Charlie Gallagher may have felt just a little miffed about the way that he had been treated by Celtic when he was shown the door in 1970, but there was still a wonderful postscript to come. It was Second Division football and the invitation came from Dumbarton. He was not yet 30 and he would serve them with distinction for three years until he hung up his boots in 1973.
Dumbarton were one of the pioneers of the game in Scotland. They were founded in December 1872 according to their excellent official history book “The Sons Of The Rock” written by Jim McAllister and Arthur Jones, and they were one of the leading lights in the game up to the legalisation of professionalism in 1893 which of course worked in favour of the big city clubs with their greater resources. They won the Scottish Cup in 1883, the third team to do so after Queen’s Park and Vale of Leven.
They beat Vale of Leven in the final, and were themselves defeated finalists of four other occasions, one of them being the one that was so significant in the founding of Celtic FC, the defeat to Hibs in February 1887 – something that showed the Glasgow Irish that, if the Edinburgh Irish could do it, why couldn’t the Glasgow Irish?
Situated on the north bank of the Clyde, in many ways the cradle of Scottish football given the proximity of Vale of Leven in Alexandria and the mighty Renton, Dumbarton were founder members of the Scottish League and indeed were the winners in the first two years, sharing with Rangers in 1891 and winning it outright in 1892. Since then, success has proved a little more elusive, but they deserved their good reputation and that of the ground which was called “Fatal Boghead” because Rangers, Celtic and Hearts all had a habit of coming a cropper there on its slope and tendency to get wet in winter, as its name would suggest.
Relegated in 1922 to the Second Division, they had stayed there. Possibly they had more good seasons that bad ones, but only rarely did it seem that they were going to make any sort of challenge for promotion. Like most industrial areas, the suffered from economic depression in the 1930s and there was an additional factor as well. They were one of the many clubs who suffered from being too close to Glasgow, and their town saw many buses and trains every Saturday leaving for Celtic Park. Fewer went to Ibrox, because Dumbarton is a Celtic supporting area with a large percentage of their population being of Irish descent.
In 1970, there were two Divisions in the Scottish League which had 37 teams in all. The First Division had 18 teams and the Second Division 19, something that led to the anomaly of each team in the Second Division having no game on two Saturdays per season, when they were the odd man out. Funnily enough this system seemed to work without any huge complaints, although there was a growing groundswell of opinion that the League structure would have to change some day because the Leagues were simply not competitive enough, and attendances had been falling steadily throughout the 1960s.
Rangers had tried in 1963 to remove five teams from the Second Division, something that earned them few friends. Ironically, one of the teams that they wanted to remove was Berwick Rangers, who delivered their own special pay-back day to Rangers in 1967!
As a general rule, and with a few exceptions each way, the First Division was full time, and the Second Division was part time. This led to a few difficulties. A team who were relegated had to prune the staff to reduce the wage bill, whereas there was occasionally a certain apparent reluctance on the part of some teams to go for promotion. No-one ever refused promotion, but there was frequently a certain visible and suspicious loss of form in the months of March and April with odd team selections, missed penalties and goalkeeping errors. Newspapers hinted, supporters muttered, and many people knew in their heart of hearts what was going on, but no-one really seemed to mind. It was just accepted that the necessity to go full time was simply beyond some clubs, as indeed was the necessity of Second Division clubs to sell their promising youngsters to First Division ones or to English teams.
Charlie’s colleague Willie Wallace hints at this dark side of Second Division football in his book Heart Of A Lion. He was playing for Stenhousemuir in season 1958/59 and the team was doing well, but then he says “Towards the end of that season, we met the league leaders Arbroath at Ochilview. Much to my delight we beat the “Red Lichties” 7-0 and pulled up to within a few points of them, with Greenock Morton one point behind. Promotion seemed very much on the cards, and I was excited.
“Strangely, however, things did not work out in our favour in the final few games of the season, during which there were a lot of mysterious team changes. Of course, promotion could have been a financial disaster for the club, which would have found it very difficult to maintain a first division place. The ground would have required considerable upgrading and the support base was only small. Anyway, for whatever reasons, we played some very unusual team combinations in those remaining games of the season, results didn’t go our way and the promotion that had seemed more than likely only a few weeks earlier didn’t come about”.
Jackie Stewart was Dumbarton’s manager in 1970. Not to be confused with the racing car driver of the same name, he had been there since 1968 and, ambitious and progressive, he was slowly building up a good side aided by an energetic Secretary by the name of John Hosie. When they heard that Gallagher was available, they moved quickly and offered him terms. As Charlie had been given a free transfer from Celtic, there was no problem. Possibly Sean Fallon who would in later years become a Director of Dumbarton was influential in all this, but on 18 June 1970, without any great fanfare of trumpets other than those of the British General Election and the Mexican World Cup, Charlie Gallagher joined Dumbarton and became a Son of the Rock, the nickname given to the club because of Dumbarton Rock which was the obvious landmark which dominated the geography of the area.
This was part of Stewart’s plan to rebuild Dumbarton. Quite a few players had been dispensed with, and a few efforts had been made to bring in big name players. The attempt to lure Denis Law was, unsurprisingly, a failure. A more realistic target was Davie Wilson, once of Rangers but now with Dundee United. Stewart did not succeed the first time but kept trying and eventually, a year later, got his man. Wilson and Gallagher from different sides of the Old Firm would team up very well together. Both indeed were tremendously talented players and had a tremendous mutual respect for each other.
Dumbarton’s first challenge in the 1970/71 season was the Scottish League Cup. Drawn in a section against Berwick Rangers, Alloa Athletic and Brechin City, Jackie Stewart’s new look team surprised even their most devoted of their small but loyal support by winning all their games except for a draw with Brechin City at Boghead and found themselves in the two legged quarter final against Partick Thistle. The first leg was played on 9 September at Firhill on a night of high winds and torrential rain, and the Sons did well to come back from being 2 goals down, and to bring it back to 2-2, then went behind again, before a Gallagher shot was deflected home to earn a 3-3 draw which was much appreciated and enjoyed by the 4,000 crowd huddled under what shelter there was at Firhill.
The second leg two weeks later at Boghead was Dumbarton’s best night for many years as the team qualified for the semi-final of the Scottish League Cup for the first time ever. Two men called Gallagher, Brian and Charlie, won the game 3-2 for Dumbarton before an excited crowd of 7,000. The Evening Times says that Charlie is “not as sharp as he used to be but he uses his experience to full advantage”. He scored the first goal, beating the Partick Thistle goalkeeper called according to The Evening Times “Bobby Rough” when he became better known as Alan! Full time came to tremendous scenes of excitement among the Boghead faithful who had had little enough to cheer about over the past few years.
The other semi-finalists were Celtic, Rangers and Cowdenbeath. Dumbarton would have wanted Cowdenbeath, but as luck would have it, it was Celtic who came out in the draw for the game to be played on Wednesday 7 October 1970. 25,838 (the biggest crowd that Dumbarton had played in front of for many years, if not all their history), came to Hampden to see a game in which Dumbarton might well have provided one of Scottish football’s biggest ever giant killings.
The crowd contained a fair amount of black and gold scarves, showing the effect that this game had on the town. But before the game began, Charlie was amazed and shocked to overhear his old Manager Jock Stein tell Davie Hay who would have been Charlie’s direct opponent in a voice loud enough to be heard by Charlie himself to “break that wee bar steward’s (word change here folks) legs”.
It is, of course, by no means uncommon for such things to be said before a game. Charlie had heard it from Bobby Shearer of Rangers and a few other coarse defenders that Scottish football produced on an all too regular production line. But this was Jock Stein!
Charlie, of course, knew that Jock was frequently wound up to an unhealthy extent before a game and often said things that he didn’t really mean, but it was still shocking to hear that. It was particularly shocking to hear that sort of nonsense coming from a man who was a legend in the Scottish game and who would continue to be so until his death. It would also have been nice to have thought that Charlie’s contribution to Celtic’s successes in the late 1960s, 1968 in particular, had not been entirely forgotten!
Davie Hay, always a scrupulously fair and immensely talented player, and a good friend of Charlie in any case, was quite embarrassed to hear this and thankfully did not carry out his Manager’s instructions!
Charlie however had a piece of retaliation. At one point while clearing a ball, Charlie kicked it straight into the Celtic dugout. Both his own Manager Jackie Stewart and the referee looked at him in disapproval as if he had done it deliberately, especially when Jock Stein in trying to avoid the ball, hit his head against the roof of the dugout! It was one of the few times in football that Charlie, who could boast about never having been booked on senior football, was given a talking to by the referee.
The game contained a rarity of both goalkeepers being called Williams – Evan for Celtic and Laurie for Dumbarton – and it was Laurie who earned all the plaudits with a double save of a penalty kick from Willie Wallace in extra time, but before that Dumbarton had more than held their own with The Glasgow Herald singling out Gallagher …”and their own forwards, master-minded by Charlie Gallagher, a former Celtic player of 12 years’ experience, had the Parkhead defence under pressure for spells” The 0-0 draw marked a great display from Dumbarton, even though Celtic had had to play for a long period of the second half without the influential Bobby Murdoch who was taken off injured.
If anyone thought that this game was a fluke – and it certainly looked that way when Dumbarton managed to lose 1-3 to Alloa on the following Saturday, while Celtic had been lucky to scrape through 1-0 against St Johnstone – such thoughts were dispelled in the replay on Monday 12 October again at Hampden played (most unusually) before an increased attendance of 32,000. After Celtic had taken a 2-0 lead, Gallagher once again took charge of the midfield of the park and inspired the part-timers to score twice and take Celtic to extra time before inevitably succumbing to full time training in the added 30 minutes.
Jock Stein was both much relieved and furious with his own men for their lacklustre performance. He ignored his own team – even though they were now in their seventh consecutive Scottish League Cup final – and made a beeline for the Dumbarton dressing room to congratulate the gallant Sons of the Rock for their brave and unlucky performance.
It is, of course, easy to be magnanimous and charming when your team have won, but it would have been interesting to know what exactly he said to Charlie Gallagher whose legs he had wanted broken at the start of the first game!
Dumbarton had less success in the Scottish Cup with an early exit before Christmas at Stranraer. Indeed, apart from the League Cup run, Dumbarton’s form before the New Year had been nothing to get anyone too excited about with away form particularly poor.
New Year 1971 saw Scottish football in shock because of the Ibrox disaster when 66 Rangers fans were crushed to death at the end of the Old Firm match on 2 January. In truth, it was no real surprise given the lack of any real concern (as distinct from repeated pious platitudes about safety being paramount etc.) about the welfare of spectators at football matches. Anyone who was ever at an International or a Cup final, for example in the boom years of the 1960s, will testify to the appalling dangers of overcrowding. Nevertheless, it was a dreadful tragedy, and had its effect on everyone.
As far as Dumbarton were concerned, things improved after the New Year, for there was a carrot held out for those who finished in the first four of the Second Division in the shape of a sponsored pre-season tournament called the Dryburgh Cup. Quite a lot of people disapproved of this kind of sponsorship particularly when it came from a firm which brewed beer (a beverage which caused a great deal of bother to so many football fans!) but it did provide money for the poorer teams, giving them something to play for. The top four of the Second Division would play the top four of the First Division in the quarter finals of a tournament which would be held in the two weeks before the start of the 1971/72 season in late July and early August.
There was even more to it than that. The top goalscorers in each Division would play each other in the quarter final. The top goalscorers in the First Division would clearly be Celtic, (who won the League for the 26th time in 1971) so if Dumbarton could reach fourth spot and be the top goalscorers of the top four, another game against Celtic beckoned. The last four games yielded 20 goals as the Sons went for it. First Stirling Albion were hammered 7-0, then Arbroath were defeated 3-0 in heavy rain, both of these games being at Boghead, and then the Sons went to Albion Rovers on Tuesday 27 April to win 6-2 and then, two days later in the last game of the season at Boghead, Dumbarton won 4-0 over Queen’s Park.
In each of these games Gallagher’s contribution had been crucial. The team finished fourth and but for their poor form before Christmas, they might well have won the League. But they had scored the most goals, so a trip to Celtic Park beckoned.
Peter Coleman, Kenny Wilson and Roy McCormack were the men who attracted the attention with their goal scoring, but Charlie Gallagher was the man who made it all happen. The pace was a little slower in the Second Division and this suited Gallagher all the more, for he was thus better able to judge his inch perfect passes. He himself scored nine goals, and enjoyed himself all the more for he was under less pressure to produce the goods.
He knew that, barring injury, he was guaranteed his place every week, and this made a huge difference. He was also enjoying playing his football in a more relaxed atmosphere away from Celtic’s demanding fans, and the constant, overwhelming and stifling presence of Jock Stein!
The fans too appreciated the subtlety of the play of Charlie Gallagher. There were fewer of them than there would have been at Celtic Park – 1,000 would be considered an acceptable, even a good crowd – but they knew good football when they saw it. Dumbarton supporters, by definition, are not glory hunters. If they had been, they would have been at Celtic Park every week! They were more patient and in a real sense, supportive. The fact that their team finished fourth in the Scottish League Division Two was considered a triumph. And they had a visit to Celtic
Park to look forward to at the start of the new season which would indeed turn out to be a remarkable one.
In the meantime, Celtic had won the Scottish League and Scottish Cup double, beating Rangers in a replayed final in the latter tournament. The team had been in the throes of transition, and the Lisbon men were now being shaken out in a novel form of diaspora to teams like Morton, Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest. Symbolically, in the last League game of the season, Stein had played them all for one last time, except for Ronnie Simpson who had now retired, but who nevertheless came out with the rest of the team before the start.
Dumbarton’s game at Celtic Park was played on 31 July 1971, and Celtic Park was a strange sight with the main stand still out of commission as it was being redeveloped. Pre-season Micky Mouse tournament or not, the Dryburgh Cup persuaded 22,000 to appear and Charlie was given a great reception by the crowd as Dumbarton came out. It was however another Charlie who was the main focus of attention, for the great Charlie Tully had died a few days previously in Belfast and was given a very impressive minute’s silence. Gallagher had of course known Tully, for their careers had crossed briefly in the late 1950s.
It was a young Celtic side captained by Jim Brogan, and Dumbarton looked as if they were in with a chance especially when they scored first through an excellent Charlie Gallagher free kick from the edge of the box. Davie Hay had brought down Roy McCormack on the edge of the box, and Charlie showed the Celtic crowd just what they had been missing with a fine strike from the free kick which eluded the defensive wall and Evan Williams.
The reaction of the crowd was interesting. There was of course a cheer from the small band of Dumbarton supporters, and stony silence from the Celtic crowd, but then realisation grew that the free lick had been scored by Charlie Gallagher. A ripple of applause ran round the Jungle with appreciation at a great goal scored by an ex-Celt, and he was given reluctant approval for all the other good things he did in the game. When he was substituted late in the game, the crowd would have risen to him if they had been sitting down, but of course there was no sitting accommodation! Celtic in the event won the game very comfortably 5-2 with a youngster called Kenny Dalglish catching the eye.
It was however a good start to the season for the Sons of the Rock in that it gave them a taste of the big time atmosphere that the team now aspired to. Yet the team got off to a very poor start once the season started officially, explained to a certain extent by the injury to Charlie Gallagher, but the League Cup this year would provide no opportunity for glory as it had done the year before. Home defeats to Queen of the South and Stenhousemuir, quite apart from ruining any chance in the League Cup, also gave the Boghead faithful little cause for optimism for the League campaign.
The League campaign itself also got off to a bad start with a poor run of form which included a 6-1 defeat at the hands of Raith Rovers at Stark’s Park in late September, but gradually things improved and by the time that winter came, Dumbarton settled down to some sort of form, especially when their ranks were supplemented by the arrival of Davie Wilson from Dundee United. Wilson had of course been an Ibrox legend with Rangers, and Wilson and Gallagher brought a wealth of experience with them to Boghead, something that was most noticed on days when things were difficult for the team.
Gallagher had always been a good “bad weather” player in that wet or hard pitches (unless excessively so) were less of a problem to him, and his value became more apparent in the months leading up to the New Year. Kenny Wilson was on form scoring goals, and there were several high scoring victories – 6-2 for example at Douglas Park, and 7-1 over Alloa the week before Christmas at Boghead. The year 1971 finished with Dumbarton handily placed in 4th position following their 2-2 draw with St Mirren at Love Street.
The County Reporter (Dumbarton’s local paper) is ecstatic about the team, particularly in the context of the 7-1 defeat of Alloa, using phrases like “Sons were brilliant” and singling out Charlie Gallagher of whom it says “I doubt if Charlie Gallagher has contributed as much genius to a game in a Dumbarton jersey as he did on Saturday”. Not only did he score with a penalty kick, but he also had a hand in every other goal! The County Reporter also praises Alloa for their sporting acceptance of their defeat but, tellingly, criticises the Dumbarton crowd for not turning up in greater numbers to see this feast of football. Only 1,300 were there and the “Sons deserve better than that”.
In the domestic front, 1971 had seen an addition to the family when Kieron was born. Charlie and Mary had had plans to adopt a baby girl, but the imminence of Kieron had put paid to that. The following year, a girl did arrive when Claire was born. It was a happy time of Charlie’s life. He had recovered from his injury of a few years ago, and was enjoying playing for Dumbarton where he had already become a cult hero.
The bad weather of January and February 1972 affected the Sons more than any other team, for the weather was rainy rather than frosty, something which had an adverse effect on the appropriately named Boghead. But sometimes a fixture pile up can help a team and some teams, in the months of March and April once the weather turns a little better, can prosper once they play a game in midweek and then on the Saturday. The games come thick and fast, and players thrive as they never get bored waiting for the next game. Older players, far from being tired by their exertions, do all the better for they have the experience to know how to pace themselves, something that is occasionally lacking in younger men. The Sons Of The Rock history of the club is at pains to stress the value of the two experienced Old Firm players of Davie Wilson and Charlie Gallagher. “Neither was in the first flush of youth, but they used their brains rather than their legs to rally their troops for the final assault”.
The second half of the 1971/72 season saw troubled times for Great Britain. The end of January saw the major incident in Ireland known as “bloody Sunday” when the British Army managed to gun down unarmed protesters, but there was also a major coal strike with effects on electricity supply and power cuts. When it happened again in 1974, Sunday football was allowed as a side-effect of it all, but the 1972 strike (so unnecessary and able to have been stopped at an earlier stage through negotiation) inflicted a great deal of damage on the Conservative Government who were forced to surrender. But that was only the first round, as it were. A great deal more had yet to happen in future years.
Raith Rovers put the Sons out of the Scottish Cup in February. One has to be very wary of statements like “a Cup exit gives the team more of a chance to concentrate on the League” but in this case it happened to be true. In March, the team started to play really well, and took revenge on Raith Rovers for the two defeats inflicted on them earlier this season with a sparkling 5-0 victory on 18 April 1972 in which Kenny Wilson scored all five goals.
But then Dumbarton wobbled and were heavily dependent on Gallagher to win 1-0 at Alloa and 2-1 at Brechin City as Kenny Wilson’s goals began to dry up. Then on Saturday 29 April, when promotion might have been secured at home against St Mirren and TV cameras paid a rare visit to Boghead to join the huge 9,000 crowd, Gallagher scored yet again from the penalty spot to put the Sons ahead. But then sadly defensive frailties conceded two goals and put a serious spoke in Dumbarton’s chances of both the Championship and promotion.
Celtic supporters in the area went to that game rather than to their own game at Tynecastle where there had been complaints of discriminatory treatment, and in particular the parking of buses a huge distance away from the ground. They made a good choice going to see Dumbarton v St Mirren for Celtic, the League having been comfortably won two weeks ago, went down 1-4 to Hearts, an extremely rare occurrence in 1972!
The position had been complicated for the past few weeks, but Dumbarton now had a game in hand – an advantage gained from having had so many games called off in the winter – and that was against lowly Berwick Rangers at home. Things were now simple. Dumbarton were two points behind Arbroath but had a far better goal average. This produced the very simple formula that a win would get both the Championship and promotion, a draw simply promotion in second place behind Arbroath and a defeat would bring nothing at all, the beneficiaries to be Stirling Albion.
9,000 came to Boghead on Wednesday 3 May 1972. In some ways it was a historian’s dream. It was their Centenary Year for they were founded in 1872, and halfway through these hundred years had been 1922 when Dumbarton had been relegated to the Second Division where they had stayed ever since. It was a great occasion with Charlie’s two thunderbolts from a distance, one in each half, contributing to the 4-2 victory. The scenes at the end were a sight to behold and even a revelation for Charlie Gallagher and Davie Wilson, both of whom thought they had seen it all with Celtic and Rangers.
Bob Patience of the Daily Record was more than a little impressed. “… the man who can have the freedom of Dumbarton this morning is ex-Celt Charlie Gallagher. It was Charlie who laid on Dumbarton’s opening third minute goal for winger Peter Coleman. It was Charlie who took the pressure off with a spectacular goal after Englishman Jerry Coyne had equalised. And it was Charlie who finally paved the way for a night of sheer nostalgia with an equally great third goal in the 57th minute. Little wonder a “delirious” Jackie Stewart said later “Charlie was magnificent as he had been throughout the last few matches. He pulled us up by the bootlaces tonight. What a player! What a team! What a night!” Quiet hero Gallagher said simply “One of the greatest nights of my life. At Parkhead we were expected to win. This is something different. It’s just great.”
If 1968 had been Gallagher’s Championship for Celtic, the same could be said about this one for the Sons of the Rock in 1972. He scored 19 goals, 9 from the penalty spot and another few from free kicks outside the box, but there was so much more than that for it was he who made all the ammunition for Kenny Wilson and Roy McCormack. He was recognised now as one of the best kickers of a dead ball in British football with his corner kicks particularly accurate and sharp. A future in the First Division now beckoned for Dumbarton, and Charlie would be part of it once more. Summer 1972 was a particularly satisfying one for Charlie Gallagher and his young family.
And where were Celtic at this point? A mixture of good and bad it would have to say, with most of it good, some of it outstandingly good. The Scottish League had now been won for the 7th time in a row, beating the team’s own record from 1905-1910, but the end of the season centred on the controversial Dixie Deans. Dixie had been bought in October after the loss of the League Cup final to Partick Thistle, and had been a great success. But he had had the misfortune to be the only player to miss a penalty kick in penalty shoot-out of the European Cup semi-final against Inter Milan. Almost immediately however he bounced back and scored a hat-trick in the Scottish Cup final, something that only Jimmy Quinn had done before!
In the course of the 1972/73 season Charlie Gallagher celebrated his 32nd birthday and now in the First Division, he would find the sheer pace of the game a little too quick for him. Never the fastest of players in the first place, he decided that summer 1973 was a good time to hand up his boots. He had his moments for the Sons in that final season. To begin with there was another visit to Parkhead in the first round of the Dryburgh Cup. It was the first day of a strange experimental rule in which a player could only be offside in his opponents’ penalty box or its lateral extension.
There was thus a line drawn from the penalty area to the touchline, and the linesman would have a very easy job indeed as he only had to worry about offside when it was close to the goal. It was a laudable effort to introduce more goals to the game, but after being used in the Dryburgh Cup this year and the Scottish League Cup the following two years, the idea was abandoned. In this game, it did not make a great deal of difference. Nor did it generally, and it was one of those well meaning but short lived experiments to make the game more interesting.
Dumbarton were given a good reception by the Parkhead crowd, particularly Charlie Gallagher and John Cushley who had been McNeill’s deputy in the mid 1960s but had departed to play for West Ham United and Dunfermline
Athletic. The crowd were a great deal less welcoming of ex-Ranger Davie Wilson, but Wilson played well for the Sons, as indeed did Gallagher before he was substituted in the second half. Celtic won 2-1 in a close game which
made everyone realise that Dumbarton had won the Second Division on merit and would be no-one’s pushovers in the First Division.
In fact they finished third from bottom of the First Division. In the course of the season another ex-Celt joined the Sons. This was Willie Wallace, who had been offloaded rather too early by Jock Stein to Crystal Palace in 1971, had not really been all that happy at Selhurst Park and returned to Scotland to play for Dumbarton in October 1972.The team however were struggling but rallied at the end after a dreadful run of form in February and March which included a 6-0 beating from Aberdeen and 5-0 from Hibs. Indeed, even in April Celtic, going for the title, showed no mercy as they beat them 5-0 at Parkhead, but the Sons managed to beat Motherwell at Fir Park and then Dundee United at home to save themselves just edging ahead of Kilmarnock and Airdrie. They lost in the League Cup to Airdrie at the start of the season, and went down to Partick Thistle in a replay in the Scottish Cup in February.
In the meantime, the world continued. The incredibly bloody Vietnam war continued, as the USA tried with increasing desperation to find a face-saving way to get out of it. And there was an added complication in Washington in that President Nixon seemed to have authorised the burgling of his opponent’s headquarters before the 1972 Presidential election. The place was called Watergate, and this problem would simply not go away.
Charlie suffered from injuries throughout this tough 1972/73 season and when his Manager Jackie Stewart left in January to manage St Johnstone, he began more and more to drop from the picture, his last game for the club being against Airdrie on 7 March as he was substituted in a 3-5 defeat. In summer 1973 he decided that enough was enough and that it was time to hang up his boots. He had entertained hopes that he might have found for himself a job on the backroom staff at Dumbarton when one became available, but the job in fact went to Davie Wilson. What the reason for this was, no-one can say for certain, but we can all guess.
Charlie Gallagher? What a Player!
Celtic meantime had a less than totally successful season. Out of Europe before Christmas, they lost the League Cup final to Hibs and the Scottish Cup final to Rangers, in both cases rather unluckily. But they did hold on
to their League title for the 8th year in a row, after a prolonged struggle in which, at several points it appeared that Rangers would prevail. But Celtic held firm, and won the League in an epic game at Easter Road against the strong going Hibs. Generally speaking, it had not been a great season for Scottish football with major problems of hooliganism and falling attendances. Scotland lost to England for the third year in a row at Wembley, but a revival was forthcoming in that quarter.
Charlie Gallagher, his career now at an end, would now have loads of leisure to watch Celtic, except for the fact that he had three young children. More pertinently however, he would have to find himself a job – always a problem for a footballer at the end of his career.
David Potter
To be continued…
