1904 and 1965 – Celtic’s most significant Scottish Cup Final victories

We have said that sectarianism was not yet the poisonous issue that it was to become in later years. Nevertheless, loyalties did create a problem in the week before the Cup final, concerning Celtic’s centre forward (although most supporters thought he would be a better right winger) Alec Bennett. Alec, like Sunny Jim and a few others in the team, was a non-Catholic. This was emphatically NOT an issue at Celtic Park, but it seems to have been in the mind of Bennett and perhaps a few of his family who were putting pressure on him to join Rangers.

Rangers themselves, it was believed, had also approached him (there was nothing illegal about this in 1904) with a view to him joining them next year, something that he had so far steadfastly refused to do out of his innate goodness and loyalty to his current employers.

Yet Bennett was unhappy and upset about all this, and although Sunny Jim and his good friend Jimmy McMenemy tried to laugh him out of his depression and uncertainty, Maley eventually decided, very reluctantly, to drop Bennett from the Cup final team. Bennett was a great player and would be missed, but there was an alternative strategy. This way he could bring in Davy Hamilton to play on the left wing and allow Jimmy Quinn to come into the centre while retaining Bobby Muir on the right wing. Jimmy McMenemy and Peter Somers then filled the inside forward positions.

Diplomatically, the Press were told that Bennett had “flu”. The Glasgow Herald which may or may not have known the truth, uses the word “indisposed”, a delightfully vague word which can mean “ill”, but can also mean “not willing”. In any case, it was Bennett’s loss and certainly Quinn’s gain. The Dundee Courier describes Bennett’s absence and Quinn’s triumph as a “lucky accident”.

The half back line chose itself. Since they had come together, the form of the team, previously fitful and unpredictable, was now impressive and commanding with Young in particular acting as if he had all the experience and know-how in the world. He had just turned 22, had played less than 20 games for the club, yet one got the impression that he had been there for years and that he was going to drive the others to greater things.

“Face the ball, Celts!” was already his warcry, and his stentorian, loud, rasping Ayrshire accent was heard all over the ground. There was an affiliation and identity with the support that he was difficult to parallel in other players. Maley would chuckle to himself when he heard all the talk about religion. There was no problem there with Sunny Jim, but then again perhaps it was football (and football played in the Celtic way) that was the real religion of Sunny Jim Young.

Davie Adams was in the goal, a huge figure of a man, and at full back were Donnie McLeod and captain Willie Orr, a man who had now been ousted from the half back line, but was possibly, in any case a better full back. Barney Battles, that most loyal and gentle of Celts, had now disappeared from the scene and would move to Kilmarnock before the start of the next season. Man for man, Maley believed that Celtic were a better side than Rangers, but he also knew that it was a Cup final and anything could happen.

The weather was fine “the very antithesis of last week” as a huge crowd of 64,323, by some distance a record for a club game in Scotland, although the Crystal Palace had on occasion held more for the English Cup final and indeed Celtic Park probably held more in the 1896 Scotland v England international.

The Press is delighted to report that there was no crushing or swaying in the vast crowd which was well housed, and although there was some overcrowding at the turnstiles, this was more because of ignorance of where the turnstiles actually were and of the layout of the splendid new ground. In addition, with a sigh of relief, the Glasgow Police were pleased to remark that everyone behaved!

The size of the crowd was definitely helped by the price for admission which was 6 pence. Often in the past it had been double that amount at 1 shilling, and on occasion 2 shillings for Internationals and Cup finals. More and more, football was becoming a working man’s game. Twenty years ago, it was undeniably middle class, but now with professionalism legalised for the past ten years, it was the new opium of the masses who were more than willing to pay their “tanner” or their “sickie” (sixpence) to see the game.

It was clear too that the crowd, even for two Glasgow teams, did not come exclusively from Glasgow. That had been obvious at the railway stations that morning, and although both teams had their own committed band of supporters, both sets of fans mingled happily together, exchanging gentle banter without any real hint of nastiness. A large amount of fans, “with a strong female element not absent” particularly those from out of town, seemed to decide at the last moment who they were going to support and bought for a penny a rosette, of either green or blue, from the many vendors outside the ground. This was long before the days that every supporter committed himself uncompromisingly to one team. People simply loved football, this game which had simply taken over Scottish life for the past twenty years or more.

The Glasgow Observer is impressed by the size of the crowd which “submerged the landscape of Mount Florida”, and says that “Numerically, the Rangers supporters held sway but for enthusiasm and confidence, the Celtic contingent was an easy first”.

There were at least two “unhappy happenings” among the crowd on their way to the match. Alexander Cowie aged 21 was caught in the rush between the carriage and the platform as the crowd invaded the train at Glasgow Central Station, and a 66 year old man called John Cunningham had his leg broken when he was knocked down by a horse and cab, the cabman being arrested and detained for “careless driving”.

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