Neil Lennon (born June 25, 1971 in Lurgan, County Armagh) is a professional footballer from Northern Ireland, who currently plays for Celtic F.C. in the Scottish Premier League, and is now the club captain.
After joining Manchester City as trainee in 1989, Lennon has played for Crewe and Leicester City, before moving to Celtic, in 2000. For Northern Ireland, Lennon has been capped 40 times, scoring two goals. He has previously captained the squad.
Lennon decided to retire from international football in August 2002 upon receiving a death threat before a Northern Ireland match against Cyprus. The threats came after his alleged claim that he wanted to play for a United Ireland team. The threat was made by the Loyalist Volunteer Force, although the organisation later disputed this . The death threat was met with widespread disgust from both sections of the community in Northern Ireland.
In addition to this, Lennon has encountered abuse on and off the field from fans of opposing teams during his five year spell in Glasgow. In 2003 two students were fined for shouting sectarian abuse, spitting at, and head-butting Lennon. In 2005 vandals sprayed “You are a dead man Lennon” along with sectarian slogans outside his Glasgow home. Glasgow Police tried unsuccessfully to track down a “Neil Lennon RIP” banner which had made brief appearances at Old Firm games at Ibrox Park. Three members of the independent Rangers fan-site Follow-Follow were banned after posting a cartoon of Lennon being hanged. The site’s moderator said that two of the banned users were Celtic fans, although he conceded that there was no way of proving this.
Lennon is seen by Celtic supporters as a committed player, and was made Celtic captain in 2005. In February 2006 he scored only his third goal for Celtic in their 8-1 win over Dunfermline.
When his former club Leicester City sacked Craig Levein Lennon was linked with a return to the Midlands side in a player-manager role. He went on record as saying he was flattered but wanted to captain Celtic to the SPL title.
Although he was also linked with a possible move to Crystal Palace in a player/coach role in the summer of 2006, on 23 June 2006 Celtic announced he had signed a new one-year contract. Sunderland manager Roy Keane made an attempt to sign Lennon prior to the closure of the August 2006 transfer window, however his approach for the player was rejected by Celtic.