It’s easy to see why Leeds United were lauded but to disregard Celtic was arrogant in the extreme and they paid the price for it. Celtic, of course, had become the first British team to win the tournament in 1967, beating Inter Milan in the final in Lisbon, a small issue ignored by the English media as a lucky break.
Jock Stein’s Celtic side ruled Scottish football, a far higher standard than we have today. They had captured the domestic treble in 1967 and 1969 and were in the midst of winning nine league titles in a row.
The team that played that day contained the bulk of the Lisbon Lions, Evan Williams, Jim Brogan, Davie Hay were the changes and of course George Connelly.
Bertie Auld explained
Bertie Auld speaking to the PA and quoted in 4-4-2 Magazine seemed to agree with my Grandfather:
“Everyone was boasting about Leeds United and how we would find it difficult against them. They had Bremner, a great player, and Johnny Giles, a magnificent player and they had Mick Jones, who was a good goalscorer. But we had Jimmy Johnstone and Lennox, Wallace and Davie Hay – I would never have liked to play against him,” Bertie Auld.
Whenever my Grandfather talked about that game at Elland Road he’d always start with laughing at the arrogance of the English media before adding ‘and it was over after a minute.’
Leeds Utd v Celtic, 1 April 1970, European Cup semi-final, first leg. Photo The Celtic Wiki
George Connolly scored that first minute goal with a shot that deflected off Billy Bremner and skipped past Leeds ‘keeper Gary Sprake into the corner of the net. He could have had a second but had a goal ruled out for offside at the start of the second half.
Bertie Auld certainly wasn’t surprised at the early goal
“That was the positive thing that Jock Stein gave us. We were capable of scoring in the first minute or last minute. That was something that we had in our system because we had players like Bobby Lennox, Willie Wallace and Stevie Chalmers. George was amazing for his age. He was a midfield player but he could also play at the back and he had tremendous confidence in himself. We had no fear but to be fair, there was tremendous respect between the teams,” Bertie Auld.
Leeds Utd v Celtic, 1 April 1970, European Cup semi-final, first leg. Photo The Celtic Wiki
To underline Celtic’s class and ensure there could be no further aspersions cast, Celtic also won the second leg at Hampden and went onto their second European Cup final in three years. Leed United may have been a good side, just not as good.
The English media assumed Leeds United had simply underestimated Celtic
Yet even before that second leg the English media assumed Leeds United had simply underestimated Celtic and they would right that wrong at Hampden. The previous Saturday, Leeds had drawn 2-2 in the FA Cup final against Chelsea while Celtic had surprisingly lost 3-1 by Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup final.
Once again Leeds would only have to turn up. 136,505 watched Celtic come from behind to win on the night, 3-1 on aggregate with goals from John Hughes and Bobby Murdoch. England’s great myth were put in their place.
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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.