It’s hard to believe that post World War Two Celtic narrowly avoided relegation in 1948 and by 1954 the club had yet to win the title to become Champions of Scotland. Until 17 April 1954 and within a week the Bhoys made it a Double by winning the Scottish Cup…
SATURDAY 17th APRIL 1954 – For the first time in sixteen years since before the second world war, Celtic are the League Champions! They achieve this in a fine 3-0 defeat of Hibs at a packed Easter Road with 45,000 at least in the ground and a lot more having climbed the wall. Neil Mochan scores in the first minute, then again at the start of the second half before John Higgins adds a third at the end. It is a great triumph for a team who had seemed to have no hope at the turn of the year and it says a great deal about the resolute captaincy of Jock Stein.
David Potter
‘The triumph of non-stop Celtic,’ 1954 League title won at Easter Road
HIBS 0-3 CELTIC SATURDAY 17 APRIL 1954 – For the first time in sixteen years since before the Second World War, Celtic are the League Champions! And Celtic achieved this in a fine 3-0 defeat of Hibs at a packed Easter Road with 45,000 at least in the ground and a lot more having climbed the wall.
Neil Mochan scored in the first minute, then again at the start of the second half before John Higgins adds a third at the end. It was a great triumph for a team who had seemed to have no hope at the turn of the year and it said a great deal about the resolute captaincy of Jock Stein.
The Celtic side was Bonnar, Haughney, Meechan, Evans, Stein, Peacock, Higgins, Fernie, Fallon, Tully and Mochan.
The Glasgow Herald grudging, verging on spewing at the Celtic title win and a week later for them worse was to follow.
Celtic’s First Title Since Before The War
Winning the league for the first time since before the war would have been a lovely experience for the huge travelling Celtic support and the very next Saturday they were all there at Hampden for the Scottish Cup Final against Aberdeen.
On a lovely sunny day in front of a crowd of 134,000, Celtic won 2-1 with the goals coming from an Alec Young OG and Sean Fallon. Celtic were unchanged from the side that won the league at Easter Road but despite dominating play the Scottish Cup Final remained goalless at the interval.
Five minutes after the re-start Mochan embarked on one of his runs and hit one of his classic shots from a tight angle directly at goal. It cannoned off of Young and past Martin in the Aberdeen goal. Immediately afterwards Aberdeen were level when Hamilton slipped the ball through to Buckley and he beat an advancing Bonnar to slip the ball in at the far post.
The game became a hard grind from both teams but on 64 minutes Fernie picked the ball up and having made his way to the line cut it back for Fallon to tap home past Martin. Aberdeen fought back hard but Evans and Stein and even Mochan back helping out withstood their advances and it was Jock Stein that went up the stairs to accept the oldest Cup in football.
Here are the highlights of the 1954 Scottish Cup win, our 17th success in the competition…
The 1950’s will of course be remember for the Coronation Cup win and the 7-1 win in the League Cup Final in 1957 but this Double win was probably more significant for the supporters at the time.
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