Sign up here to receive an article like this straight to your inbox every weekday, the day BEFORE it appears on the Celtic Way website!

Longevity is an understated part of a footballer’s legacy – and yet it is integral to leaving one.

Fleeting spells of magic are rarely enough to ensure you are remembered among the greats; there is something to be said for the consistency of excellence required to set yourself apart in the pantheon of a club as storied as Celtic.

Yet Alec McNair has. On April 18th 1925, he set a record for becoming the oldest player to ever represent Celtic Football Club in a competitive first-team match. He was 41 years 113 days old at the time of his final match – a 1-1 draw with Queen’s Park – and had been at Celtic since 1904.

Nicknamed 'The Icicle' for his cool and calm demeanour, McNair was part of the fabled Holy Trinity of the 1910s and early 1920s alongside goalkeeper Charlie Shaw and fellow defender Joe Dodds.

He retired after that Queen’s Park match having won 12 league titles and six Scottish Cups. Truly, his legacy endures (so much so that I picked him in our Greatest Ever XI subs bench challenge last year, which you can watch here).

Ninety-eight years on, McNair’s record remains untouched. But who came close? Which players turned out in the green and white until long after most players are retired?

Here, in reverse order ending with the indefatigable McNair, we list the 10 oldest players to play for Celtic...

10. Tom Boyd

Age: 36 years 347 days

Boyd had already played over 300 games before joining Celtic but would go on to play 300-plus more in the green and white. He won the lot while doing so - several times over in fact. By the time he played his final game during Martin O'Neill's tenure he had three league titles, two Scottish Cups and three League Cups on his CV, including becoming at the time the only captain since Billy McNeill to lead the Hoops to a treble-winning season.

9. Danny McGrain

Age: 37 years 8 days

Another full-back now and a world-class one at that. McGrain played his first senior Celtic game away to Dundee United as a 20-year-old under Jock Stein in August 1970 and continued all the way up to his last appearance against Hearts at Tynecastle in May 1987. In between he racked up 677 appearances, won nine league titles, six Scottish Cups and two League Cups as well as over 60 Scotland caps. He made the Celtic greatest-ever team in 2002, one of only two to do so in this list of oldest players.

8. Dion Dublin

Age: 37 years 11 days

An older signing brought in by Gordon Strachan to lend some experience to the 2005-06 season, Dublin played but 12 matches in a Celtic shirt yet won two trophies in that time. He even scored in the 2006 League Cup final against Dunfermline. His final game was a 2-0 victory over Kilmarnock in May that same year.

7. Dorus de Vries

Age: 37 years 64 days

Another outlier in the longevity stakes in the sense that he wasn't at Celtic for very long. While his stint at Parkhead was technically three years in duration, he rarely played in that time and so De Vries's last match - a 3-0 home Scottish Cup win against Morton in March 2018 - was well over a year before he actually left the club.

Celtic Way:

6. Willie McStay

Age: 38 years 347 days

The first, but interestingly not the last, McStay on our list. Willie was renowned as one of the club's true early stars and won four titles and three Scottish Cups. His last game was a 3-2 away win against Kilmarnock and, while he was almost 39 and the captain when he decided to leave, it was not for retirement but for a stint at Hearts. He did eventually hang up his boots a year later.

5. Ronnie Simpson

Age: 39 years 2 days

It is perhaps not a surprise that a player nicknamed 'Faither' [Scots for father] would make this particular list.

Simpson was, of course, a Lisbon Lion and remarkably won Scottish footballer of the year in 1967 at the age of 36. His final match was the 2-1 League Cup semi-final replay win over Ayr United in October 1969.

But prior to those standout seasons with Celtic later in his career, he was a youthful prodigy who made his Queen's Park debut at just 15. Afterwards, he'd turn out for Third Lanark, Newcastle United and Hibernian before finding his way to Parkhead.

While there he won four league titles, three Scottish Cups, five League Cups. Oh, and the European Cup too.

4. Jimmy McStay

Age: 39 years 27 days

The second McStay to appear here, Jimmy switched from left-half to centre-half early in his Celtic tenure and went on to turn out for the club more than 470 times, becoming captain after his brother Willie and winning a league title and five Scottish Cups.

Notably, six years after leaving the club as a player he returned to succeed the legendary Willie Maley as Celtic manager.

READ MORE: 43 years, 3 great sides & 1 eternal legacy... Willie Maley's Celtic life in numbers

3. Jimmy McMenemy

Age: 39 years 194 days

A 2-2 home draw against St Mirren on April 22 1920 marked the end of McMenemy's Celtic career after 18 years, more than 500 appearances, almost 170 goals, 11 league titles and six Scottish Cups.

Nicknamed 'Napoleon', McMenemy was a key part in the famous six-in-a-row side of the 1900s as well as the great team of the next decade too. He actually played until well past 40 and won another Scottish Cup in 1921 with Partick Thistle.

2. Charlie Shaw

Age: 40 years 33 days

Closest to claiming a new record - though still one year and 80 days behind - is McNair's Holy Trinity team-mate Shaw.

The goalkeeper's last match came later in the same year as McNair's - in a 5-0 away win against Greenock Morton on October 24th 1925.

That he ended his Hoops tenure with a clean sheet was probably to be expected; Shaw once went almost 1,300 minutes without conceding near the start of his Celtic career.

Overall, the diminutive custodian played around 440 top-level matches and is said to have kept clean sheets in more than half. He also won six league titles and a pair of Scottish Cups.

1. Alec McNair

Age: 41 years 113 days

And so we come back to where we started.

McNair’s legacy is not just his longevity, of course, but it is a crucial part of it. Whether at right-back or elsewhere in defence, he was a stalwart for 21 years, still the longest uninterrupted run of any player in Celtic history.

Along the way he racked up over 600 appearances, 18 major trophies and 15 Scotland caps. Long before his final match he was granted a tribute game that, curiously, was a Celtic and Rangers Select against the rest of the Scottish League Select.

In the end well over a year separates McNair from the next oldest on this list, providing a happy bookend to our newsletter: his longevity is indeed unbeatable.

Stats courtesy of fitbastats.com

This piece is an extract from the latest Celtic Digest newsletter, which is emailed out every weekday evening with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from The Celtic Way team.

To receive our full, free newsletter including this analysis straight to your email inbox the day BEFORE it appears on the website, click here and tick the box for The Celtic Digest