CELTIC season-ticket holder Lord Willie Haughey has revealed how starting out as an apprentice held the key to his global success.

The businessman said he would never have started his business had he not gone on to study one day a week at Glasgow's Springburn College. 

He founded City Refrigeration in 1985 with £70,000 of his own savings.

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Speaking to mark the start of Scottish Apprentice Week, he said: “When I left school I wrote 30 or 40 letters to companies looking for an apprenticeship without any luck.

"One day my mum’s tumble drier broke down and I got talking to the guy, Willie Allan, they sent to repair it. I told him I was looking for an apprenticeship and he said his company, Turner Refrigeration, were looking for someone. He sorted me up with an interview and I got it."

Lord Haughey is credited with rescuing Celtic in the 1990s. His business now employs 14,000 people. He added: “One million per cent, that’s where it started. Without the experience I got from my apprenticeship I could have ended up anywhere. But the discipline I received set me up for life.”

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Scottish Apprenticeship Week runs from today until Friday 11 March: more than 12,000 employers are involved in Scottish apprenticeships, with 43,000 apprentices in jobs and work-based learning across the country.

Shona Struthers, chief executive of Colleges Scotland said: “Scotland’s colleges provide world-class learning opportunities for apprentices.

"Lord Haughey’s positive experience as an apprentice proved pivotal in him going on to achieve great business success and I hope his experience will inspire many more Scots to follow in his footsteps.

“The modern workplace is rapidly changing and apprentices can build the skills which meet the needs of employers.

"Colleges work closely with business and industry to ensure we deliver the skills and critically the work-based experience students gain from, and which employers need.”