A LONE figure stands alone in the dimly-lit Parkhead boardroom, surveying the pictures adorned on the walls around him. He looks up at each one in turn, reflecting on some past glory or another, before approaching the room’s solitary desk.

In one hand, he clutches his Celtic-branded green-and-white tie. The other holds a piece of paper with three characters at the top – three squiggles that effectively serve as a death knell to the man’s professional life: P45.

He turns to leave, even though it’s tearing him up inside. After all, this was home for the best part of two decades.

But leave he must. He can hear the crowds outside – agitated, restless, eager to give their hero the send-off he deserves. With a final sigh, he places first the piece of paper and then the tie on the desk, takes one last tearful glance around the boardroom, and leaves.

He walks out the front door of Parkhead to rapturous applause. He works his way through the throng of bodies, of greedy, grasping hands determined to get one last fleeting touch of their idol as he makes his way through the mob. He slowly makes his way to the edge of the crowd before disappearing over the sunset.

A reverent hush descends. One of the crowd, an old man, watches on as a single tear rolls down his cheek. He grabs the child standing next to him, points at the figure walking off into the sunset and tells him: “Remember this day, son. There goes the best damned chief executive Celtic Football Club ever saw.”

The Herald:

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This scene is nothing more than a fiction of course, little more than the deluded ramblings of a tired hack. But after Friday’s news that Peter Lawwell, Celtic’s chief executive of the last 17 years, announced his intention to step down from his duties and retire at the end of the current campaign, it was one of the first things that popped into my head.

Why? Maybe I’m just a weirdo with strange ideas (a theory I refuse to discount, as so many of you like to tell me exactly that in the comments section). Maybe I’ve watched too much television and this is simply the product of an overactive imagination. But I think the real reason is that it got me thinking about the legacy Lawwell leaves behind, and whether or not that married up to what he expected.

Certainly, he leaves under a cloud that no backroom figure at Celtic has faced in quite some time and one that even Lawwell himself couldn’t have forecast. There has been a growing sense of resentment from some sections of the club’s support for some time now about the manner in which their club’s business operations are run – even before the wheels came flying off the current campaign – and there is little doubt that these same people will be pleased to see a regime change in Glasgow’s east end.

Their argument is that Lawwell hasn’t been performing adequately in his role for some time now, and that the club’s various acts of self-combustion this term are the natural conclusion of years of complacency. The Green Brigade, the Celtic ultras group, have not been shy about making their feelings on the matter known for years now, and have regularly called for significant change in the boardroom. Based on Lawwell’s announcement, it looks like they will get precisely that in a few months’ time.

In Celtic’s statement, Lawwell said it was “obvious” that regardless of whether or not Celtic completed their pursuit of Ten-In-A-Row this year, changes would be made. Discussions between himself and chairman Ian Bankier, Lawwell revealed, have been ongoing since last year. He knew this day was coming, and he has had every opportunity to prepare for it.

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One wonders just exactly how Lawwell pictured his succession. Last summer, knowing he was about to enter the final season of his professional career, he wouldn’t have been human if he hadn’t dreamed of the scenario I laid out earlier. The prospect of Celtic sealing an unprecedented tenth consecutive Premiership crown and going down in history as the man who delivered it is enough to make anyone feel giddy. It’s worth remembering too that before a ball was kicked this term, that possibility wasn’t only considered to be realistic – many considered it an inevitability.

Of course, things haven’t transpired that way. Celtic’s run of 12 domestic trophies wins on the bounce was brought to a shuddering halt by Ross County in the Betfred Cup, a disappointing run in Europe cut short any hopes of excelling on the continental stage and worst of all, barring an act of God, Rangers will win the league this season.

Lawwell isn’t responsible for all of this but as one of the most powerful and influential figures within the club, he must take his share of the blame for what has been a disastrous campaign. His legacy, whether he likes it or not, has been tarnished.

But for all that the current season has been an unmitigated disaster for the Parkhead club – seemingly from the get-go – there is also the other side to Lawwell. The side that saw Celtic rise up and become a financial behemoth, regularly sell players for eight-figure profits and compete in European football’s Promised Land, the Champions League.

These, too, are part of the legacy that Lawwell will leave behind come May. It would be churlish in the extreme to look at the financial advantages that Celtic enjoy compared to their contemporaries in Scotland and dismiss Lawwell’s involvement, just as it would be equally misguided to assume that he has been an innocent bystander watching on in horror as his team’s season has flown off the rails.

The Herald:

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When Dominic McKay succeeds Lawwell, he will inherit a club with the healthiest bank balance in the country by a significant distance, despite the Covid-19 pandemic. He will have a playing squad that is head and shoulders above all bar one of Scotland’s teams and full to the brim with valuable assets that can be sold for a healthy profit. Lawwell deserves credit for that, as he does the world-class facilities he leaves behind.

He has been at the helm for one of the most successful periods in the history of a club that isn’t exactly starved of silverware, and the decision to lure Brendan Rodgers to Parkhead in the summer of 2016 created one of the best footballing sides our nation has ever seen.

In 20 years from now when we’re looking back on all this, I suspect that is how Lawwell will be remembered: as a man who left the club in a better state than he found it, and as one who delivered trophies by the barrel load.

But he will also be the man who threw away the 10, and there will be certain decisions that will haunt him. The decision to hand Neil Lennon the manager’s job in the showers at Hampden. The decision to turn his nose up at Hibs’ asking price for John McGinn while spending about the same amount that it cost Aston Villa to prise the midfielder away from Easter Road on some fancy new lights for the stadium. And perhaps most damningly of all, the decision to retain his faith in Lennon this season despite the sizeable evidence that it would cost Celtic the league.

This is the legacy Lawwell leaves behind, and it is far from straightforward. On the one hand, for the vast majority of his 17 years in the post, he did an excellent job. But in that final year – the one that really mattered – he, alongside many of his colleagues at the club, failed. They had a once-in-a-lifetime shot to deliver historic success and they came up short.

The Herald:

READ MORE: Peter Lawwell retires: Dermot Desmond reveals he tried to convince Celtic chief to STAY before announcement

When Lawwell waves goodbye in the summer, he won’t be greeted by an enthusiastic crowd of supporters thanking him for all he has done. In fact, if Celtic’s season gets any worse, the scene could be more in keeping with the last helicopter flying out of Saigon.

One thing’s for sure: the farewell won’t be as Lawwell pictured it. Rightly or wrongly, he leaves Celtic on the back of a failure that will always be remembered. That failure doesn’t erase the successes of the past but it undeniably leaves a sour aftertaste, and his career’s epitaph will read: ‘Here lies the man that almost won the 10’.

There is one word in there that will sting more than any other: almost. And that is Lawwell’s legacy.