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SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY
Time will tell for a dogged old hand finally enjoying his day
by Andrew Smith
03-12-06
An honest pro
AS HE lined up in the tunnel before Celtic faced Manchester United in the Champions League the other week, Paul Telfer could not resist reflecting on the scene with Gordon Strachan. "I said to him it was just like when we were at Coventry," the 35-year-old recalls. It was a moment shared between two men with a familial kinship following their time together at the Midlands club, Southampton and now Glasgow across the past decade.
"We had some fantastic times at Coventry and Southampton. But it is an extreme to go from scrapping by from relegation for three years at Coventry to the heights of the Champions League at this time in my career."
Telfer is the runt of Strachan's litter; a faithful companion of a footballer. He has now been grudgingly accepted by the Celtic support because his tireless scampering up the flank from left-back has helped advance the Glasgow side beyond the group stages of football's foremost competition. The dogged is now having his days just at a time when these are numbered.
A foot fracture sustained by Mark Wilson at Old Trafford in September gave a second wind to Telfer's two-year Celtic career that will end in May. "I didn't think I would play as much this season and it is just unfortunate Mark got injured. But I am sure he will be snapping at my heels again in a couple of weeks," Telfer says.
Strachan sat in a Jacuzzi with Telfer the other week and heard the never-complaining player admit for the first time he had suffered a hip injury "away to Benfica in the Champions League". "He said 'I never thought he would say a sentence like that'."
An affable, uncomplicated sort, Telfer treats football as a job that demands his best but owes him nothing. On breaking his leg when going out of contract at Coventry, he refused to accept a wage until he had returned to fitness five months later. "A good man" is how Strachan describes a defender he believes is earning rewards in his footballing twilight for being "a good team-mate and a good professional", just as is proving the case with Henrik Larsson and Neil Lennon.
Telfer's desire to be a good husband and good father to his five-year-old son means he will not contemplate remaining at Celtic beyond the next five months. His family have long since returned to Winchester after being unable to settle in Scotland, but the player is at pains not to make a drama out of his domestic difficulties.
"It is awkward but not a hardship," he says. "I am doing a fantastic job and getting paid well. It is just week to week. I didn't see them for a month there but the manager gave me a couple of days off with things going well.
"I wouldn't stay for another year. I'll appreciate what I've had the last couple of years and would be delighted to finish on a good note winning the league and the Champions League. I'm not sure if I'll keep playing, but I have no coaching aspirations. I feel fit enough and, as long as I'm still enjoying it, if a club came for me near where I live I would discuss it."
Telfer has a neat line in self-deprecating humour. He jokes that "with the focus on Shaun, me and Lenny could slip under the radar and go for free" and that his son is "more interested in Scooby Doo" than his dad's exertions in the Champions League.
These will take Telfer to Copenhagen on Wednesday for Celtic's final Group F game. The player insists that the club wrapping up a place in the later stages of the competition, allied to their imperious form in defending their league title, is evidence that Strachan "has the potential to manage any club in the world, no problem".
The Celtic manager, meanwhile, believes he is in charge of a team that, on their own patch, "can beat anyone" in the Champions League knock-out stages. Away from home in the tournament, however, they seem able to beat precisely no-one. And, though the encounter in midweek has been presented as a stress-free occasion for Strachan's men, it should hardly be considered in these terms. A win would not only ensure Celtic top their section, preventing them drawing any other group winners and providing them with a home second leg in their last 16 tie. It would also bring to an end a run of 11 group games without a victory on unfamiliar soil. Telfer, though, sees a more obvious incentive for winning in Copenhagen.
"I know it would be good to top our league, and possibly get a more favourable tie with the away leg first," he says. "But I think just for the pride of finishing top of your league in such good company it is important. Pride plays a big part because, apart from anything else, we just don't want to get beat in any game we play in."
Telfer believes Celtic require to be "more ruthless" in the business of goal protection, and be "cuter" when it comes to pressing opponents, in order to cure their Champions League travel sickness. "Three goals away to Manchester United and Benfica tells a wee tale," he says. "We have to let teams try and come at us. You can be too open away from home and have to realise it is a different kettle of fish to the SPL."
Telfer has pondered what Copenhagen's attitude will be to a game in which there is nothing at stake for them - beyond adding to the win over United and the draw with Benfica in front of their own supporters, of course. "But we can't take their position into account," he says.
The full-back was less than impressed by the Parken Stadium pitch when watching highlights of the Danish club's win over Manchester United last month. He muses that the surface, having hosted two concerts and two games in the run-up to the visit of Alex Ferguson's men, "maybe wouldn't suit our twinkle-toed passing", only to be told it has since been relaid. "I'll dig it up for them again," he grins.
Telfer once said that his fitness was his only footballing asset. But an unassuming outlook is undoubtedly another.
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