The Valencia file – Introducing Yugoslav football, Celtic links and Mr Vojvodina…
The first day of March 1967 saw the Celts in Novi Sad, to take on Yugoslav champions, FK Vojvodina, in the Quarter-final of our maiden European Cup campaign. It was new territory also for the hosts.
They had pipped Celtic’s old Euro foes, Dinamo Zagreb, to win their first Yugoslavian title, the previous spring, as Serbian rivals, Partizan Belgrade, were marching all the way to the final of Europe’s premier competition, where they would lose narrowly to the old masters, Real Madrid, in Brussels. A sixth triumph for the Spaniards saw them awarded the old trophy permanently, and so a new Cup had been designed and was up for grabs for the first time.
The type of scenario where Celtic traditionally excel.
The strength of Yugoslav football at that time was further illustrated by Dinamo Zagreb. Despite failing to win a national title in the 1960s, finishing runners-up five times in that period, they had gone all the way to the Final of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in 1963, before losing to holders Valencia. And in 66/67 they would go one better, after a white-knuckle ride in the same tournament.
The First Round saw both legs of the tie with Czechoslovakia’s Spartak Brno finish 2-0 to the home side, so with the new ‘away goals’ rule’ still not separating the teams, it was down to the toss of a coin, Lady Luck then smiling on Dinamo. The new rule did come into play for Zagreb’s next hurdle, this time their 2-0 second leg victory in the Maksimir enough to eliminate Dunfermline, after a 4-2 defeat at East End Park, the first tie to be decided on this basis. And Dinamo Pitesti, decades later to meet Celtic as Arges Pitesti, as the tournament assumed yet another identity as the Europa League, were their Third Round opponents, a single goal in Romania settling the tie in the Slavs’ favour.
Zagreb’s Quarter-final challenge would be the mighty Juventus, beaten finalists just two years earlier. A fighting 2-2 draw in Turin was followed by an excellent 3-0 home victory, sending the underdogs through to the last four. There they would face Eintracht Frankfurt, a 3-0 defeat in Germany seemingly marking the end of the European line for another season. However, the three goals were matched within 90 minutes, a fourth then coming along in extra-time to secure Dinamo’s place in the Final.
Waiting for them were Don Revie’s Leeds United, fresh from a second successive Last 16 victory over Valencia, a coin-toss win over Italy’s Bologna and a Semi-final defeat of Kilmarnock. Zagreb’s home form would again prove decisive, yet another 2-0 victory followed by a goalless draw in Yorkshire, to secure a first-ever European trophy for Yugoslavia. Leeds would not have long to wait. The following season, they beat Hibernian, Rangers and Dundee in successive rounds, before defeating Ferencvaros to finally land the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, a feat they would repeat in 1971, in the last-ever competition.
So, whilst Vojvodina, ‘Vosa’ to fans, were not as well-known in wider football circles as Dinamo Zagreb or either of the Belgrade giants, Celts could ill-afford to under-estimate them in any way. And there were parallels with the culture, ethos and history of the two clubs, both born to represent a minority population group far from home. Where Celtic had sprung from the needs of the Irish diaspora in Scotland, in Vosa’s case it was the Serbian people of the Vojvodina region in northern Yugoslavia.
Established secretly in Novi Sad by Serbian students, studying in Prague just before the outbreak of the First World War, the club enjoyed the patronage and support of local side, Slavia, honouring them through the adoption of their distinctive red-and-white colours and star crest. The Prague side, of course, have their own links to Celtic, through Johnny Madden, ‘the Father of Czech Football’, who played in the Bhoys’ first-ever game in 1888, then went on to manage Slavia for twenty-five years, revolutionising the game in that country. This bond was marked in 2017, Celtic playing Slavia in a pre-season match in Prague, to open the stand which proudly bears his name.
