Charlie Shaw was a legend in a team which is already rich in goalkeepers – Dan McArthur, Davie Adams, John Thomson, Ronnie Simpson and many others – and yet the paradox is that he was never capped for Scotland at a time when other members of the team were.
Celtic were frequently referred to as “ten Internationals and Charlie Shaw”, but there are reasons for Charlie’s lack of International recognition. In the first place, his best years coincided with the Great War when all Scotland games were suspended, but the other reason is that Scotland had plenty of other good goalkeepers around as well. In any case, by 1918 Charlie was 33 years old.
From then on he was an integral part of the team which won four League Championships in a row, and with McNair and Dodds, formed an almost impenetrable defence registering a clean sheet in 26 out of the 38 League games in the triumphant season 1913/14.
He was lithe with great reflexes, but more than that, he radiated confidence looking like everyone’s favourite uncle, and, given the general excellence of the team, it was small wonder that stories circulated about him getting fed up and wandering round to ask the other goalkeeper if he needed a hand or going home for his tea when he got fed up.
In the calender year of 1916, Charlie conceded 18 goals in 42 games – and Celtic won every game! When Sunny Jim got injured in September 1916, it was Charlie who became the captain where his leadership skills of kindly advice came to the fore.
In the early 1920s the team began to struggle a little more, and Charlie was harder worked, but he never let the team down and there was no more loved character at Celtic Park than Charlie. Even the song that the Rangers supporters made up about him not seeing where “Alan Morton pit the ba” (copied by every other team – Alec Troup of Dundee, Willie Hillhouse of Third Lanark and Tokey Duncan of Raith Rovers all did the same, apparently) was a great compliment to Charlie and accepted as such by him.
He was nearly forty when he eventually lost his place to Peter Shevlin, and in summer 1925 he sailed to America to play there. He met the Celtic party when they came there in 1931 and had a long chat with John Thomson on the art of goalkeeping. Tragically both these men would die within the next decade, but there was never a more popular character than Charlie Shaw.
