The interest in this case never ceases to amaze.....not sure if this has been posted before but...........
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(good apart form the footy result!)
My night of passion with Celtic sleuth
By Clive Tyldesley 12:00AM GMT 31 Dec 2001
This may not be the best time for me to confess to my part in an illicit night out that Martin O'Neill once enjoyed on the eve of a match on Merseyside. I have lived with the secret for more than 20 years, and it might seem a little opportunist to be suddenly spilling the beans on the eve of Celtic's UEFA Cup quarter-final against Liverpool, and amid scurrilous speculation that O'Neill is himself Anfield bound. But I can remain quiet for no longer.
It was in 1981, and Norwich City were staying at the Holiday Inn in Paradise Street for a Friday night rest ahead of a crucial relegation match at Everton. I surreptitiously spirited O'Neill out of the hotel following the team's evening meal, and drove him to an unassuming terraced house in Wolverton Street, Anfield, less than a mile from the Liverpool ground. I did not enter the property with him, but waited in my car until he had completed his business. We then proceeded to two other addresses in the city before I returned him to the hotel around 10pm.
Mercifully, Norwich did win the match at Goodison the following day, but my conscience now feels duty bound to report that there was a woman involved.
That the poor lady in question had been murdered at the house some 50 years earlier is the clue to O'Neill's secret visit. The Celtic manager had once embarked upon a law degree course at Queen's University in Belfast but football came calling on his young life and whisked him away to win a Championship and a European Cup in Nottingham. He has never lost his fascination with crime and justice, though.
Legal eagles will tell you that the killing of Julia Wallace in the front room of 29 Wolverton Street in 1931 gave rise to the extraordinary precedent of a jury's guilty verdict being overturned by the Court of Appeal. Learned reconsideration decided that her husband, William, could not have butchered her to death, then raced to a nearby tram stop during the 25-minute window between sightings of him. I can only agree. How come? Well, Martin took me to the site of that tram stop, and then led me on a wild goose chase for an imaginary road called Menlove Gardens East that was a crucial part of William Wallace's dubious alibi. It was a long and fascinating night.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/477...ic-sleuth.html
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