This video from the 1930s recently caused some confusion and debate in Celtic circles and on The Celtic Star as we tried to discover which teams were involved – indeed how many teams – and what the actual extent of the Celtic involvement was. Here is the video with the somewhat misleading caption of “CELTIC 7 Rangers 1 1936 footage of CelticFC V Brora Rangers, opening of Brora Rangers new ground”
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CELTIC 7 Rangers 1 1936 footage of @CelticFC V @brorarangers opening of Brora Rangers new ground.🍀 pic.twitter.com/BXBRRaRPIM
— Michael McCahill 🍀 (@MickMcCahill) December 20, 2020
You can read our earlier efforts to get to the bottom of this mystery below…
READ IT HERE…Mystery surrounds this video of Celtic playing Brora Rangers in 1930s
Last night we received an update on this from Peter AKA “Manchester Warrior” which is rather revealing. Here’s what he had to say…
Did some research on this mystery film footage just before Christmas.
As others have commented, Brora Rangers hosted Dundee United in a friendly match on Wednesday 29th April 1936 (Match was drawn 1-1) and ahead of the match a Mrs. W. G. Sutherland hoisted a flag which had given to the Brora club by Celtic manager Willie Maley, this following the Parkhead club’s weekend tour of the North of Scotland a year previously in 1935.
The young woman taking part in the kick off was apparently a Miss Sutherland of the Sutherland Arms Hotel in Brora, presumably the daughter of Mrs. W.G. Sutherland.
As well as Brora Rangers, Dundee United had also played Peterhead on the preceding Saturday (drew 3-3) and Wick Academy on the Tuesday (won 4-1). They should also have played Caledonian FC in Inverness on the way back South but this match didn’t actually happen.
In the earlier tour game on Tuesday 14th May 1935, Celtic, fielding 9 of their Scottish League regulars playing, had beaten a Sutherland Select XI at Brora’s Dudgeon Park ground by 7 goals to one, Jimmy McGrory scoring a hat-trick.
Looks like the stories have been conflated / mis-remembered by whomever did the audio track for the old film footage.
Incidentally, the hotel featured as the bus drives by is the one time “Ross’s Grand Hotel” (which was once located in the centre of Brora before burning down in the 1960’s ?) and the 2 minutes of film viewable on Twitter appears to be an extract from a miscellany of much longer amateur footage of the Old Golspie area of Sutherland (little of the rest being football related) taken at various times in the early to mid 20th century.
It’s also believed that the persons boarding/alighting the bus may actually be Brora players/officials on their way to/from a match.
So all good stuff apart from the rather imprecise audio commentary!
Incidentally, the Dundee United team of the 1930’s are believed to have played in a black and white hooped kit, which would have looked not too dissimilar to Celtic’s traditional kit in a film shot in black and white.
So whilst it’s almost certainly not the Brora Rangers FC ground opening, which was in 1932, and probably not Celtic playing in 1935 either, there is however a Parkhead connection with the flag unfurling and it’s fascinating film footage nevertheless!
Hope this sheds some light on the mystery.
Yours in sport,
Peter “Manchester Warrior”
Replying to Peter “Manchester Warrior” David Potter stated: “We will probably never know exactly what this is all about, but I think Peter sums it up quite well. I stick to my belief that there are TWO separate football matches – and Celtic are probably in one of them with the thinner hoops, but it is certainly not Celtic going on that bus, even if one guy does have a resemblance to Jimmy Delaney!
Peter “Manchester Warrior” replied: ” Good sleuthing chaps! Wonder whether a small portion of footage of Celtic’s 1935 visit has been spliced together with Dundee United’s subsequent 1936 visit. The overall film footage is something of a ‘pot pourri’ and whomever collated it back in the day may not have realised that the away team(s) playing in the hoops were in fact two separate clubs (!)”
