Tony Haggerty, in his green specs and green shirt, has always been a loyal Celtic fan. However, he is more than just a supporter, he is an accomplished sports journalist, podcaster, and author. Generously advising me as an aspiring journalist, he shared the story of his genesis; offering an inspiring tale that sends a clear message: one lost game does not signify defeat.

As a young boy, “a football daft” as he calls himself, he dreamed of playing for Celtic F.C., a team introduced to him by his father.

In football, you need to score a goal to win; so, a teenage Haggerty “set a goal” for Celtic’s youth trials at their Barrowfield training complex.“ There were about 350 of us there,” he recalls. Three boys were selected to continue training with Celtic.

Alongside his parents, Haggerty was invited into the room with two coaches and a photographer. “They handed me a pen and said ‘Sign this form,’” he recalled. “I signed it, and I wrote my date of birth down… I knew what was coming… They looked at me and said: ‘How old are you?’” He was three weeks too old, and in the highly competitive football world, that was enough to see dreams of playing in green and white fade.

“That’s the first time I remember feeling emotionally crushed. It was everything I’d ever wanted to do. And because I’d written a series of numbers down, somebody said, ‘No, you can’t do that.’ And I sort of felt like my world was collapsing.”

Understanding that a lost game is not the end of the world, for 13-year-old Haggerty, it was a “sliding doors moment.” He didn’t cry long; watching Scotsport with his father that weekend, he looked up, pointed at accomplished sports journalist, Arthur Watford, and said “Well, if I can’t be a footballer, I’m going to be him.”

“From that moment onwards, I told everybody that would listen, I was going to be a football journalist, and I was going to write for the Daily Record newspaper,” recalls Haggerty.

Surrounded by naysayers, like the teacher who would tell him to “give up any aspiration that he had,” he refused to surrender. Instead, he told himself that “maybe writing in general” didn’t come to him naturally, but writing about football required “a different set of skills.” He “could communicate through the language of football.” Haggerty had big dreams and the determination to turn them into reality.

As he studied English and Politics at the University of Strathclyde, Haggerty explains, “In football terms, if you play alongside better players, you become better.”

“We read The Great Gatsby at school and then we read it at uni, and it became an entirely different book at uni because I understood it. I understood how to use words.” That growing understanding of how to control language proved itself as a useful tool when writing about football. “I fell in love with words,” says Haggerty. “I had written this poem in ode to Arthur Montford,” and “I’d just fashioned these verses around all the bits of his commentary there.”

This was the piece, written in the “language of football,” that he would later share with the very journalist who gave direction to his life, Arthur Montford. Genuinely impressed by the poem, Montford asked Haggerty if he wanted to be a sports journalist—adding, “I can see you doing it.”

“For the first time in my life, I thought, ‘All right, I might be on the right track,’” says Haggerty. After their two-and-a-half-hour interview, just before they parted ways, Montford gave Haggerty a piece of advice that stayed with him throughout his career: “Anthony, when you wake up in the morning, put your shoes on—not your slippers.”

“I went home, and I said to my daddy, ‘He gave me this piece of advice.’ And my dad’s like, ‘What do you think it means?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know.’ He said, ‘Come back to me in ten years.’ I was like, ‘Eh?’ And then it dawned on me: always wake up and have something to do.”

“Be busy, be active, be the best journalist you can be. Be better than yesterday. Tomorrow, be better than you are today. It was just, it was an incredible piece of advice from somebody so wise and so sage to give to a young guy.”

Haggerty continues to live by that advice, slipping on his shoes every morning. For one, he needs to walk his dogs; but more than that, with the same passion he’s had since childhood, he contributes to The Celtic Way, “writing about Celtic and talking Celtic every day.” A true expert on his beloved team, he is an occasional guest on Celtic-dedicated podcasts, including A Celtic State of Mind, which he was briefly a part of after moving on from two decades behind the sports desk at the Daily Record.

A self-published author of two books available on Amazon—including one he wrote during lockdown (still with his shoes on). In Gonnae Gie’s A Kick O’ Yer Ba’, Mister?: A Tale of Family and Football by a Fan with a Typewriter, he shares emotional and nostalgic memories from his career.  One standout moment being from 2008, where he met Diego Maradona and handed him a unique trophy from the people of Scotland. Honouring the football legend for his iconic goal against England, securing Argentina’s 1986 World Cup win.

Haggerty’s career has been filled with magical moments, which he recounts with warmth and a touch of nostalgia. Yet even with so many memories to cherish, he remains driven: “Every day I want to be better. I want to be the best I can be.”

Julia Braun Raven

Hi, I’m Julia Braun Raven, a second-year Journalism, Media & Creative Writing student. I’m co-Editor-in-Chief and Features Editor, and I love creating stories that matter to students, inspiring them, supporting what they’re passionate about, and celebrating their achievements. I’m especially interested in arts, culture, and student life, and I enjoy bringing energy, curiosity, and a love of storytelling to every piece I work on.