Being a Tim in Exile has never been easy. It has not always been rewarding, but it has always been a tradition for Timalloys. Once a Tim...

  Scotland and Ireland's greatest exports are their people. We are two small nations whose own shores have been far too small to confine their population of wandering vagabonds. During the mass migrations from Ireland of the mid 19th century, the Irish wandered in their diaspora and many of them made the short journey to Scotland. Many have come in search of work since then, among them, my own father in 1951.

  It is a human trait that we all become much more patriotic when we leave our homes. The Scots and Irish are a strange lot. They will travel to the ends of the earth but when they get there, they want something to remind them of home. Wherever you travel in the world you will find a Scottish/Irish bar. In Benidorm, Barbados or Boston, you will find the Plough & Stars and the Saltire on the wall, with The Dubliners and The Corries on the jukebox. Wherever one goes in the world, one will meet Scots and Irish. Be it the arctic tundra or the searing heat of the Rub-Al-Khali, Jock and Mick will be working, drinking and singing songs of home. Guys from the Gorbals singing of Granny's Hielan' Hame; boys from Bellshill singing The Skye Boat Song. Guaranteed that if you venture below decks on some old tramp steamer in the South China Sea, you will find a Scottish engineer keeping the engines running. Wherever they go, the Scots & Irish congregate and tell lies about how wonderful things were at home. They love to sit and reminisce, drinking Irn-Bru, eating mince pies and sliced sausage. And of course... remembering their beloved Celtic!

  It is said that Thailand has nothing to offer the tourist except sex or religion. It's either golden temples and emerald Buddha's or some of the most amazing fleshpots and whorehouses in the world (or so I've been told). Pattaya Beach doesn't even have any decent temples but I was there on a pilgrimage in '88 trying to convert the locals to Christianity (Aye right! - Ed.). I'm walking home one evening after trying to save a few souls in the local massage parlour when I come across a sporting goods store and there, right in the middle of the window is the Centenary shirt. Turns out the local owner had been to sea with a couple of Tims and had picked up a love for the Hoops.

  I, like thousands of other exiled Tims, have listened on a series of short wave radios to the BBC World Service. Trying to tune in to hear the words, "This is London" followed by the strains of Lilliburlero (trust the Beeb to choose an Orange song!) and listen to David Francie on a Saturday afternoon giving us the commentary from Brockville or Fir Park. Moving the aerial around to get the best reception to hear the scores.

  On one memorable occasion in Barbados, we were huddled around the Sony in the Duke of Edinburgh Pub, waiting on the result of the second leg against Partizan Belgrade. We managed to hear - Celtic five, Parti.....crackle, crackle, crackle. We all cheered like hell and started drinking up a storm to celebrate. It was two weeks later before we discovered they had gone out on away goals! This was the norm for us back in those days. Then slowly, like a growing murmur that starts at the back of the Jungle and works its way all around the ground, we began to hear rumours that it might be possible to get some of the games live via satellite.

  Dominic Keane's brother, Eddie, lives in Palm Coast, Florida, and he and I had met via the golf club in 1995. Eddie had helped run the Bermuda CSC and was desperate to get something started in Central Florida. We started making enquiries about the possibility and the requirements of seeing some games and what would be entailed.

   Native bearers were sent out to find a suitable venue with a satellite dish and we duly assembled in Scruffy Murphy's in downtown Orlando. We managed to get a few games on a pay-per-game basis, with Eddie and I having to split the cost on occasion but the owner was not keen at that time on the idea of sponsoring a regular club (he has since changed his tune and would love to have us there now).  

Stevie Clark then talked the owner of the Fox & Hounds in Kissimmee into taking the SPL package from the broadcast agents, Setanta, and showing the games there on a regular basis. This worked fine for a couple of seasons and although it meant a 200-mile roundtrip for me to watch a game, it was still great to be able to see the Bhoys in action. The Fox is a great little boozer but it is pretty small in physical dimensions. The Old Firm games were, naturally, particularly busy affairs and the owner eventually had to make them all-ticket. There was never any actual trouble at the Fox but it certainly came close on a few occasions.

  Anyway, when they started beaming over most of the Celtic games and most of the Rangers games, the local Hunz talked Jan, the owner, into showing the Rangers games and the Fox duly became the headquarters of the RSC. This left us again without a venue.

  Stevie Clark, Gary Bishop and myself had thrown about the idea of setting up a proper Supporters' Club and again started looking about for suitable premises. We met with big Johnny McCarron of the Tampa CSC and he gave us a few pointers. We still needed a suitable venue and had meetings with bar owners in Daytona, Orlando & Kissimmee but trying to talk owners into spending close to $10,000 is a difficult prospect! In 1998, Fox Sports World had the broadcast rights for the United States and this allowed most of us to watch the games at home. This of course took the edge off the need for a club but the following season it was back to looking for a pub with satellite facilities. Then, at the end of 1999, our prayers were answered in the form of Friday's Front Row Sports Bar.  

The Front Row is the sports bar arm of the TGI Friday's franchise organization, a spectacular, 13,000 square foot, two-storey themed sports bar on International Drive in the heart of Orlando's tourist district. It has 108 large screen televisions with a squad of satellite dishes on the roof that would put the CIA to shame. Their General Manager had trained and lived in England for a number of years and identified the potential of showing football to the visiting Brits. They made contact with the North American Federation of Celtic Supporters Clubs (NAFCSC) who in turn contacted Eddie Keane. Eddie called me, I called Stevie and Gary and we all had a meeting with Friday's management in Orlando.

  Thus, on the second day of the year 2000, we formed the Orlando Celtic Supporters Club with 5 founding members: Stevie Clark, Gary Bishop, Eddie Keane, myself and honorary member, Willie Haughey. The first few games saw only a handful of people there but we soon put the word about on the jungle drums. We managed to get a little blurb in the Celtic View and slowly, members and visitors began to trickle in.  

The 1999-2000 season was another bleak one on the park for Celtic with the ultimate insult being delivered by those footballing giants, the mighty Inverness Caledonian Thistle! The second half of the season became almost meaningless and this obviously had a detrimental effect on our turnout for the games. But every negative spawns a positive and Inverness Caley provided the impetus to push Barnes and Dalglish out the door, making way for the quiet spoken man from Derry that we all know and love.  

By the beginning of the 2000-'01 season, we were in fresh spirits and had garnered about two dozen local members. We adopted a constitution and became affiliated with the NAFCSC. I was elected President, Stevie was V.P., Gary secretary, Neil Sneyd treasurer and uncle Jim Glennon was Sergeant-at-arms. We appointed Willie Haughey Honorary President and Eddie Keane, Celtic liaison officer. We were and are, very lucky to have such influential Celtic men associated with our club. Sunday the 27th of August brought the first Old Firm game of the new season and we began to worry that we might not get too good a crowd. I arrived about an hour before the game and there were already a few supporters waiting to get in. Because of the time difference, the kick-off was at 8:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning, but by the time 8 o'clock came around, we had over 300 watching the game! As I looked around at that crowd, I knew that the Orlando CSC had finally arrived and oh, what a glorious result!  

Just after that game, Eddie Keane called and asked me to have a ".wee cup of tea" with him. He told me it looked like Celtic would be making their first American trip in 22 years, during the winter break in January and the place they wanted to come to.....was Orlando! I didn't know whether to shit or go blind. Half of me was ecstatic at the prospect of being directly involved with the team, the other half was a bag of nerves, worrying about security, hospitality, entertainment and a thousand other questions. Eddie wanted us to take charge of organizing a golf tournament and an official reception dinner. He also needed assistance in setting up a couple of games against suitable opposition when they were here.  

Rangers were going to be in Florida at the same time and a former managing director had floated the idea of setting up an Old Firm game in Orlando. While this might sound fantastic at first, the more we thought about it, the more we realized that the American public are simply not ready to deal with the rigours of a Celtic-Rangers game. They are just coming around to accept football, or soccer, as a valid sport and with the best will in the world, it might not be the best advert to promote our sport or our club. Maybe we were being overly cautious but apparently enough people at Celtic Park and Ibrox agreed with us to bury the idea before it could gain momentum.  

We then went through a series of enquiries with Brazilian, Uruguayan, German and Norwegian teams but nothing could be worked out to everyone's convenience. Mr. O'Neill indicated that he didn't want to play any team that would take things too seriously or ".kick lumps out of the team", so we eventually arranged a bounce game against the University of South Florida and a friendly against Tampa Bay Mutiny. Big John McCarron of Tampa CSC was highly instrumental in arranging these games.  

The golf tournament was a great success. Every team of 3 was joined by a Celtic player and I had the honour of playing with Henrik Larsson. Facing a particularly dangerous approach shot over water on a par 5, Henrik meant to play safe but completely mis-hit the ball, sailed over the water and landed on the green! He dropped his club and started laughing like buggery, "It doesn't matter whether it is football, golf or life in general, take all the luck you can get!"

  One of our members, Craig Conway, owns a couple of car dealerships and I talked him into putting up a car for a hole-in-one at one of the par 3's. Our foursome were just teeing off from an adjoining tee when Eddie Keane hit a 5 iron to within 10 inches of the hole. As Eddie walked up onto the green we applauded him and he shouts over to us, "Haw, dae ye think they'll gie me the radio oot o' that motor fur this shot?"

  Before the official reception and dinner, the top table met in a private bar to allow the rest of the Celtic party and the fans to be seated. I was standing talking with Celtic directors John Keane (who is an old friend of my father's) and Michael McDonald, when in walks head of security, George Douglas, with Martin O'Neill.

  George does the introductions and after shaking hands, I am asking, "Mr. O'Neill, what will you have to drink?" "John" he says, "please call me Martin." Here I am standing at the bar, Martin O'Neill has his arm around my shoulders and we are on first name terms. Me? A nobody from a room and kitchen in the southside of Edinburgh? To say I was proud that night would be a vast understatement.  

The dinner went magnificently; various presentations were made; a signed shirt was raffled off for the Sick Kids hospital; our guest speaker was the novelist, Campbell Armstrong, who wrote such things as Jig and Raiders Of The Lost Ark; but the night belonged to Martin O'Neill. Obviously he is a great favourite with the Celtic fans but it is enlightening to see just how much the players respect him. After the dinner, most of the players went off to the main bar with the fans, while the management and backroom staff went off to a back bar. I stayed in that bar till about 2 a.m. and although I had given up drinking 5 years before (I had simply used up my quota) I was literally drunk with emotion.  

When it came to choosing the recipient of our Player-of-the-Year award, an initial voice poll of the members suggested that it be given to Henke, surprise, surprise! However, before we reached any final conclusion, we opened the floor up to discussion. We all know that Henke has cupboards full of these awards and, deserving as he is, another one would not make much difference to him. So we started looking at other possibilities and came up with a shortlist of Mjallby, Petrov, Lubo and the eventual winner, Bobby Petta. Our treasurer, Neil Sneyd, works for Royal Doulton so he managed to get us a deal on some beautiful crystal decanters and tumblers. We had them engraved and Gary and Stevie made the presentation at the dinner. The week after Celtic returned to Scotland, Petta was the subject of the Big Interview in the View and it filled us with tremendous pride to read his comments: "Few experiences in my footballing career have delighted me more than being named Player of the Year at the supporters' club dinner in Orlando."  

The whole week was fantastic. We had a fans night in our club which was attended by about 800 fans. Tommy Boyd, Jonathan Gould, Jackie MacNamara, Neil Lennon and Alan Thompson came along and joined the festivities. We couldn't get Jackie off the microphone! Incredible! Here we were in our first full season as a club and we were playing host to Celtic. We have official letters of thanks from George Douglas at Celtic Park, John Clark for a special long-service presentation which we made to him and a very special handwritten letter from Martin O'Neill. Our club walls are now graced with these and more autographed photographs than you could shake a shillelagh at.  

We have had feature-length articles about our club published in the Glasgow Herald and the Orlando Sentinel. We have had numerous mentions in the View and are planning to run an ad there regularly. We are slowly growing a groundswell of support in the local Orlando area, due largely to the efforts and press releases circulated by Jacqueline Lore, the lady responsible for designing and hosting our original website.  

Nowadays it's pretty good being a Tim in Exile. Last season, thanks largely to the efforts of the NAFCSC, the only games we didn't see live were a couple of games in the early stages of the League Cup. When you are watching a game, live from Fir Park on a cold, dreech Wednesday night in January and it is 80 degrees (27 C) outside, it's not bad! Who knows what the future may hold? Internet webcasts, pay-per-view digital cable broadcast? These are possibilities but I believe there will always be a need for a supporters' club in Orlando. It is the single most popular destination for Scottish holidaymakers and they will always require the convenience of being able to watch the games while on holiday.  

There are a hardcore of fans who will always want to watch the games in the company of like-minded Tims. For the foreseeable future, Orlando CSC will continue to grow in popularity. Stop by and say hello some of these days when you are on your way to visit Mickey Mouse.

 

John Howley,
Orlando CSC - President  

UPDATE: We moved premises in August of 2004 to the Lucky Leprechaun Irish Pub, still located on International Drive in Orlando but about ¼ mile north of Friday's. It is a more "Celtic minded" establishment, as the name might suggest. We are proud to report that Orlando CSC is still going strong and we look forward to welcoming one and all whenever you are in Florida.