In the first round, Celtic had eliminated Aarhus of Denmark 5-1 on aggregate. This disguised a poor first leg at Celtic Park, when Celtic struggled to find fluency but eventually scrambled to a 1-0 victory. They were helped in this by Aarhus missing a penalty when the match was still tied at 0-0, and by a goalkeeping blunder which allowed Aitken’s header to squirm over the line for the only goal.
The second leg was a completely different story. Celtic took control of the game from the start and produced an impressive performance of attacking football. “The green machine was in top gear”, gushed Chick Young in the Evening Times, as Celtic ran out comfortable 4-1 winners. This was also the first outing of Celtic’s new change strip of lime green jerseys, emerald shorts and emerald socks, which would later become synonymous with a certain glorious day at Love Street in May 1986.
The second round produced a tie against Sporting Lisbon, who were based in the city which for Celtic fans will be forever linked with the greatest day in the club’s history in 1967. Sadly, in the first leg of the second round, the gulf in quality between 1967 Celtic and their 1983 counterparts was cruelly exposed.
After a decent opening half hour, Celtic simply collapsed after two superb goals by Jordao. The match ended 0-2 but could easily have ended in a much heavier defeat for Celtic. A thoroughly demoralising return to Lisbon was captured by a cartoon depicting two Celtic fans, with one saying to the other: “I’ve gone off Lisbon – booze was dearer, birds were older and the other team scored the goals..”
Incidentally, the Sporting Lisbon manager at that time was a certain Dr Josef Venglos, who would go on to manage Celtic in season 1998/99.
Celtic went into the second leg on 2 November knowing that only once before had they overturned a two-goal deficit from the first leg, against St Etienne in 1968.
The match was not all-ticket, and the official attendance of 40,000 was significantly smaller than those for the matches only a year earlier against Ajax and Real Sociedad. Celtic again wore their lime green change kit, whilst Sporting wore their green and white hoops.
Those who were present witnessed one of the greatest-ever European nights at Celtic Park. Celtic were at their magnificent best. It was one of those games where every Celtic player was excellent, and some were brilliant.
Although I lived in London at the time, I was at both legs of the Sporting tie. In fact the away leg was my first time on a plane! After the first leg the waiter in our hotel asked what the score would be in the return leg and I told him we would win 5-0. He laughed of course