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

The referee was Tom Robertson of Queen’s Park, and the teams were;

Celtic: Adams, McLeod and Orr; Young, Loney and Hay; Muir, McMenemy, Quinn, Somers and Hamilton

Rangers: Watson, N Smith and Drummond; Henderson, Stark and Robertson; Walker, Speedie, Mackie, Donnachie and A Smith

Celtic had not won the Scottish Cup since 1900 and had lost two desperately unlucky finals in 1901 and 1902 to the Edinburgh duo of Hearts and Hibs. The League had not been won for even longer than that because 1898 was the last year of Celtic being champions, and the Glasgow Charity Cup of 1903 was the only domestic Scottish trophy Celtic had won since 1900, if one excludes the British League Cup (sometimes called the Glasgow Exhibition Cup or even the Coronation Cup of 1902). But supporters now felt that with this developing team, the trophy drought might well be coming to an end. Rangers had had a bad season. Their four League Championships in a row (1899 – 1902) side had clearly faded, and although they had won the Scottish Cup in 1903, their League form this year had been dismally unproductive.

Disaster seemed to be looming for Celtic after only ten minutes were played. Against the run of play, Rangers were two ahead, both goals scored by their excellent inside forward Finlay Speedie. The first was a header which goalkeeper Davie Adams gathered but not cleanly, and as he collided with a post, the ball trickled into the net. It was an extraordinary goalkeeping error, and things became a lot worse a minute later when the same Speedie took a snap shot at goal from the edge of the penalty box. It missed everyone and the ball entered the net past a bewildered Davie Adams, who had clearly lost confidence and judgement.

The Rangers players and their fans could hardly believe their luck. Celtic supporters were despondent, but told themselves that there was still a long time to go and this young team of theirs was resilient and could yet fight back. Indeed the key thing about them was their youth. They were also determined that they could yet do it, and knew that a goal would bring them back into it. Poor Davie Adams, jeered by both friend and foe in the crowd, reckoned that things could not get any worse and wondered what people would think of him for his dreadful mistake in New Hampden’s first Scottish Cup Final. Fortunately for the amiable Angus man, someone else would appear as the eponymous hero of the 1904 Scottish Cup Final.

Celtic now concentrated on their two triangles. On the right were Young, Muir and McMenemy who could interchange passes, and on the left were Hay, Somers and Hamilton who could do similarly, while in the middle Quinn and Loney (an attacking centre half) were beginning to alarm the Rangers defence with their “strength in the barging.” as The Glasgow Observer put it.

Half time was approaching when Celtic’s hard work paid off. But it was all due to one man – the unpredictable, brooding, shy, not always confident Jimmy Quinn. He picked up a ball in the middle of the Rangers half and charged at goal using his speed to swerve and avoid some challenges and using also his sheer brute strength to brush others out of the way before he arrived inside the penalty box and lashed a shot past Watson. The Glasgow Observer turns alliterative when it says that Quinn survived “bumps, bangs and bashes from all quarters”. It was, certainly, a great solo goal, much applauded by the large crowd, and the writer of The Scotsman even saw some supporters with blue rosettes “applauding vigorously and sportingly”. That would be an unlikely scenario in 2013.

A grainy old photo of the 1904 Scottish Cup Final, when the legendary Jimmy Quinn scored a hat trick to give Celtic a 3-2 victory over Rangers pic.twitter.com/7nQH96DsGg

— Liam Kelly (@cfcliamk96) April 25, 2021

And then just before Mr Robertson “called for half time”, Celtic and Quinn had scored again. This time credit must be given to right winger Bobby Muir, (Sunny’s old friend from his Bristol Rovers days) who, in what would become known as a trademark Scottish goal, picked up a ball from Sunny Jim on the right, “skinned” the Rangers defence at full speed, hit the by-line, crossed low and hard and there was Quinn to bang the ball first time into the net. There was seldom anything complicated about Quinn. He would never dribble in the penalty area, but believed that the ball was there to be hit once – hard and accurately.

Continued on the next page…