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For decades, the survivors of the Celtic Boys Club abuse scandal have been just that: survivors.
Their lives have been ruined by shame, worry and, in many cases, failure, because of what happened to them at the hands of serial pedophiles Frank Cairney and Jim Torbett. Many of them were as young as 12 or 13 when they played for Celtic Boys Club – innocent and vulnerable children.
Children who dreamed of one day wearing the Celtic blouse to play for their heroes on their sacred ground of Parkhead. But from the moment they were abused by Torbett and Cairney, they had to endure the torment.
As teenagers, they were too embarrassed to trust them, too scared to tell their parents what had happened, too worried that speaking out they would be kicked out of the club and their dreams would be shattered. So they were silent. For decades.
They have men in trouble. Some turned to alcohol to exterminate demons, others went on with their lives, doing their best to get away from the dark places their memories had taken them in. Then, finally, they spoke.
I was a senior reporter for the Daily Record in 1996 when I became involved in the story that rocked and tormented the club for decades. More than a decade before we could tell this story, a Glasgow taxi driver told reporters he had been sexually abused while playing for the club.
I met him and he told me how he and others had been taken through Torbett to his flat in Glasgow after training. He gave them candy and ice cream, and that’s where the abuse occurred. Even twenty years later, he disappointed and shook. through the ordeal he had kept secret for so long.
He told me about other players and that’s when the investigation began with a Record team consisting of Charles Beaton, Iain Ferguson (unfortunately deceased) and myself. I went to see a former Celtic Boys Club player and asked him if he is one of the abused children.
He flatly denied it, saying he knew nothing about it, although nothing about his habit told me there was more to it about him. But the door closed. And I even clarify that line of research.
A few hours later, he called me through a friend of his, who told me he had replaced his brain and now wanted to talk. I met this former player, who will remain anonymous, at a café in Parkhead Forge. in the shadow of Celtic Park.
With tears streaming down her cheeks, she told me a story that has stayed with me to this day. He had been attending a Celtic Boys Club tournament in Europe when he sexually assaulted him in a machine room through Jim Torbett, while other children lay in bed in a nearby bedroom.
The burly professor had reached into the boy’s pajama pants and stroked him. Embarrassed and confused, he went back to bed without talking about it. Never.
He came home this weekend with the player of the tournament award but with a broken center. Actually, you are not alone. For decades, Torbett and Cairney had relentlessly attacked Boys Club youngsters like himself.
There have been whispers and rumours, but never enough for a newspaper to publish an investigation because, to denounce the aggressors, those affected will have to speak. I do not forget that years before our presentation, there was an incident in the city of Kearny, New Jersey, during an annual excursion of the Celtic Boys Club in the United States, where the boys, accompanied through Cairney, were staying with locals who were part of the group. The world Celtic family.
The tour was suddenly interrupted, we found out, and all the equipment was sent home. We discovered it because Cairney had touched a child while he was sleeping in bed and the child had complained. The New Jersey police had not been notified, as it might have implied that all the children had been apprehended thousands of miles from their homes. They were returned without delay and Cairney, without explanation, resigned as coach and manager.
Again, the culprit was there, prominently, but we didn’t have enough to bring him down. During our investigation in 1997, we were told that Alan Brazil, a prominent ancient Celt, had been a victim. I went to Cheshire to communicate with him, and one night at his home in Glasgow he told him that he had been abused through Torbett.
I knew we had a huge history that would shake the club and the status quo of football to its foundations. We had a duty to say so. Written story and a shocking cover ready to denounce Cairney and Torbett for the monsters they were.
My colleagues Iain Ferguson and Charles Beaton came to their door and told them they were about to be unmasked. They categorically denied it. Until the printing presses began operating that night, Record editor Terry Quinn won calls threatening to sue the paper.
One of them came from an important and reputable Celtic figure, who was in the house of Cairney, defending him as a wonderful guy and claiming that our accusations were completely false. We may have capitulated, but we didn’t. I stayed true to the story I had been told. He knew by intuition that those who were suffering were telling the truth.
The publisher made the brave decision to publish it, and when the Record hit shelves across the country, it caused a stir through football. I accompanied the brave player, who recounted his abuse at the age of thirteen and delivered a complete to London Road police detectives. station the morning the story was known. But that was just the beginning.
The next day, phones at the check-in desk rang nonstop with calls from men claiming to have been abused through the two men. That day I got dozens of calls, some from men in their thirties and forties, crying, thanking. the Registry for denouncing these perverts.
They described being sexually assaulted in showers at the education camp, or being abused on trips to Celtic Boys Club in northern Scotland. They spoke of their misfortune, but were relieved to know now that they were not alone. They had tried to talk for years, but they were too disgraced.
Shame is what victims of sexual abuse feel most of all. One wonders if they have attracted this attention. In the years that followed, convictions followed one after another, as more and more victims of abuse appeared, and to this day, the Two Twisted Men still face charges.
I am pleased that Celtic are trying to establish themselves without the survivors having to go through the ordeal of a trial. The Record gave a voice to those survivors and opened the floodgates for those abused in football and other sporting institutions.
But this is an empty victory. Because those lost boys have waited more than 30 years for some kind of fence and, no matter what kind of agreement it is, the suffering will never go away. A public apology from Celtic may simply heal the wounds.
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