Poor Valentine would be made the scapegoat for this particular massacre, his Ibrox career effectively ended that afternoon at Hampden. For the Celts who took part, however, it would be a vastly different story. More than six decades later, they are still revered in word and song for their part in creating such glorious history. New skipper Bertie Peacock would lead his team up the Hampden rostrum to lift the League Cup, just as his predecessor Bobby Evans had done 12 months earlier, and the vast legions in green would rejoice, then hope and pray that the long-awaited period of Celtic dominance would now follow.
Two men who had not enjoyed Hampden in the Sun were Peter Goldie and Bertie Auld. They were wearing the Hoops some 60 miles south of Glasgow as the reserves faced their Queen of the South counterparts at Palmerston. One can only imagine the reaction as they heard that scoreline or the conversation on the coach journey home. Peter would be drafted into the first team for the following match, replacing flu victim John Donnelly at right-back for the League clash with Third Lanark at Cathkin. He would be the only change to the cup final side, a second-half Bobby Collins double giving Celts a 2-0 victory. Remarkably, the combination of League Cup ties and international commitments meant that McGrory’s men had played just four League games by end October, half the total of some of the leading clubs.
Seven days later, Saturday, 2 November 1957, 23-year-old Peter Goldie would pull on a Celtic first-team jersey for the 15th and final time, as he continued to deputise for John Donnelly. Thankfully, the occasion has been captured in print forever, Peter captured proudly wearing the wonderful shamrock kit with the 10 members of the cup-winning team ahead of the visit of Malcolm MacDonald’s blue-and-white hooped Kilmarnock, Celtic lining up as follows.
Dick Beattie; Peter Goldie & Sean Fallon; Willie Fernie, Bobby Evans & Bertie Peacock;
Charlie Tully, Bobby Collins, Billy McPhail, Sammy Wilson & Neil Mochan.
The Hampden hitmen would be on song again, Neil Mochan and Sammy Wilson firing the Hoops 2-0 ahead by the break. With 15 minutes remaining, Mochan added a third before Charles Patrick Tully provided a fitting epitaph to Peter Goldie’s Celtic career, the Irish genius working his magic to set up Billy McPhail for 4-0. As Celtic days go…
John Donnelly would recover to reclaim the right-back berth with Peter heading back to complete the season in the reserves, playing alongside some of the finest youngsters who would ever wear the colours of Celtic, Billy McNeill, Bertie Auld and Paddy Crerand. As Cesar and Paddy were making the big step up to join Bertie as full-time Celts at the end of that 1957/58 season, sadly Goldie would be on the list of players released by the club, as was Coronation Cup hero John Bonnar, with young Frank Haffey now the back-up for Dick Beattie.
Peter would head to the military town of Aldershot in Hampshire, to combine football with the local club in the first-ever season of English League Division Four and work at an aircraft factory in Farnborough. He would later return to his native Dumbarton to teach at his old school, St Patrick’s, where he would be joined by former Celtic teammate, John Divers, not surprisingly turning his hand to coaching the football team, as the wheel turned full circle.
Peter Goldie. Another Bhoy who lived the dream…and ours.
Thanks, as always, to the wonderful Celtic Wiki, and to St Anthony of Celtic Underground for information contained in his excellent interview with Peter Goldie, published on 28 May 2020.
Hail Hail!
Matt Corr
Follow Matt on Twitter @Boola_vogue
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