The weather was not of the best. The snow of the last week had gone, but it had been replaced by rain, hard, relentless, typically Glasgow rain. Incredibly the rain did not deter the fans from attending, and 25,000 passed through the Celtic Park pay boxes and turnstiles that day (and a few more, no doubt, hopped over the wall when the policemen weren’t looking!) paying 6 pence for adults and 3 pence for boys (and more for the stands) to give receipts of £713 4 shillings and 3 pence. It was both the record attendance and the record receipts at any Scottish football game, apart from the International against England.

This was the game in which Celtic could win the League. In Victorian times, the Scottish League was normally completed by or soon after the New Year to leave room for the Scottish Cup, International matches and prestigious friendlies, all of which were given higher esteem than the Scottish League, which was however now gradually (as evidenced by the large crowd that came to Celtic Park that day) gaining in importance. The crowd may have been huge by 1895 standards, but there was still loads of “elbow room” at Celtic Park, which, after all, had been built with the intention of housing the Scotland v England International fixtures.

Celtic had had a marvellous few months in late 1895. Not only had they won the Glasgow Cup by beating Queen’s Park 6-3, but three weeks ago, they had defeated Hearts, last year’s League winners, at Tynecastle 4-1, the supporters famously travelling to Edinburgh in large numbers and escorting the players to and from the ground, lest they be “molested by Edinburgh ruffians”. The next week the horse drawn brake clubs were out in force at Paisley to see them beat St Mirren, and then a 2-1 win (slightly disappointing, in the eyes of some supporters!) over St Bernards at Celtic Park meant that the League could be clinched today against Glasgow rivals Rangers.

The reason for all this good form lay in Sandy McMahon who had now clearly recovered his full fitness after he had been out for so long last season. Tall, intelligent, well-read and sociable, he was a popular man among the Celtic Park faithful, but the main reason for his popularity was his ability to score goals and to make them for others. A modest gentleman who would always praise those around him, he was an ideal team man, and he loved the club and all that it stood for. He seemed to specialise in headed goals, using his height to rise above the opposition defenders.

But there were others as well. Centre half and captain James Kelly was now nearing the end of his playing career, but he was still a source of inspiration to everyone. Down the left flank, Celtic had Dan Doyle at left back, the wild rover and commonly referred to as simply “Dan”, so well-known was he in Victorian Scotland, while there was an equally committed and occasionally wild character at left half by the name of Barney Battles.

He was well named Battles, for he did not usually hold back and it was not unknown for him to fall foul of referees. Both he and Doyle needed the calming, restraining, sensible influences of man like Kelly and McMahon to keep them in line.

Another great player was Jimmy Blessington, a forceful inside right, and in the centre was Allan Martin who had joined the club from Hibs that year. The team hotched with talent, but it also had two other things that great Celtic teams need – one is an ability to get on with each other, and the other is an ability to relate to the huge and growing support. Celtic had not made the mistake that Hibs had made in restricting their catchment area to men of Irish Catholic descent.

They therefore were slowly beginning to attract some passive support from Scottish football fans in general who, as one man put it to me well over 100 years later, “liked the way that Celtic played football” – a statement that was as true in 1895 as it is today.

Rangers were not having a good season. They had shared the Scottish League with Dumbarton in 1891 and won the Scottish Cup in 1894, but had not had any great recent success. Nevertheless they were still well supported, and clearly on this day, quite a few of their fans had made the trek from the west of Glasgow over to the east. They were however, heavily outnumbered by those who loved the Celtic, prepared to stand in the wind and the rain in inadequate clothing to see the green and white vertical stripes which meant so much to them and had done so much to help them make sense of life over the last few years.

Celtic started playing toward what was then referred to as the “country” end of the ground (the Lisbon Lions stand end as it is known today) as distinct from the other or “city” end . The rain had eased temporarily but there was a cross wind blowing from the south, something that made life tricky for the players.

To general consternation, it was Rangers who scored first through Alec Smith. But Celtic, spurred on by their huge support, fought back and equalised – some sources say MARTIN, others say BLESSINGTON – and then just before half-time, McMAHON with a “smart header” from a corner kick hit the post but then the ball crossed the line before it could be “bundled clear” by Rangers defenders. But referee Mr Dickson was on the spot and awarded the goal “to the joy of the Celtic following”.

Mr Dickson had already had cause to call the players together and tell them that he was not happy about some of the tackling, and then at half time he made another decision to simply turn the players round and to keep playing, for he feared that as the clouds were gathering ominously in the background, daylight might be a problem. The game had started at 2.00 pm but this was December, and although some clubs (Celtic included) had tried experiments with primitive forms of floodlights, the real things were still some 60 years away in the distant future.

“Nothing but disaster followed Rangers in the second half” says The Daily Record and Mail. Already struggling with injuries to Drummond and McPherson, Rangers were simply over-run in the second half as Celtic showed them and the world just why they deserved to be the champions of Scotland.

BLESSINGTON, BATTLES, McMAHON and MARTIN all scored in the gathering gloom and then the heavy rain. The elements did nothing to dampen the spirits of the Celtic fans who cheered, shouted and sang throughout, and even gave a sporting cheer to McCreadie of Rangers when he scored a late consolation goal. Mr Dickson probably used his discretion and ended things a few minutes early as it was now becoming virtually impossible to see the players, certainly from a distance, and no-one seemed to mind with Rangers players, even those who had been guilty of a few rough tackles during the game, sportingly offering their congratulations.

The Daily Record and Mail is in no doubt about who the star man was – “Celtic’s one and only Duke” (Duke being the nickname of Sandy McMahon). He was “courageous and plucky throughout”, “his heading was a treat” and in dribbling “he wriggled with eel-like grace”.

The Glasgow Observer, unashamedly pro-Celtic as it was the newspaper for the Catholic community in Scotland uses the Irish war-cry “Faugh a Ballagh” (Clear The Way) to describe the Celtic forward line, and compares them to the way the Irish Brigade defeated the serried ranks of the Saxons in the Battle of Fontenoy in 1745 in the War of the Austrian Succession!

McMahon and company were presumably flattered by such a comparison, even though it might just have been above the heads of many of the supporters and readers of The Glasgow Observer. But this did not in any way stop the parties that proliferated throughout the east end of Glasgow that night, even in the rain, described in one report as “Biblical”.

The team had now pulled itself round. Season 1894/95 had not been a good season with internal strife, injuries to key players and resultant poor performances on the field. But now with key man McMahon back on form, there had been a total reversal of roles.

Two trophies, the Glasgow Cup and the Scottish League had been won, and the year had not even turned yet! It was the third time that Celtic had won the Scottish League – Dumbarton and Hearts had won it once each outright and in 1891 it had been shared – and it was a great feeling to be the Champions of Scotland.

Now in the New Year, the Scottish Cup approached and not only that, but the Scotland v England International match was scheduled for Celtic Park. The club which had been in existence for considerably less than a decade had done well – huge ground, success in competitions and a tremendous support which seemed to follow them everywhere, and in all weathers.

This was what it meant to be Celtic in 1895!

David Potter

CELTIC 6 RANGERS 2 SCOTTISH LEAGUE, CELTIC PARK, 14 DECEMBER 1895

CELTIC: McARTHUR, MEEHAN and DOYLE; KING, KELLY and BATTLES; MORRISON, BLESSINGTON, MARTIN, McMAHON and FERGUSON

RANGERS: McLEOD, N SMITH and DRUMMOND; MARSHALL, GIBSON and MITCHELL; BARKER, McCREADIE, OSWALD, McPHERSON and A SMITH

REFEREE: Mr DICKSON

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