NEIL LENNON: Inside the triumphs, trials and traumas of one of football’s great survivors

Any debate over which Scottish club in the last 20 years has been most guilty of failing to punch its weight may encounter some grey areas. In the Kingdom of Fife, it’s a matter of black and white.

Twice winners of the Scottish Cup in the 1960s and a semi-finalist in the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1969, Dunfermline Athletic are the epitome of a sleeping giant. The Pars enjoyed a stirring revival in the early years of this century – reaching three cup finals – only to fall again like a stone.

Relegation from the top tier came in 2007. Administration and a subsequent demotion arrived in 2013. Currently sitting second bottom of the Championship, the recovery has often felt joyless.

Although only contracted to the club initially until the end of the season, Neil Lennon’s motivation for agreeing to take charge stemmed from both a recognition of what this proud club once was and what it eventually could be.

Dunfermline’s new American-based owners evidently see the Northern Irishman in a similar light. Lennon’s pedigree as a manager has become somewhat distorted after he toiled to make an impression in his previous posting in Romania.

Yet, he is essentially the same man who masterminded some storied triumphs earlier in his career, both at Celtic Park and Easter Road. He will be no worse for the choppy waters he’s recently navigated.

Lennon with silverware after Celtic won the Treble during his second spell in charge in 2019 

The Northern Irishman is back in Scottish football after four years, this time at Dunfermline

Those who have questioned if his best days in the dug-out are behind him may live to regret such bold proclamations. At 53, the man from Lurgan has accrued vast experience yet still has time on his side.

In an age when managers are often working well into their late 60s and early 70s, Lennon may well be only approaching the peak of his powers.

After seven months away from the front line, time which was spent offering his valued insight on TV and radio, he is refreshed and hungry to succeed.

Provided he can steer the Pars to safety in the coming seven matches, the journey is likely to begin in earnest. It might be quite the ride.

While the last entry on his CV was a forgettable short spell in Romania with Rapid Bucharest, Lennon’s managerial career has witnessed far more peaks than troughs.

Having been asked to step up from the B Team following Tony Mowbray’s dismissal in 2010, the highlight of his first spell as Celtic manager was a still scarcely believable win over a Barcelona side containing Lionel Messi and Andres Iniesta.

That victory paved the way for qualification for the knock-out rounds of the Champions League, a feat which went unmatched until this season under Brendan Rodgers.

While Rangers’ financial implosion in 2012 changed the landscape of Scottish football, five major honours was a significant achievement for a managerial rookie.

Midfielder Lennon always wore his heart on his sleeve while playing for Celtic

He has lost none of his flair for the dramatic gesture as witnessed at Dunfermline unveiling

Celtic captain Lennon roars with joy as he holds aloft the league trophy  in 2006

He also brought in players of the ilk of Victor Wanyama, Gary Hooper and Joe Ledley, deals which were largely financed by Aiden McGeady’s £9.5million move to Spartan Moscow.

Bolton Wanderers, back in 2014, proved to be a wrong turn for Lennon. When the talk of an English Premier League job remained just that, he opted to take the Championship gig, believing he could bring back the glory days.

He started well, taking the side from the foot of the table up to 14th. Although the form tailed off, his team eventually settling for 18th, avoiding relegation was always the initial aim.

The financial state of the club was desperate, though, far worse than he’d been led to believe. Having wrongly assumed they could never be relegated from the top flight, Bolton at one point were £163.8m in debt.

With players not being paid, his second season was an endless struggle. With the team bottom of the table in March 2016, Lennon left by mutual consent.. It was all grist to the mill.

It’s easy to forget that while Alan Stubbs was the manager who ended Hibs’ 114-year wait for the Scottish Cup two months later, the Englishman left them languishing in the Championship.

It was Lennon who took the Easter Road club back into the big time in 2017. After three years of failure, they romped to the title, with Falkirk a distant 11 points behind them. Unquestionably, this success over the same course and distance caught the eyes of Dunfermline’s owners.

Those Hibs players – like the ones he’d worked with at Celtic – were struck by his ability to pump self-belief into their veins.

Lennon and his former skipper Brown are now rivals managers in the Championship

The pair have done punditry but are now managers of Dunfermline and Ayr United

Lennon has already signed former Celtic star Victor Wanyama to help Pars fight relegation

The return to the top flight was mighty impressive. European football was secured via a fourth-place finish which was arrived at through impressive results in Glasgow including a win at Ibrox and a draw at his old stomping ground.

Hibs played with personality and no fear that year. The enduring memory remains a breathtaking 5-5 draw with Rangers on the final day at Easter Road, which Lennon famously marked with an airplane celebration.

His Hibernian tenure was rarely dull. Few will forget the Championship season when a midweek match between Hibs and Morton had ended in a goalless draw but exploded near the end. 

The visitors’ Kudus Oyenuga was sent off for a tackle on Jordon Forster and Hibs’ Darren McGregor was dismissed for violent conduct in the aftermath. Morton boss Jim Duffy and Lennon were sent to the stand for their part in the fracas. Lennon claimed his counterpart had challenged him to a ‘square go’ – a claim Duffy refuted.

All eyes were on Cappielow when the sides met again 10 days later. The pair embraced warmly on the touchline and the matter was immediately put to bed.

There was another memorable spat with Craig Levein the following season. When Hearts knocked Hibs out of the Scottish Cup in January, the Tynecastle manager claimed ‘natural order’ had been restored in the capital.

When word of those remarks reached Lennon’s ears, he took it as a personal insult.

After his men avenged that loss with a 2-0 win in the next league derby, he wasn’t about to miss the target.

‘If the natural order means being 12 points ahead with a game in hand, I’ll take that all the time,’ he said.

Lennon learned so much from his mentor and manager at Celtic Park, Martin O’Neill

Like his former boss O’Neill, Lennon has always been a ferocious competitor

He had his lows at Celtic, too, including an ill-fated training trip to Dubai during Covid

It would all end in acrimony a year later when Lennon was suspended by the club following an exchange with other club employees. Both the manager and his assistant Garry Parker left a few days later ‘by mutual consent’.

Curiously, Hibs were subsequently obliged to release a statement saying that ‘neither Neil or Garry has been guilty of any misconduct or wrongdoing and no disciplinary recess has been commenced. 

The suspension, put in place to allow an internal review, was lifted by the club as part of this agreement.’

Lennon therefore had the curious distinction of leaving the club despite not being dismissed or having resigned.

For all that his stay in Leith ended in tears, Lennon and Hibs were unquestionably a success story. He gave them back their sense of self-worth.

His immediate availability was fortuitous for Celtic when Rodgers abruptly left for Leicester in February 2019.

The Parkhead club still had work to do to close out the title. One defeat in their remaining 11 league games got the job done, with a victory over Hearts in the Scottish Cup Final leading the club to extend Lennon’s arrangement.

The appointment was not without its critics, but Lennon justified the club’s faith by claiming the Treble the next season.

Covid would change everything.

Lennon resigned from the Celtic job shortly before Steven Gerrard led Rangers to the title

The Northern Irishman had a huge trophy haul, including this Scottish Cup win in 2020

Now his mission is to steer sleeping giant Dunfermline away from the relegation zone

The Boli Bolingoli episode, which saw the defender break social-distancing rules by flying to Spain then playing at Kilmarnock, set the tone for a truly miserable campaign – including an ill-advised winter break for the Celtic squad in Dubai.

Trying to plot their way through uncharted waters in that unique time, it seemed Celtic could not do right for doing wrong.

Lennon tendered his resignation shortly before Rangers won the title unbeaten and dashed the Parkhead club’s hope of winning 10-in-a-row. 

Over 20 years since he first signed for his boyhood heroes as a player, it was a regrettable ending.

A long-standing ambition to coach overseas was fulfilled when Omonia Nicosia offered him the chance to work in Cyprus in 2022.

His side won the Cypriot Cup on penalties, then shocked Belgian side Gent to qualify for the group stage of the Europa League where they performed admirably against Manchester United and Real Sociedad. But a consequent downturn in league form would cost him his job.

Last year’s misadventure in Romania, where he failed to win any of his six matches in charge, was wounding yet short-lived. 

He wasn’t the first manager to be caught in the wrong movie in a foreign land and he assuredly won’t be the last.

Lennon is a survivor, though. Brought up in a working-class family in Northern Ireland, he overcame a crippling spine injury while a young player at Crewe before making his mark at Leicester City under Martin O’Neill.

Filbert Street became a fortress. The Foxes won two League Cups and lost another final.

Manager Lennon with his silverware after the Parkhead club celebrated a Quadruple Treble

An integral but often underappreciated part of the all-conquering side O’Neill went on to forge at Celtic Park, Lennon’s uncompromising personality – together with his Irish-catholic background – made him a target for bigots and thugs.

He was forced to retire from playing for Northern Ireland after receiving death threats, was assaulted on the street, sent explosives through the post and was the subject of a road rage incident while his daughter was a passenger in his car.

The notion, forwarded by many who should have known better, that he somehow brought this on himself was dangerous and shameful.

The abuse he and his family were subjected to resulted in them having to spend time in safe houses and said a great deal about modern liberal Scotland.

Throughout it all, he refused to follow the herd by decanting to one of Glasgow’s sleepy suburbs and instead eschewed the quiet life for the pleasures of city dwelling.

While Lennon has always believed in fighting his own corner, there are countless stories of him going out of his way to help others away from the public glare.

He appreciated how differently his life might have been had surgery on his back not saved his career, and he became a regular visitor to spinal-injury wards.

The candid way he spoke about his struggles with clinical depression was applauded by mental-health charities. He’s reached out privately to individuals also suffering from the condition.

He’s never attempted to portray himself as an angel and has never been interested in winning popularity contests.

As any of his detractors would determine if they spent 10 minutes in his company, he’s a fine man with a sharp mind who’s spent his career striving to make the most of his considerable talent.

Starting on Saturday afternoon, when he locks horns with his former Celtic captain Scott Brown at Somerset Park, he’ll be back in the old routine.

Dunfermline, the Fife town which famously gave the world a certain Andrew Carnegie, may soon be the richer for it.