TNH – The Northern Hemisphere

Article featured in issue 2 of VOT Fanzine……by Michael Conboy:

Gil Heron – Celtic Football Club

The revolution will not be televised, the revolution will not be televised, the revolution will be live…

In my 20’s I was on a musical journey, free from the shackles of the second summer of love, or was it the third, it depends on who you speak too! I was somewhat worn out both mentally and physically.

I wanted to grow up from a musical perspective, I started listening to Dylan’s Desire loved how powerful Hurricane was and still is, the cross over between music and sport, Dylan’s sweeping verses the poetic storytelling only he managed to master through his song writing and precise delivery.

Rubin Carter a black American middleweight boxer 5 foot 8 inches tall fighting his professional career at the weight of 155-160lb. Rubin was renowned for his early round knockouts due to his aggressive fighting style, but in 1966 his life and career were about to drastically change…

At 2.30am the shooting began in the Bar and Grill on Lafayette Street, 2 immediate fatalities, another customer died a Month later, the only survivor from that fatal night was a customer who lost sight in one eye.

Witnesses at he scene who were interviewed at the time told the police they saw two black males fleeing the scene of the crime in a white car, with further independent witness statements corroborating this.

Rubin Carter and his friends driving a white car were stopped by the police that night and taken to the hospital where the one eyed witness was recovering from his injuries. The witness was unable to identify Rubin as the man who shot him.

The white car they were stopped in was searched and bullets were found that fit the murder weapon, yet no finger prints were taken and no tests for gun shot residue were done either.

Rubin was tried and convicted once in 1967 and again in 1976. It was only in 1985 that the 2^nd conviction was overturned but Rubin Carter had spent the best part of 20 years in prison.

I digress as I have somehow detracted from the subject matter in hand!

Over the years there has been some iconic images of Bob Marley playing football in an Adidas tracksuit and what look to be 1980 Cop Mundial football boots, he was a midfield player who idolised Pele. These images have stuck with me and in more recent years brought those classic memories for me back in Richard Ashcroft’s video for Are You Ready where he is in a green Adidas tracksuit, Grey Gazelles playing football in the snow, again that fusion of music and sport which sit so comfortably together yet decades apart.

I have Sky Sports News on in the background, which is nothing new in my house. It always seems to be on one of the many televisions in most rooms. I sometimes don’t pay a great deal of attention to it as I go about daily chores or getting ready to go somewhere. But on this occasion my ear picks up the name “Gil Heron” and “Celtic Football Club” all in the same sentence by a Sky Sports presenter.

It was shortly after my Dylan and Van Morrison phase I started listening to Gil Scott Heron. I confess not through my musical intellect but through Paul Weller’s cover of “The Bottle”, I guess like most people’s musical journey’s good or bad, artists are picked up along the way by others influences.

I say started listening to, I confess I bought just the one album, but this album would have a lasting effect. Well I think it was just the one album, looking back through my collection I can only find a CD copy of “Pieces of a Man” which was recorded in New York and released in 1971. The copy I have is the 1993 RCA Compact Disc reissue.

This his first studio album, he had moved away from the spoken performances of his 1970 debut live album “Small Talk at 125^th and Lenox”.

The opening track “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” interested me the most initially, I had heard nothing like it from that time period, was this the mouldings of early Hip Hop, which along with some of the stuff George Clinton was doing certainly had to be massive contributors.

This opening track was direct, it sounded like it had to be politically motivated, but I wasn’t interested in the politics I was interested in the music, that track and that album blew me away, for a long time after discovering it I barely listened to anything else and if I did it never really stacked up against it. I won’t dissect every song as they all stand the test of time, from “Lady Day and John Coltrane” to the “The Needle’s Eye”.

So now me picking up on the name “Gil Heron” on Sky Sports News has some meaning and context.

Gil Heron was the first Black footballer to play for Celtic, he was a gifted centre forward who played in the North American Soccer League from 1946.

In 1951 he was spotted by a scout from Celtic who was in America at the time and asked Gil to go to Scotland for a trail with Celtic. During this trial game he scored twice so inevitably he was asked to join the club and signed for them.

He made his debut with Celtic on the 18^th August 1951 against Morton in a league cup game, Celtic won this 2-0 with Gil scoring one of the goals, the solid debut he had needed to get his Scottish football career off the ground.

He was only with Celtic for one year, but within that time he made five first team appearances and scored twice.

After his short time at Celtic he then went to Third Lanark and then to Kidderminster Harriers before moving back to America.

Gil Heron sadly passed away 27 November 2008 at the age of 86, his legacy being the only black player for Celtic, being capped by Jamaica and his son being the famous poet and singer songwriter Gil Scott Heron.

I still haven’t worked out what the news piece on Sky Sports about Gil Heron was, answers on a postcard please! but I do know the connection between music and sport never ceases to amaze and entertain.

As I finish writing this I cant sign off without remembering Robert Nesta Marley and his Copa Mundial’s he would be 74 years old today and still an attacking force in midfield.