This is how it feels to be Brendan

Tonight on Superscoreboard I'll talk to a man who has achieved history-making greatness at what resembles the speed of light.

Published 30th Oct 2017

In the space of just seventeen months he has written himself into his club's history books on a page which also contains references to the venerable Willie Maley, Jock Stein and Martin O'Neill.

In other words, Brendan Rodgers could readily be described as a phenomenon at Celtic Park.

On Saturday he equalled the British record for consecutive games without defeat on a domestic basis which had stood for a hundred years since Maley's Celtic accomplished the same thing.

Rodgers' Celtic will surpass that achievement if they can draw with, or beat, St. Johnstone in Perth on Saturday.

In the Irishman's first season at Celtic he joined Stein and O'Neill in the record books by becoming the third manager to win a treble for Celtic since the club was formed in 1888.

Brendan, though, put jam on it by becoming the only one to have won all three major trophies without losing a single match along the way.

That is a feat which could stand in perpetuity unless Rodgers can pull off the same trick two seasons in a row.

But enough of historical matters, time for the comtemporary bit.

No sooner had Rodgers encouraged the Celtic support to give a rousing round of applause to his team on completion of their sixty second match without defeat than the first caller arrived on Superscoreboard with a grievance.

He was unhappy with the manager's team selection and even less taken with having had to sit through a draw with a Kilmarnock side defensively organised with the same meticulous attention to detail that would have won medals for gallantry had it been on the field of battle during a particularly gruesome conflict.

You couldn't, as they say, make it up.

Celtic, still domestically invincible under Rodgers, were being harangued for having had the temerity to display human frailty by drawing a match while top of the league.

It is moments like those which make the nit-picking supporters resemble kids used to feasting on chocolate turn their noses up at bread and butter when that is all there is on offer.

Sometimes circumstances take confectionary off the menu and replace it with a more basic diet.

It was that kind of thing which cropped up in conversation with the Celtic manager at the club's Lennoxtown complex on Friday afternoon.

While talking about his friendship with another iconic Celtic figure, Tommy Burns, I reminded Brendan of what Tommy had said to me during the writing of his biography, Twists and Turns.

"One half of Glasgow dislikes you and the other half think they own you," Tommy had remarked.

You can find out How Rodgers reacted to that remark tonight, but the manager cuts a unique figure.

No other Celtic manager has ever joined the club on a day when thirteen thousand fans turned up just to see him hold a hooped scarf above his head on the pitch.

And who could so easily sell out one of Glasgow's major concert venues to hear him discuss the contents of his newly published biograpy, The Road To Paradise?

That is why Rodgers the man is as fascinating as Rodgers the manager, and I can now say from personal experience that nothing fazes him no matter what subject of discussion is thrown at him.

Our conversation began with a question about his late mother and father, Malachy and Christina, and the influence they had on his life.

Rodgers had not asked to see any questions in advance, as some would do, and had only sat down to begin our interview after being interrogated by my eight year old grandson, Archie, on the subject of the Celtic training sessions he had been watching on Youtube.

Not only was the manager effortlessly patient with a young child he also thought long and hard about the touching message he wrote in that wee boy's autograph book before we left.

The message will remain private, but to say it made my flesh and blood's day would be an understatement.

Rodgers lives in the West of Scotland bubble where in the space of a week he will be expected to beat Bayern Munich in the Champions League and then St. Johnstone to write a fresh paragraph into Celtic's history.

Oh, and while he's at it. Brendan must stay at Celtic long enough to win ten league titles in a row for the first time ever in the Scottish game and give the fans bragging rights that may last a lifetime.

How the manager copes with all of this is what forms the basis of an engaging and informative discussion