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

1904 and 1965 – Perhaps the two most significant Scottish Cup finals in Celtic’s history, this is the story of the 1904 Scottish Cup Final win over Rangers at the new Hampden where Celtic came back from 2-0 down to lift the cup thanks to a Jimmy Quinn hat-trick…

Celtic now with their support galvanised into action would have liked the semi-final against Third Lanark to be played the next Saturday, but this was not possible because Scotland were playing Wales in an International at Dens Park (then considered to be one of the best grounds in Scotland). In the event, Willie Orr and Alec Bennett played for Scotland in a 1-1 draw while Celtic beat St Mirren 3-1 in a League match before a “reasonable attendance”.

This game now saw Celtic into the Scottish Cup final, and the atmosphere was tangible around Parkhead. Young’s fine performance in this game – the word “outstanding” was used in several newspapers – also had another effect in that he was granted International recognition when he was chosen to play for the Scottish League against the English League (or as they called themselves, arrogantly, the Football League) at Bank Street, Manchester, the home of Manchester United on Monday 4 April 1904.

The League Internationals, sadly no longer played, were very important in those days, for they were looked upon as a spring board for a full International cap. Sunny had only really played as a regular right half since the end of February on that quagmire of a pitch at Dens Park, and here he was playing for the Scottish League at the beginning of April! Admittedly, he was not the first choice and only came in at the last minute, but nevertheless the opportunity to play against Bob Crompton and Steve Bloomer in front of a 40,000 crowd was an exciting one for the ambitious Sunny. Jimmy Quinn was also chosen for the left wing spot.

It was a fine day at Clayton (as Bank Street was sometimes called) and the holiday crowd enjoyed a good game in which the wind played a fairly significant part as the Scottish League were winning at half-time when they had the wind behind them, but lost out 1-2. This was of course no disgrace to lose by this narrow margin, and The Glasgow Herald says that Young “acquitted himself creditably”.

As important as anything else in these games was the social side of things. There was always a post-match dinner (sometimes called grandiloquently a “banquet”) and Young, sociable as always, sought out the England players like Bloomer, Greenhaugh and Baddeley, some of whom remembered him vaguely from his Bristol Rovers days, talked to them about the game, picked up a few tips, exchanged opinions, but told them that something was soon going to happen in Glasgow and that was the arrival of the Celtic to become the best team on earth. Pointing to the shy, introverted Jimmy Quinn, he said that this man was going to score all the goals. Everyone laughed good naturedly at such banter while the Englishmen began to boast about Blackburn Rovers, Manchester City or Bolton Wanderers as appropriate.

It is probably true to say that in 1904 what really mattered to all of Scotland was the full International against England. It would be talked about and anticipated with enthusiasm from soon after the New Year. It was more important than club games in that it attracted bigger attendances from all over the country, including a few who would claim to have arrived by that modern invention “the motor car”. Sometimes simply called “the International”, it was scheduled for Celtic Park this year and was to be played on Saturday 9 April 1904, only a few days after the League International which was in some ways looked upon as the trial match for the big game.

The ever optimistic Sunny Jim might well have hoped for a call up to this match as well, but the right half place went to Andy Aitken of Newcastle United, commonly known as “the Daddler”. Aitken stayed uninjured in the few days before the game, so Sunny watched the game from the gallery of the Parkhead pavilion beside other Celtic players and all the dignitaries like the Lord Provost of Glasgow, Sir John Ure Primrose, much fawned upon sycophantically by the Celtic Directors in spite of his Rangers connections.

Ironically for the game being played at Celtic Park, there was not a single Celtic player in the team, but there was a huge crowd with the police and ambulancemen on a high state of alert following what had happened at Ibrox two years ago. Fortunately nothing untoward happened in front of a slightly disappointing crowd of only 45,000 (foul weather and the genuine fear of another disaster in the big crowd keeping the attendance lower than expected) but all of Scotland was distressed when England won 1-0 thanks to a goal from Steve Bloomer of Derby County, sometimes called “the ghost” because of his pale face.

That was a disappointment, but Sunny and the rest of the Celtic team knew that next Saturday was what really mattered to them and the Celtic fans. It was the Scottish Cup final between themselves and the well-supported team from the west of the city called Rangers.

As we have said, at this stage of footballing history, there was no great sectarianism or bigotry from Rangers or even their supporters. They were however the main rivals to Celtic in terms of support and the size of their stadium, and therein lay the real rivalry. Queen’s Park, who had rigidly refused to turn professional had perhaps had their day, and Third Lanark were at the moment enjoying a brief moment of ascendancy, but it was Rangers who were always likely to be the main rivals.

Since they had won the Scottish League four years in a row from 1899 until 1902, there was an arrogance about them, a feeling that they were the team that was “meant” to win honours, and they certainly had the wealth and the support to do so.

Another factor that added spice to the 1904 Scottish Cup final was that it was to be played at New Hampden Park, the massive stadium erected by Queen’s Park and opened in a game against Celtic last Hallowe’en. There was little doubt that the purpose of building this stadium was to outdo Celtic Park and Ibrox and to host the biennial Scotland v England International and Scottish Cup finals, but it was an indication of the continually growing interest in football in Glasgow that the city now had three stadia capable of hosting big crowds, even though it would be some time before Ibrox could be used again for this purpose.

Great stress was laid on safety at Hampden in a fairly obvious dig at Rangers after their disaster, and a subtle reminder of the dangerous overcrowding that had been obvious at Celtic Park in 1896.

The New Hampden was rumoured to be capable of holding 80,000 at least and plans were in place to extend it so that a six figure crowd could attend the Scotland v England International of 1906 and so that it could be even bigger and more commodious than the famous Crystal Palace of London. It had been built just a little too late to be given the Scotland v England International of 1904, which, as we saw, went to Celtic Park, but as it turned out, the newly-built Hampden was the ideal neutral setting for the meeting of the Glasgow giants on 16 April 1904.

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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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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.

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.

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Thus half-time saw Celtic in better spirits than Rangers, for they were the team who had come back and were now on level terms. It would be a prolonged half time interval for a collection was being taken for the families of the victims of a crowd disaster at a Scottish cricket match! This was the Perthshire v. Forfarshire game at the North Inch, Perth last summer when a temporary stand had collapsed injuring many people, some of whom were permanently maimed and therefore unable, in those pre-Welfare State days, to support their family. The huge crowd contributed generously, throwing coins into sheets which volunteers walked round the running track with.

In the Celtic dressing room, Maley came in, said they were doing well and wished them all the best in the second half. He then, as was his wont, went off to have a cup of tea with the Rangers manager, his good friend William Wilton, leaving the players to talk among themselves. The very experienced Willie Orr was of course the captain and he said his piece but it was then that Sunny Jim went around everyone cheering them up.

Davie Adams tried to apologise for his howlers, but was told by Sunny to “shut up aboot it, Davie. Show us what ye can do in the second half!”, Jimmy McMenemy was told to keep up the good stuff, Davie Hamilton, a shy retiring kind of man on the left wing was given a word of encouragement, and then the other shy man in the team, Jimmy Quinn, was pointed to by Young who proclaimed prophetically, “This is the man who will do it for us”. Then another early example of his famous war cry “Face the ball, Celts!”

The second half opened with Rangers on top, but that was only a temporary phenomenon as the Celtic midfield once again rallied and took control. Playing towards the as yet incomplete East Terracing (which in years to come would house huge Celtic crowds), Celtic charged forward, with everything done in their triangles of Young, Muir and McMenemy on the right side of midfield, Hay, Hamilton and Somers on the left “passing prettily”, and a vice like grip in the centre of the midfield with Young, Loney and Hay in total command. Yet the Rangers defence held out, and a replay looked the most likely outcome, until Jimmy Quinn, already a hero, became immortal and ensured that his name will be mentioned whenever anyone talks about Celtic and football.

The winning goal had some similarities to his first goal, but this time it came from a visionary pass from captain James “Dun” Hay. Quinn was on his way to goal when he was tackled fiercely by the fair haired Nick Smith. It was brutal and might have floored lesser men, but this was Jimmy Quinn! He stumbled, but picked himself up, gathered the ball and slid the ball past the advancing goalkeeper. As Hampden erupted in applause, Jimmy merely turned round and walked back to the centre circle looking as “cool as Hell” in the unlikely simile of The Glasgow Observer, as his team mates went berserk all around him.

Another newspaper talked more graphically about “The Croy express being almost dismembered by his team-mates”. But Jimmy was not too given to such shows of emotion. “The game’s no finished yet”, he muttered with grim determination as he marched back purposefully, head down and eyes set, to the centre line and Sunny Jim was seen with clenched fists, telling the players the same message.

Indeed there were ten minutes to go, but Rangers were a well beaten team. As full time approached, so too did the volume of applause and cheering rise around Hampden with green and white favours now prominent. Full time came when Mr Robertson blew and pointed to the pavilion. Sunny Jim jumped up and clapped both hands above his head, then shook hands with his Rangers opponents before joining in the general mayhem of this young and enthusiastic Celtic side. Celtic had won their fourth Scottish Cup, now level with Rangers and one ahead of Hearts, although still some way behind the ten of Queen’s Park. There was dancing in the streets of the Gorbals that night.

The Dundee Courier, which, in its desire to appease the Dundee Irish of Lochee and Hawkhill, tended to support Celtic unless they were playing against Dundee, naturally is in ecstacy about the performance of Jimmy Quinn, but also has this to say about Sunny Jim …”Young, who though sometimes inclined to methods not permitted by the laws of the game, was about the best half on the field”. Then as an afterthought “Lonie (sic) and Hay were also good”. The “methods not permitted by the laws of the game” would appear to be a reference to Sunny’s inclination to dish out a little raw meat, now and again, and to deliver a few robust challenges, when the occasion demanded.

The Glasgow Observer reluctantly agreed about Sunny’s over-motivation. Although enthusiastic about his “length of limb”, it says that “Young wasn’t uniformly safe in his tackling and at times he failed to control his temper.” This was however only a small point in its glowing praise of Celtic’s performance. It cannot have helped the cause of Celtic’s increasing desire to be integrated into Scottish society when it talks about an “Irish Football Triumph” – a somewhat ludicrous headline when one considers that all eleven of the Celtic team were born in Scotland, and that a handful of them were from a Protestant background.

The real significance of this game, much talked about even in England in the context of “hat-trick Quinn”, however, lay in what happened next. The Cup final immortalised by Jimmy Quinn was the springboard for the team that would go on to dominate Edwardian Scotland and become, without any great doubt, the greatest team on earth, winning six League titles in a row. There is indeed a very strong parallel with what happened 61 years later in 1965.

The epic Scottish Cup win against Dunfermline Athletic (two goals from Bertie Auld and Billy McNeill’s late headed winner) opened the doors for the glory that was to come. That team of the late 1960s would also be the greatest team on earth, but, as everyone admitted, it might not have happened but for that Scottish Cup final of 1965. For 1965, read 1904 and one will get an idea of how significant it was.

To be continued

David Potter

*An extract from David Potter’s biography of Celtic legend Sunny Jim Young.