Pat Nevin: Tommy played with passion, determination and honesty

THE FIRST time I met Tommy Burns was when he presented me with a player of the year award at Celtic Boys Club. I was 13. It meant a great deal to me because he was already a success story, someone who had done what we all wanted to do, he had climbed every step from the boys club all the way to first team at the football club.

More than that he epitomised what the Celtic ethos was in the widest sense. He played with passion, determination and honesty, he was attack-minded, skilful and intelligent but on top of all that he added something else, something more difficult to define. I originally thought it was style, but in fact it was something much more than that, it was class.

Those early days at Celtic Boys Club were important to him. He learned the game; he learned the 'defeat is unacceptable' attitude and his moral compass would have been strengthened by the prevalent attitude of an overriding honour in always playing fairly. Like me he was deeply hurt in later years that the whole organisation was tarnished by the actions of one unsavoury character.

Like Roy Aitken, Charlie Nicholas, Paul McStay and many others from the same stable, Celtic became part of who he was from a very young age. The fans new it and they loved him for it.

I spent large parts of my career studying great players to see what I could learn from them. Whether it was Jinky's twists, Kenny Dalglish's vision, or Johan Cruyff's turn I would try to approximate their actions and shamelessly copy them. Tommy however had one particular skill that I found impossible to learn.

He had a knack of gliding past players not with an ostentatious trick or dummy, but with the merest hint of a shimmy. At times the movements were almost imperceptible, but these minor changes in his body position seemed to completely unbalance opponents as he breezed past. It looked effortless; it looked like a simple enough skill, but however hard I tried I just couldn't get it to work for me.

Tommy's glory years playing for Celtic had to end eventually but it said much about his deep relationship with one club that the sight of him in a Killie strip always looked a little incongruous to most of us. When he eventually became manager at Rugby Park it was no surprise that he tried to build a team that reflected his own beliefs about football. They worked hard, they passed the ball, they tried to be skilful and they were first and foremost an attacking outfit.

It was even less of a surprise when the call eventually came to take him home to Celtic Park and he built one of the most loved teams in the club's recent history. There are many, many Celtic fans who would gladly have watched Tommy's team play for years without winning trophies rather than suffer the more prosaic football that sometimes produces titles and cups but little in the way of entertainment. Steeped in the tradition of the club, he instinctively knew what generations of Celtic fans wanted.

For all the plaudits from the purists, the job was and is a fragile one and his travels took him on to Reading and then back to the Scotland national team, for whom he had played a miserly eight times.

Before he eventually regained a post worthy of his wonderful talents again at Celtic, there was a time when other teams would have gladly taken him as their manager. I know this because I tried to lure him to Motherwell after the departure of Billy Davies. We met up as old friends when I asked him how he would feel about taking the job. He underlined that I should go through the correct channels but he didn't say no and I couldn't believe I might actually get one of the best in the business to come and work for me. More than his undoubted talent, he was simply someone I wanted to work with as a person and for a few days I lived in hope.

In the end though, something didn't feel quite right and at the time I couldn't quite put my finger on it. In hindsight I wouldn't be surprised if it was a deep horror on his part of taking on and trying to beat his beloved team. By then I think he was a part of the fabric of Celtic Football Club and the club was a huge part of him. It is something you very rarely see any more in these modern days of corporate football and millionaire players.

Much will be written about Tommy the man, about his devotion to his family and his deeply held religious beliefs that were practised quietly, with dignity and reflected a love and care for others. The opposite in fact of those who appear to use religion as a method of endearing themselves, winding up others or as vehicle for hate in our society.

One thing that will always remind me of the man is the annual 'Tommy Burns Supper' that is held by the Edinburgh Universities' Celtic Supporters Club. It is an irreverent celebration to raise funds for charities and every year he would turn up, bring a couple of Celtic players and tell a few stories that would have the assembled fans in stitches. It is often something that isn't allowed to come across much in the media if you are a manager, but Tommy Burns was an extremely funny guy in private.

I have been invited to speak at the Tommy Burns Supper on four occasions and each time I dreaded Tommy asking me if he could do his turn before mine because I knew my night would be all but ruined: he was an impossible act to follow. This year he called off hours before the event, which was very unlike him and it set a few alarm bells ringing. Nevertheless, his death came as a massive shock and Scottish football will grieve a long time for a legend and the loss of another lovely guy.

At the Tommy Burns Supper it has always been the tradition that the man himself ended the night singing a song, and it was always the same one. This year they had to make do with me bellowing some mournful dirge when they should have been delighted by Tommy's wonderful, note perfect a cappella rendition of 'Mack the Knife'. As I said before, a class act who we can't believe has been taken from us already. Goodbye Tam.