I remember seeing Bertie Auld had been talking about Celtic European Cup Semi-final wins over English Champion’s Leeds United in 1970 it reminded me this attitude was nothing new.
He was delighted to get a ticket in his supporters club ballot
My Grandfather was one of the lucky few fans who manged to attend both legs of that European Cup tie. It was describing that encounter that first introduced me to the arrogance and disregard the media and English supporters had for the Scottish game.
He was delighted to get a ticket in his supporters club ballot and not just because Celtic’s allocation was tiny. No, he was supremely confident Celtic would beat Leeds United and put the English media back in their box. He just wanted to be there when they did it.
Celtic players celebrating after beating Leeds Utd in the first leg of the European Cup semi-final on this day in 1970
Don Revie’s side were of course the darlings of the English newspapers and strong favourites to win football’s Battle of Britain, crazy when you consider Celtic were the Scottish champions again and had won the tournament only three years previously.
‘It was some sort of pre-ordained right as English League winners’
Leeds had won the English top flight for the first time in their history in 1969, though they had been runners-up in 1965 and 1966. They had little or no European pedigree as a result. Yet my Grandfather used to laugh that they were favourites to win the European Cup like it was some sort of pre-ordained right as English League winners.
They did of course have good players – Very good in fact – and Revie was a fine manager. Leeds had a core of Scots including skipper Billy Bremner, Eddie Gray and Peter Lorimer, as well as a World Cup winner in Jack Charlton and there was also the talent of Johnny Giles. A strike force of Mick Jones alongside the most expensive striker in English football in Alan Clarke was also worthy of respect.
Leeds Utd v Celtic, 1 April 1970, European Cup semi-final, first leg. Photo The Celtic Wiki
Celtic players and supporters simply had belief – borne of experience and success in European football
And Celtic and my Grandfather did respect them. Celtic players and supporters simply had belief – borne of experience and success in European football – that we were far better than was generally being reported.
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Good article; I lived in London for 7 years then a couple in Gloucestershire before coming back up the road. I did enjoy life down south and at one point, couldn’t imagine moving back but now I’ve been back 13 years…..I’ll not prattle on about the changes I see when visiting London but I enjoy being near the sea and mountains here. As for fans, some of the Celtic supporter bars were as rowdy in London as up here but like you say, not many sevco fans down south!
I also used to become frustrated at the ignorance towards Scottish football. It was almost an embarrassed afterthought for someone to even be partly praising but mostly it was ‘rubbish league’, ‘farmer’s league’, ‘but it’s not like you have any competition’ etc.
My throwback was ‘Okay, before 1993, was the English league comparable to Italy or Spain?’ Or I’d say ‘Okay, take the 4bn Sky and ITV paid for the premiership. What players could you afford, how would you compete with the European elite’? There was never a definitive answer, because money is the biggest separator. How much did we get for winning the league vs how much did we get for progress in Europe. Money has changed football. I still enjoy watching it but sometimes get more out of lower league games or watching other sports. With Sportscene, I’ll watch our highlights but often skip the rest because, I mean no disrespect to our league but yes, you do see a higher calibre of player down south. But it is all driven by money. And that is the real shame in it all. Look at the premiership, it is dominating even European competitions and as all the big teams are invested in keeping money to themselves, it will just continue. A spending cap would make sense but as that’s unlikely to happen, we just have to keep putting teams from the Premiership in their place. There’s no point explaining it to an ignoramus who doesn’t understand our club or environment up here. But I think we’ll see the apoplectic, perplexed, gazumped, bewildered and complaining start when England fail once again to win a major tournament next year (there is no way they’ll get past Spain, France, Argentina or Brazil, although Brazil aren’t looking too clever either). We will still be in Europe and qualifying for tournaments that some of the farmer’s league utterances could only dream of seeing their team compete in.