The first Welshman to play for Celtic was, Pat Woods would have had no difficulty telling you if you had asked him, Leigh Roose way back in 1910.
Woods, the Glasgow librarian, historian and author who passed away at the age of 78 following a short illness earlier this month, could doubtless have supplied you with a few quirky and obscure facts about Roose without needing to refer to any archive material about his beloved Parkhead club too.
He would have known, for instance, that the only game which that iconic if somewhat eccentric goalkeeper of the Edwardian era had featured in during his brief time in this country was a Scottish Cup semi-final against Clyde.
He would have been able to relay that during the outing, which the defending champions lost 3-1 to crash out of the competition, he had angered his team mates by running the entire length of the pitch to congratulate one of the opposition goal scorers.
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But if you had ever put it to Pat, who was born in Bangor and spent the early years of his life in Caernarfonshire, that he was every bit as much of a Welsh great as, say, John Hartson or Joe Ledley he would instantly have scoffed at the suggestion.
He very much adhered to the old adage about no individual being bigger than the football club. For him, Celtic was always the star. He had a sense of wonderment about the club he had started supporting when he was a boy living in Shettleston in the East End in the 1950s which never waned.
But he contributed enormously - through the meticulously-researched, beautifully-written and always engrossing tomes which he produced in conjunction with his assorted collaborators, works like The Glory and The Dream, Dreams and Songs to Sing, Oh, Hampden In The Sun, One Afternoon in Lisbon and Celtic: Pride and Passion - to the storied history of the first British club to lift the European Cup in his own way.
The 2-1 win over Inter Milan in Lisbon in 1967 was a particular fascination of his. It was entirely fitting that he was presented with a Special Recognition Award by Celtic at their Player of the Year awards on the 50th anniversary of the achievement in 2017 for his unstinting commitment to telling that story.
For those who know their history, the reserved, affable, softly-spoken gentleman from North Wales is, even though he never donned a green and white hooped jersey and played for his idols, something of a Celtic icon.
He dedicated Touching the Heights: Personal Portraits of Scottish Sporting Greats to his “hero” Pat Woods a few years ago.
Every journalist or writer who ever went to Woods to double check a fact or pick his brains, and there were a multitude of them over the years, would testify not just to his willingness to help but his enthusiasm in doing so.
The simplest of queries invariably resulted in an avalanche of emails landing in your inbox and assorted books, some produced by his own hand, many not, being passed on for your perusal.
I first encountered Pat when I was a young sports reporter working for The Evening Times in Glasgow and was tasked with writing a feature about Celtic Park. We met for a pint in Babbity Bowster in the Merchant City and he proceeded to speak with unbridled passion and in forensic detail about how the stadium had developed over the decades. What had seemed like a tedious assignment at first quickly became fascinating.
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He was a regular source of help and encouragement thereafter. You almost felt a responsibility to ensure due prominence was given to the article you were working on when you had consulted him. He was always pleased when the piece he had assisted with was given a showing which he felt it merited. He would often get in touch to suggest potential topics you could explore.
Spreading the gospel of Celtic to the wider world was very much the calling of a man who was educated at the Marist St Mungo's Academy on Parson Street.
He had a quite extraordinary ability to unearth, often many years after the event, remarkable new nuggets of information about Celtic. Goodness knows he mined for them long and hard. He would marvel at what he had discovered in much the same way that a child eyes the shiny new present they have unwrapped on a Christmas morning.
I implored him not to, stressed I would do it myself when I had the time, pleaded with him to stay indoors. It was a foul day and he was convalescing. But just try to stop him.
A few hours later the steadfast septuagenarian called to say he was on a train out to my house. I went down to the station to meet him. When he disembarked onto the rain-drenched platform he was holding a single sheet of A4 paper in front of him. He handed it over, got straight back on his carriage and went home. Mission accomplished. I was able to hang my entire story on the few paragraphs he had circled.
The late, great Billy McNeill once told me as we chatted about his trophy-laden playing days in an empty function suite at McNeill’s Bar just off Victoria Road that he believed there to be a fairytale aspect to Celtic.
Pat Woods, the renowned historian and author who family and friends laid to rest at Daldowie Crematorium in Uddingston on Thursday morning, was responsible for chronicling and highlighting the myriad romantic and remarkable tales about the Glasgow giants which make them unique in the world game. He leaves a lasting legacy behind him.
