shareholders meeting, the media narrative changed to Barnes being under Dalglish in the Paradise chain of command. A 'puppet manager'.
Nobody pulls John Barnes' strings though... nobody.
Barnes said: "Kenny Dalglish is a man of few words when it comes to business and he phoned me up and he said 'I am going to Celtic, do you want to come in as head coach?'
"It was totally out of the blue and I never heard from him for two weeks and then he phoned me again and asked if I was coming or what? That was it. That's how the Celtic manager's job was pitched to me.
"At that time I had also spoken to Sheffield United as well and I didn't know if they wanted me or not. They never made an offer.
"I did speak to them (Sheffield United) but I knew the magnitude of the Celtic job and had Sheffield United come in for me I would probably have taken that managerial position over Celtic.
"That's not a reflection on Celtic as I knew I would probably have been given more time at Sheffield United to implement things especially if things did not go well straight away.
"As strange as it sounds, can you imagine Celtic being the only offer you have on the table as you are about to embark on your first managerial job? I was excited by it all.
"Rangers were the better team and had won the league the season before. The quality of players that they had in numbers was probably why they got in trouble further down the line as they were spending money they didn't actually have.
"Celtic had two or three very good players to compete with them but as a squad Rangers had a better one.
"I knew that to finish second to Rangers depending on how it goes was always going to be seen as a failure. But Celtic was something that I could not turn down at the time.
"Rangers were the champions and the better team yet somehow Kenny and myself were unveiled as Celtic's managerial 'dream team'.
"That happens and it was because I had gone to a big club and I was a big name alongside Kenny. People expected things to turn around all of a sudden.
"It was difficult right from the start. The manager is the most important person at a football club - or he certainly should be. That happens now in football.
"Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool, Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, Thomas Tuchel at Chelsea - they are all the most important men at their respective clubs.
"Kenny pushed for my appointment at Celtic and I did not feel that Allan MacDonald, Celtic's CEO at the time, and the Celtic board wanted me there.
"I didn't realise that until I got there. We had a shareholders meeting and one of the first questions from the floor was about me being a rookie manager.
"Allan MacDonald answered it by saying: 'It's all right we have got Kenny Dalglish'. There was very much a feeling that they were putting up with me.
"How's that for immediately feeling that you are being undermined? Once that happens and it translates to the dressing room and they understand that you haven't got allies on the board it is very tough.
"I was getting criticised constantly and there was a media narrative and perception that I was a puppet manager and that Kenny was actually in charge. I got criticised before a ball was kicked in earnest in my Celtic managerial career.
"I thought 'if I am being criticised now and the season hasn't even started what will happen if we go through a sticky patch?'"
Barnes recalls how he spoke to his predecessor, Dr Jo Venglos, about how best to approach the role.
Alarm bells were also ringing when Barnes heard what the Slovakian coach had to put up with at the club.
He realised then that he had walked into a "toxic" environment - and that certain players were about to make his life difficult.
Barnes recalls how two of his new signings, Bobby Petta and Stiliyan Petrov endured a torrid time in their initial months at the club due to dressing room unrest. Both turned out to be a revelation under his successor Martin O'Neill.
But at the time they had to contend with booing from the Celtic fans because of their close association with the manager. The treatment got so bad that the duo didn't want to get stripped to play for the club during the early days.
Barnes recalled how he was looking at buying property in Stirling and sending his kids to Fettes school but phoned his wife at the time and told her not to move to Scotland because his intuition told him it would be a short-term gig.
READ MORE: The turbulent Celtic reign of Dr. Jo Venglos' 23 years on and his gift from god
Barnes said: "I spoke to Jo Venglos, who was still there and in and around the club when I arrived. Jo was a very honourable man. He didn't make me aware of the situation.
"Eric Black - who was my assistant and was also Jo's number two - knew the problems that he Jo had encountered the previous year. They were similar problems to what I was having.
"He was being undermined and stories were being leaked out to the press and certain players were talking behind his back. I was going through the exact same experience and problems at the club.
"For an experienced manager like Venglos - who is a household name in football because of what he did with the Czech Republic - he was finding all that hard to fathom and, quite frankly, was happy to be out of it. It was toxic.
"I had inherited a toxic atmosphere at Celtic. So for someone embarking on their first managerial job it was always going to be difficult.
"It was a worry but what could I do? I was the Celtic manager.
"In the lead up to the first game away to Aberdeen at Pittodrie which we won 5-0, I sensed the disharmony and disunity in training.
"That whole week in training certain players were unhappy and you could sense the atmosphere. It got to the stage where some of the Celtic first-team players would not talk to me as it would be construed as sucking up to the enemy.
"There was animosity towards the players I signed like Bobby Petta and Stiliyan Petrov. They both went on to become great players for Celtic under Martin O'Neill but at first they were seen as my signings and both of them didn't even want to play for the club. That's how divided the Celtic dressing room was back then with big characters voicing their concerns over my signings.
"In the first six months of their Celtic careers the two of them could not perform because of the atmosphere and the fans were also booing them at times. There were stories in the papers that they were not good enough and that didn't help.
"I was looking at buying a property in Stirling and my kids were going to go to Fettes school and after the first month when we were winning matches and doing OK I still felt that this was not going to last.
"I remember phoning my wife at the time and saying don't come to Scotland as I won't be here long, I'll be back soon. How can I have that feeling at such a great club with a wonderful set of fans so early into my managerial reign? Why did I feel that it just wasn't going to work at Celtic?
"I was just hoping that I could get through it all by winning football matches. Could we challenge Rangers? We were five or six points behind them. Rangers were still the favourites and would they have still have won the league? Probably.
"Could I have improved Celtic to the point that we would have had a go the following season? I knew it was going to be a difficult year. The dressing room harmony was non-existent and I knew things were already stacking up against me before the season had even started."
Yet it all started out brilliantly for Barnes. Celtic won 12 out of their first 13 matches.
The new-look side were swashbuckling their way through games and putting the opposition to the sword but it all came to a halt during a black November when lady luck failed to shine on Barnes and within 72 hours he lost his two most influential players.
Henrik Larsson suffered a broken leg in a UEFA cup tie against Lyon and Champions League winner Paul Lambert saw his jaw was shattered and four teeth smashed in a match against Rangers at Ibrox.
At that moment Barnes also lost the glue that was holding his fragile dressing room together.
Barnes said: "We won 12 out of our first 13 matches. We were scoring lots of goals and playing well.
"We then lost Henrik to a broken leg against Lyon and Paul to a broken jaw against Rangers. After that, the season was an accident waiting to happen.
"From the November when Henrik was ruled out in the midweek and then Paul got injured at Ibrox in the very next game, I knew it wasn't going to work.
"Henrik and Paul were great players and they were both fantastic leaders and great people. Regardless of what either player felt towards me, they both gave their all for the team.
"They were two consummate professionals and they were the most influential players in the Celtic team at that time.
"They both put their personal feeling aside and were professional to the end so, when I lost those two in particular to injury, I knew then that the task had become even more difficult."
However, it was not the loss of Larsson and Lambert that caused Barnes the most grief. Almost overnight Barnes was branded "aloof and arrogant" by certain sections of the Scottish press.
The newspapers in particular painted a picture of a Celtic manager which he is adamant is nowhere near remotely resembling the truth.
Barnes said: "There was a media narrative out there that I was this aloof and arrogant person. That hurt me more than anything else during my time at Celtic. It simply wasn't true.
"When I was at Watford the most important thing [to me] was the humility that a person has. Regardless of whether you are seen as a superstar.
"I can't help the way people see me but I would never be disrespectful or aloof or not speak to anybody regardless of whether you are a homeless person in the street or the King. It does not make any difference to me at all.
"That disappointed me more than anything else when I was at Celtic. There was this perception of me and people did not know me at all. Some of the Celtic fans just assumed that it was true and they did not know me and they thought that I was aloof and arrogant and nothing could be further from the truth.
"I'm a normal person, I always have been, even when I was a supposed superstar at Liverpool. So that was really hurtful to me as that kind of thing sticks.
"It doesn't stick if you win football matches but as soon as things go badly it was used as a stick to beat me even when it wasn't true. Unfortunately, that was the situation I found myself in."
Barnes was astute enough to realise that the root cause of the dressing room disharmony was money. The disparity in players wages from the high to the low earners blew the dressing room asunder.
A team bonding session in Portugal turned into a team boxing session as Lubomir Moravcik spat the dummy and an unhappy Mark Viduka demanded a transfer that he'd been verbally promised by CEO MacDonald.
Barnes urged the Celtic board to put all the players on the same wages in order to salvage the dressing room but his plea fell on deaf ears.
The 58-year-old said: "Ultimately my problems at Celtic were all down to money. The Celtic players knew what the Rangers players were on and wanted parity.
"The years before they had fallen out with the likes of Fergus McCann and Jock Brown. It was all to do with contracts. All of them were on two or three-year contracts and it wasn't much money despite playing for Celtic.
"Most of the players wanted new, better and improved deals. We have to offer Henrik and Paul the bigger contracts and the club was willing to do that.
"Unfortunately Celtic were not willing to give the big deals to anybody else. That is the kind of fallout that I had to contend with.
"With Celtic being a PLC then I was told that I could not feed bad news stories to the press. I was saying the players were happy when everybody knew they weren't. It was all to do with money.
"I told the Celtic board they had to give every player say £20,000 a week or £4,000 a week but whatever they did they had to give them all the same. You cannot have a situation where there is a massive disparity in players wages.
"All of a sudden players found out what the others were earning. Whispers started to go around the club and the likes of Mark Viduka and Lubomir Moravcik, who were on smaller contracts, started to hear what they could get elsewhere and that made everybody unhappy.
"We went on a supposed team bonding week to Portugal and everybody was fighting and all the players were arguing. So much for a team bonding session!
"From that trip in Portugal, Mark came back and said that he wanted more money or a transfer as he was told by Allan MacDonald that if he came back from Australia and he was unhappy then he could be transferred for £3million or £4million.
"I told him he seemed happy as he had scored lots of goals and was doing very well for Celtic. Although Mark did not have what he was intimating to us in writing it meant nothing. Once he was told that he could leave the club we lost Mark as a player for Celtic.
"Kenny and I asked Allan MacDonald about this and he confirmed our worst fears about Viduka and that his version of events was true."
It all culminated in John Barnes nadir in his brief reign as Celtic manager: February 8 2000. Celtic 1, Inverness Caledonian Thistle 3. A Scottish Cup shocker of gargantuan proportions.
However, Viduka played a prominent role in Barnes' side demise as he pressed the self-destruct button on his Celtic career when he refused to come out for the second half after assistant Eric Black had questioned his desire and work ethic.
The Aussie chose to interpret that as Black calling him a "cheat" and he subsequently lost the plot.
Barnes said: "Mark head wasn't really in it after he told us he wanted to leave Celtic. We were fighting a losing battle and we felt that Mark had kind of downed tools by the time the infamous Caley Thistle Scottish Cup game came around.
"At half-time in that match, Eric told Mark that he was not running around and therefore not trying. That is all Eric said to Mark.
"It was lost in translation a bit in terms of the way you speak to people. If you are British, Scottish, English, Irish, Welsh and a coach says to you that you are not running around then you don't take that personally.
"Mark took that as a personal insult against his character and believed that Eric was calling him a cheat and he wanted to start to fight against it. But it was a throwaway line.
"Mark then refused to go back out on the pitch and hurled his boots across the floor, as everybody knows. He didn't come out for the second half.
"After the game, I was told that I couldn't tell the real Mark Viduka story because Celtic was a PLC and it is always supposed to be good news week at the club.
"Inverness Caley Thistle was a disastrous result for Celtic. I don't run away from that result as Inverness were in a lower league. I hold my hands up to it.
"I was constantly trying to keep the dressing harmony together against a rampant Rangers team but it was never going to work. I sadly never reached the point where I thought I could turn it all around.
"In football, you can win three, four, five, six games on the spin and people think you are doing well. At Celtic, if you lose one game then questions will always be asked.
"Interestingly, I won the manager of the month for January and got sacked two days later because of Inverness Caley Thistle."
A quirky statistic Barnes points out is that he sports a higher win percentage ratio in his eight months at Celtic than Steven Gerrard had in three years at Ibrox.
Barnes said: "Not a lot of people know that I have got a 65 [65.5] per cent win rate at Celtic. Steven Gerrard left Rangers with a 64 [64.8] per cent win rate.
"Yet people's perceptions of failure and what actually happened at Celtic as well as the truth have been skewed. Celtic beat Aberdeen 5-0, 6-0 and 7-0 during my time as the manager. There was another problem with that too.
"Regardless of whether Celtic was my first job as a football manager and whether I deserved the job or not was totally irrelevant. I was in the Celtic job - end of story."
During his time at Celtic, it wasn't just the board from within that railroaded against him. Some of his managerial peers - the late Ebbe Skovdahl at Aberdeen - also had an axe to grind with Barnes for reasons he insists are unbeknown to him. However, an ally was at hand in the shape of former Kilmarnock boss Bobby Williamson.
He added: "Some managers were unhappy with that and they thought 'who are you to be given the Celtic manager's job?'
"Ebbe Skovdahl was one of the main dissenters. He was a big name in Danish football management and was the Aberdeen boss at the time.
"Even when he was asked about the Celtic defeats he would say that I was still a naive manager and that Rangers were a better team than us after we had beaten his side 5-0, 6-0 and 7-0!
"Bobby Williamson was the Kilmarnock manager at the time and was the exact opposite. He was a brilliant guy. I went into his office at Rugby Park and he told me to keep believing in what I was doing and I really appreciated that.
"The media kept asking other managers their opinion on John Barnes and this naive narrative sprouted up from nowhere because of it. Once that happens, it is difficult to stop it unless you win every game."
Barnes even revealed that the laundry room at Celtic Park alongside kitman John Clark and kitwoman Angie Thomson became his quantum of solace.
He would regularly share cups of tea with Clark and Thomson as it meant he was away from prying and suspecting eyes.
Barnes said: "My best friends at Celtic were Angie the kit woman and John Clark. I used to sit with them and have cups of tea. Nobody could see you in the laundry room. I loved that. It was a wee secret hideaway away from everything."
Barnes can still raise a smile and chuckle at two memorable tabloid newspaper headlines from his time in Scotland.
He said: "Two headlines from my time up in Scotland still stick out to this day: 'Super-Caley-go-ballistic-Celtic-are-atrocious' and 'Barnes signs Scheidt'.
"The first one was a very clever and inventive headline. Though I actually never signed Rafael for Celtic - the club did.
"Celtic wanted to make a statement signing and asked my thoughts on purchasing a Brazilian defender for £6million.
"I did not know the player and I couldn't say it was my signing because I had never seen Rafael play. I told Celtic if that's what they wanted to do in order to make a statement then I would play along with it
"I then got criticised for signing him without seeing him. Rafael came in on a big wage to show that Celtic could compete with Rangers in terms of signing players. It succeeded only in putting the players' noses further out of joint again."
In retrospect, Barnes admits that his managerial stint at Celtic may have warned others off from taking a punt on him as a manager.
It was eight years after leaving Celtic before he was able to stand in the technical area once again when the Jamaican national team came calling. He also coached Tranmere Rovers in 2009 and remains a popular and enduring figure in football media.
Barnes once conceded that it was not important what happened to him at Celtic, although the end when it came was something of a relief to him.
Despite the experience, Barnes insists that he still loves Celtic and he still loves the supporters. He just loves footballing mad cities like Glasgow and Liverpool and revealed that he even has a soft spot for the fans of the Reds' Merseyside rivals Everton.
Barnes said: "I have to admit when the end came at Celtic it came as something of a relief to me.
"It is not a happy situation to be in when you go into a game thinking if we win this one the pressure will be alleviated until the next one. If you lose the next one then the pressure will be back on.
"When I was the manager at Celtic my team played in a way that was exciting, entertaining, attractive and we scored goals.
"I knew we were never going to win all the games at Celtic but the harmony wasn't there from the start. It was an accident waiting to happen after a while.
"Inverness Caley Thistle was the big disaster that ended it all for me, but I love Celtic. I love football cities and I love passionate football fans who love their clubs.
"I'm a Liverpool man but I love Everton in terms of the passion the fans give them. That is what it is all about. It is about supporting your club through thick and thin.
"Celtic had that passion throughout my time there and I loved that about the club. I understand that the Celtic fans were never in full possession of the facts or the truth during my managerial stint at the club. I don't necessarily blame them for reacting to me the way that they did.
"In terms of the perception that I was aloof, arrogant and players were unhappy and that I did not know what I was doing then the supporters can only go along those lines and it is unsurprising that they said I was not the right man for the job or the club because that is what they were hearing.
"I don't blame the Celtic fans at all because they were only reacting to a narrative that was given out about me. I understand the nature of football. If you give supporters success then they are happy.
"If you don't give them success and there are reasons for that and if they don't understand the reasons for that and they are being told a lie then you can't blame them for feeling the way they do.
"If I was a Celtic fan and I was reading what people were saying about me and listening to what unhappy players were saying without knowing the situation then maybe I would not have liked me either.
"There was a sadness when it all ended at Celtic because I love football and I wanted to have a successful career as a manager. The Celtic experience maybe put other potential employers and clubs off me.
"There are narratives surrounding football managers and depending on what way you spin it then it can be a help or a hindrance. It hindered me when I left Celtic. I hold no grudges at all."
They say knowledge is power. The John Barnes Celtic managerial story is an intriguing and interesting one in the club's history.
It is also a salutary lesson of being in possession of knowledge and all the facts before making any judgement calls.
Aloof? Arrogant? You could never pin either of these labels on John Barnes.
As if to emphasise the point, the footballing legend finishes this conversation thus: "Keep the Faith and Hail, Hail."
John Barnes truly holds no grudges at all.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here