Alan Thompson reveals he was quizzed by Neil Lennon over whether or not he was taking drugs in the lead-up to his Parkhead exit.
The Englishman was first team coach at Celtic under his former team-mate, but left the role in 2012 after two years.
Thompson was a fans’ favourite for his numerous goals against Rangers during his playing career, but was unceremoniously fired after helping the club to the Premiership title.
And the former midfielder has revealed a bombshell chat with Lennon preceded his departure, with the Irishman quizzing him on rumours he'd been taking cocaine.
Thompson said in his new book A Geordie Bhoy and as serialised in the Sun : "We’d just won the league in May 2012 and everything was going swimmingly well — or so I thought! I had no idea that just weeks later I would be out the door at Celtic after only two years on the management staff.
"There’d been a few issues with myself away from the club which were well publicised in the media but nothing that I thought was worth me being fired.
"Looking back at it now, there were signs that I should have seen something like that coming.
"One day I remember particularly was Lenny coming into the coaching office to see me at Lennoxtown Training Centre. ‘Tommo, can I have a word please?’, Lenny asks out of the blue.
"It sounded all rather serious considering we were best mates but, of course, I told him he could.
"Lenny then comes out with, ‘Tommo, I’ve been asked from certain people above me to ask you this, although I already know the answer. I have to ask you if you are taking drugs?’.
"Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather as he went on to say certain members of the Celtic board had heard I was taking cocaine. Anyone who knows me will tell you the answer to that.
"I told Lenny straight that I was offended he’d even asked me that. Then I told him to ring downstairs to the doctors and I’d take every single drug test in the world. I told him that even though I was petrified of injections, the club could take whatever they wanted from my body to test.
"If I never see my three kids again, I have never touched any drugs in my life! Regarding Lenny asking me that, I considered it as him putting a chink in our friendship. I also didn’t like the way he did it in the manager’s office, it was all too official.
"As a friend, he could have asked me away from Celtic."
