It's no shock Celtic VIPs were in the White House as Joe Biden has their name on his lips – Gannon's USA diary

It's not all hard graft on the training pitch for the Celtic squad out here. The Hoops group also managed to hit the tourist trail in Washington – and managed to land one of the hottest tickets in town.

The White House is under even more severe lockdown than usual given the rather delicate political climate out here right now after Donald Trump’s lug got clipped by a bullet last weekend. That was serious stuff and there are more armed guards than usual around the place in case some other crackpots get any ideas.

But the Celtic party still managed to get invited into the most famous address in America. Perhaps it shouldn't have been a surprise – as President Joe Biden’s secret service code name is ‘Celtic’. It was all a bit hush hush but apparently there was no truth in the rumour Biden forgot they were coming.

And he definitely wasn’t overheard in the Oval Office talking about how he was looking forward to meeting Larry Bird. That’ll be the GLASGOW Celtics Mr President… Either way, the Celtic squad got a VIP tour of the place and it seemed to go down a storm with the players. It’s fair to say John Kennedy felt right at home as well. Never mind JFK, anyone who went up against – or bounced off – the Hoops no.2 in his playing days would have known him as John Effin Kennedy.

The visit was a bit of light relief after a tough workout in the morning over at the Celtic HQ at the George Mason University nearby in West Virginia. Sweaty, was how it could have been described. It was about 100 degrees in DC in the morning but by tea time the skies erupted and the rain was lashing down.

It wasn’t going to dampen any enthusiasm among the punters though. Celtic fans are checking into the Capital from all over the USA and from the