Obituary: John Divers

The congregation at his Requiem Mass in St Mary’s Church, Duntocher, on Wednesday included his former Celtic team mates and old friends, the 1967 European Cup winning captain Billy McNeil, Danny McGrain, Bertie Auld, John Clark, John Hughes and Mike Jackson.

Celtic chief executive Peter Lawwell was also in attendance.

The choir from the merged Our Lady and St Patrick’s High School, where Mr Divers was principal teacher of guidance and an economics teacher, led the singing at the Mass which was celebrated by the parish priest Father Joe Mills, who had been a colleague as chaplain at OLSP and a team mate in the staff five-a-side squad.

Mr Divers’ son Barry, an Edinburgh-based advocate, delivered the eulogy, a wonderful story of his father’s life during which he struggled heroically against a painful illness which almost crippled him to play football for the team he loved.

Firstly, on behalf of his mother, Elizabeth, and brother, Jonathan, he thanked the many hundreds of people who offered their sympathy and paid their respects to his father.

These included the journalists who wrote newspaper articles, people who made comments on internet sites and the many thousands of people who joined in the minute’s applause at Celtic Park before the game against Hearts a few days earlier.

He said: “The response to my father’s passing has been both humbling and comforting. “ He said his father genuinely had no idea that he was so well thought of and would have been very proud to receive this farewell tribute.

Mr Divers thanked the staff at St Margaret of Scotland Hospice in Clydebank for looking after his father and said they had made him feel like he had returned home for the weeks prior to his death on September 23.

His father was not perfect, but his church and faith recognized the obvious fact that no man is so made – “What he was, was a plainly decent, good, humble, thoughtful, funny, intimidating and principled man. He was the most interesting and interested man that I have ever met - but he was also many other things.” There were smiles when he said Divers the teacher was a style icon who always wore his tie outside his jumper.

Barry said: “The inspiration came from Gianni Agnelli - who also wore his tie in this fashion- and my dad fancied that look even if none of the rest of us did.

“Of course, while Gianni Agnelli may have made this style look good, he was also a handsome, Italian billionaire, playboy industrialist and owner of both Juventus and Fiat.

“My father he loved the look. It became his trademark. In a way it symbolized him. He was not frightened to be very much his own man. “ Johnny Divers was passionate about music and the family grew up in a house filled with the sounds of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Eagles, Simon and Garfunkel.

He also enjoyed the Killers and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and even in his seventies he loved to watch MTV.

He was born in Clydebank at Johnstone Avenue in Whitecrook and went to primary school at Our Holy Redeemer before going on to complete his secondary education at St Patrick’s.

Like his great uncle, the legendary Patsy Gallacher, and his father, also Johnny Divers, he scored more than 100 goals for the team he supported.

Barry said: “It must be hard though to score 110 goals for Celtic and still only be the third highest goal scorer for the club in your own family.

“It is a remarkable statistic, made all the more remarkable when you know that my father scored just about all those goals while playing in agony.

“Since his late teens, he suffered from a vascular problem which could make walking, never mind running, or playing football excruciatingly painful. People may have said on occasion, that he was slow, maybe even that he was lazy.

“But he never complained, he never felt bitter, never held this up as an excuse, he never told anyone at the time, he just tried harder.

“Few players in Celtic’s history will have, for so long, in so many matches, consistently played through as much pain as he did each time he went on to the Park.

“It should also not be forgotten that as a man who lived in and loved the West end of Glasgow, he greatly enjoyed his time playing for Partick Thistle, but I suppose, he will always be Johnny Divers of Celtic, JD to his team mates.

“He may not have won a European cup or scores of championships during his playing career, but he won something that he considered much more important- the respect and friendship of the men with whom he played, friendships that would last over 50 years.” Barry said his father was every bit as proud to be a teacher as he was to be a footballer.

After he finished playing, he studied for his Highers and went to Strathclyde University were he obtained a joint honours degree in Economics and Geography.

He added: “As a grown man, who had played football for a living for the previous 12 years, that process was not easy, but he did it. And he was glad he did.

“He could be just as passionate in explaining why Mrs Thatcher’s monetary policy was wrong, as he was in arguing that 4-4-2 was the best structure for any football team.

“To those who said that footballers all had their brains in their feet, he would say that he had knew a few professional footballers who could have been teachers, but very few teachers who could have been professional footballers.

“He loved the fact that he went back to his old school to teach.

“I think he had respect from so many generations of pupils there, not because he played for Celtic, but because they, especially they as children, could pick up the aura which he had. He seemed to merit an instant respect. He was someone not to be messed with, but they also saw him as someone who was genuine, who was interested in them, liked them and wanted to help. As a principal teacher of guidance, he took a special interest in those that were struggling a bit, those who had problems, those who were the under dog. Perhaps he saw a bit of himself in them.” The fact that so many former pupils said so many kind things about the positive difference he made in their lives would have meant the world to him.

Johnny Divers was a great family man who was married to his Hamilton-born wife, Elizabeth, for more than 50 years – “He was married to my mum for over 50 years. His proudest moment in his football career was that he celebrated the day of his engagement to my mum by scoring a hat trick at Parkhead.

“Anyone who wants to know about the love and bond between them need only look at the last two years of my father’s life. He was the centre of my mum’s life and she was the centre of his.” Former pupil, Liam Cairney, who attended St Patrick’s from 1980-1986 and is from Alexandria, worked on the Daily Record before moving to The National, the national daily in Abu Dhabi.

He posted on the internet: “Very sad to hear this and I share it not because Mr Divers played for Celtic but because he was one of the best teachers I had. He was my economics teacher for three years through ‘O’ Grades and Highers, and also my guidance teacher for most of my six years at the school.

“Witty and engaging but no-nonsense and demanding when he needed to be to get the best out of his students, I have many fond memories of my time in his economics and guidance classes.”