Even heroes have heroes.

Brendan Rodgers’ name will resonate around Celtic Park this afternoon as the Parkhead side unfurl the league Championship flag but it will be Danny McGrain who does the honours and raises the symbol of Celtic’s dominance last term.

His significant to the club have never lost on the man in the dug-out who has sought to impart a philosophy of perennial improvement at Celtic.

Indeed, Rodgers believes that the presence of the iconic McGrain is something that should set the tone for any modern day player who finds himself in the Celtic dressing room.

“These guys never knew how good they were,” said Rodgers. “It’s brilliant to have him.

“It’s constant. It’s a winning club. When the expectancy is to win, the club has to be at a certain standard. You look at Danny’s record, the titles he has won, the appearances he has made, these are real symbols of the expectations that the club is held to.

“These are the guys who created it and we need to live up to that.”

McGrain’s colourful contribution to Celtic – seven league titles, five Scottish Cups and two League Cups – is partially charted on the giant wraparound posters which document the club’s history on giant posters around the perimeter of the stadium.

This afternoon will be regarded as a merging of past and present and it is ironic to consider the esteem which Rodgers holds McGrain given that the former captain of the club feared that his time would be up when the 45-year-old arrived at Celtic two years ago.

McGrain, a coach at Celtic since 1997, revealed recently he considered whether there would still be a place for him at the club or if a new broom would wish to sweep clean.

“I speak with Danny virtually every day he’s here,” said Rodgers. “I have lunch with him and sit for 15 or 20 minutes and I always get a wee nugget from him that I can relate somewhere in my life to football because he’s so humble.

“I see Danny, I see guys like George McCluskey and I’m like still a big child. This is my childhood and I’ve grown up a little bit. Seeing guys like Roy Aitken back in….we just need Anton Rogan showing up!

“These are the fellas who have the great club what it is and are wonderful symbols of our past, yet very much part of our present because they are real icons of the club.

“In that era, you look at the appearances they had. The likes of Danny, Roy, Tommy Burns, bless him. These guys were real contributors to the status that Celtic is and I tap into that.

“I remember talking to Danny once and he talked about playing for Scotland and coming across things he’d never encountered domestically, against West Germany and types of things that happened in the game.

“The game has evolved, got quicker and faster, but lots of it is the same.

“The esteem and respect he has, he’s always there for them in the background to give to them a word of encouragement or a slap on the backside.”

Once the opening carnival minutes are out of the way this afternoon, however, it will be business as usual. Livingston are something of a unknown proposition to Celtic given their newly acquired Premier League status that goes alongside the first game of Kenny Miller’s ambition of evolving into a player-manager at the club.

These early weeks of the campaign are dominated by UEFA Champions League qualifiers for Celtic – the Parkhead side will host AEK Athens in the first leg of the third round qualifier on Wednesday night – but maintaining their stranglehold on the league title remains the priority for Rodgers.

“It’s our number one competition,” said the Celtic manager. “The Premiership is your bread and butter, it’s where you want to prevail.

“Your first aim is to win your league and that allows you to savour everything that comes after that. So, yeah, brilliant to be at home and a great honour for us to have Danny taking the team out and unfurling the flag. It’s a great day and brilliant for the supporters.”

And this afternoon Rodgers can enjoy the occasion in a way he conceded that he couldn’t when he took charge of his first league game at the club two years ago.

“I was here my first year and I felt a little bit of an outsider because I had absolutely no part in winning it,” he said. “So I will enjoy watching Danny unfurl it and then we will get on with trying to secure a good win.”