CELTIC fans will always be grateful for Tommy Burns, and hundreds of Celtic players who have come through the club will forever be thankful for his influence on them. So, given his remarkable life of twists and turns, it will be no surprise to many to hear that the impact of Tommy Burns lives on at Celtic Park to this day.

The late, great Burns is remembered by thousands as a prodigiously gifted player, a daring and idealistic manager, and probably most of all, as a real Celtic man. But for the likes of Callum McGregor, who came through the club under the watchful eye of Burns and now wears the armband, it was the time he dedicated to them that truly mattered.

The Celtic captain has been speaking of his journey at the club from the age of eight until now, and those who had a hand in inspiring him to reach the heights that he has.

Included in that number are the players who went before him, as he picked up the habits from the likes of Aiden McGeady that would help him to forge his own stellar career as a Celtic player. But it all began, as was the case with so many Celtic youngsters, with Burns.

“That was exactly what Tommy – God rest him – used to say; ‘Watch people. The guys that are there the now, just watch them and see what they do. Follow everything they do’,” McGregor told the Celtic View podcast.

“That was the example, because these guys had made the step up and they had what it took. It was just about watching their behaviours as much as possible to see what they did off the pitch, on the pitch, to have that impact.

“Tommy was a real role model for the academy as well. He was obviously the first-team coach, and then he would come down to Barrowfield at five o’clock.

“Wee Jimmy the groundsman would be telling him we had to turn the floodlights off because we had school in the morning and he’d be saying ‘naw, more corners, more free-kicks!

“Tommy just wanted to be on the training ground constantly, and for us, who better to be on the training pitch coaching you or standing watching your sessions?

“At 10 or 11 years old you don’t want to come off the pitch anyway, but especially when someone like Tommy Burns is coaching the session. You’re thinking ‘I’ll stay all night, this is amazing!’

“So, these are the really special moments growing up, and being at Barrowfield you can see Celtic Park in the background as well, and that’s where you aspire to get to. Tommy was a huge, huge part of that.”

The sacrifices that Burns made to nurture the Celtic stars of the future have always stuck in McGregor’s mind, but it is perhaps only now that he truly appreciates them.

“Just his enthusiasm for football as well,” he said. “You don’t really realise it at that age, but even just to put in those hours as a first-team coach.

“You kind of get an idea of what the first-team coaches are doing on a day-to-day basis now because you’re a little bit older.

“He was doing all that and more, coming down to watch the youth team when I was 10 years old.

“He didn’t need to do that, but that was just how special a person he was, he wanted to let everybody know that if you were eight, nine, 10 or 18, he was watching you and he was watching your progression.

“That gave me especially that sense that ‘I’ve got a real good chance here, you’ve got guys like Tommy Burns coming to watch you training at 10 years old and taking parts of the session’.

“So, he was a massive influence, especially on myself but just in the youth system in general. I think he was huge.”

At 28, and as club captain, McGregor feels that weight of responsibility that has now been passed onto his shoulders, and he fully intends to honour Burns by following his leadership example.

“I think there obviously will be kids out there and young players looking at the first-team at the minute and selecting their role model in that sense,” he said.

“So, you are fully aware that you are that kind of role model and you do things in the right way.

“Especially for young boys coming up, I’ve been in their shoes, so you try to help them as much as possible, put the arm round them and give them little pointers, make them feel welcome.

“At the same time, there is still a standard that you have to be at. It’s striking that balance of being nice, but not being too nice. They’ve got to fell on edge too a little bit.

“You are aware of that, of course you are, and I try to carry that with me in most things I do.

“You realise you have that responsibility as well when you play of this club, there’ a certain standard which you try not to drop below.”