Continuing the Charlie Gallagher story…
In the Scottish Cup however against Montrose, there was little bother from the men from Angus who were so overawed that they managed to score an own goal in the first minute. Celtic ended up winning 6-0 which might on other occasions been the score of the day, but the honour had to go on this occasion to Hibs who beat Peebles Rovers 15-1. The same Hibs however came to Parkhead the following week for a League game and lost 2-0 in front of a 35,000 crowd who appreciated the fine play of Charlie Gallagher who laid on two good goals for Steve Chalmers. Gallagher was singled out as the star man in the Evening Times, as waves of optimism now began to sweep the Celtic support.
All roads on 25 February led to Kirkcaldy to see if Celtic, now in inspired if occasionally inconsistent form, could continue their Scottish Cup run against Raith Rovers. Raith had lost their last five games in a row and were now clearly beginning to struggle with the demands of First Division football, so much so that they didn’t feel it necessary to make the game all-ticket. With Celtic fans clearly outnumbering the home support, their team did not let them down and they won comfortably 4-1.
Charlie’s direct opponent that day was, once again, the great Willie McNaught who had been moved to left back (where he had started his illustrious career which earned him 5 caps for Scotland) and frankly, the young Gallagher was, once again, (like on his debut 18 months ago) just too tricky on the ball for the ageing veteran, a point which the great man was happy to admit in later years.
Willie Fernie was the star of the game, scoring one tremendous goal and playing well throughout. Chalmers was on the score sheet once more, Rovers’ Andy Leigh got in the way of a Gallagher pass to Chalmers and conceded an own goal, and with the game more or less dead and buried, John Hughes scored a fourth right at the end. Celtic were now in the quarter final of the Scottish Cup, and the feeling that this might just be Celtic’s year began to grow when Motherwell put Rangers out of the Cup in a midweek replay. Celtic had in the meantime been drawn to play Hibs at Parkhead, and having defeated the Edinburgh men a couple of weeks previously, it did not seem too impossible a task to beat them again.
Two days after the victory at Kirkcaldy, Celtic played one of their postponed games against Clyde, a team who had fallen on bad times and were definitely relegation candidates. Any hope that Celtic might hold back against their neighbours in distress vanished as Celtic simply swept them aside and beat them 6-1. Gallagher scored a brilliant goal early in the second half and the comment of Cyril Horne, the veteran and esteemed journalist of The Glasgow Herald is significant “a magnificent shot…after this clever player had for once refrained from passing to an apparently better placed colleague”.
This tells us several things, or implies them, about Gallagher’s play. One was that Horne thinks highly of him, another is that he had on occasion in the past, apparently, lacked the confidence to shoot and the other was that
some of his colleagues had, he felt, let him down on previous occasions after he had done all the hard work. He did however score in this game, admittedly against a poor side but one which now contained a failed Kelly Kid in John Colrain! And poor Clyde were indeed relegated, even though Celtic gave then a hand by beating their rivals Ayr the following Saturday.
11 March saw happy days at Parkhead again with 56,000 there to see the Scottish Cup quarter final against Hibs. Celtic were the overwhelming favourites and the wonder was that they were not several goals ahead before half time. Young Billy McNeill at centre half was well in charge of the prolific Joe Baker, and with a bit of luck, Celtic could have been 3 up. But Hibs goalkeeper was a veteran called Ronnie Simpson who had two English Cup medals with Newcastle United to his credit, and he was playing a blinder. Gallagher and Crerand were creating enough, but Hibs defence were doing well.
Then early in the second half, the huge Celtic crowd was hushed when Bobby Kinloch put the Edinburgh men ahead following some tricky play down the right wing. The Celtic crowd stayed hushed as well for some time after that, for although they had the pressure, attacks tended to falter on the twin rocks of Ronnie Simpson and ex-Rangers player Sammy Baird who was now in the twilight of his career with Hibs. Attacks grew increasingly desperate but with ten minutes left, cracks in the edifice became obvious as gaps appeared on the terracing. Some of the weaker brethren began to depart, convinced, amidst a barrage of foul mouthed curses that this was still not, after all, going to be Celtic’s year. Those of little faith missed a great Celtic moment.
Five minutes remained when Bertie Peacock slipped a ball to Billy McNeill who sent a long “route 1” ball up to find the hitherto inconsistent Alec Byrne. Alec made space for himself then slipped the ball to Steve Chalmers, criminally left unguarded by the Hibs defence, and he swept the ball home, to one of the largest sighs of relief heard at Celtic Park for many a long day. BBC TV that night, most unusually for the time, swept its cameras to behind the goal to see the rejoicing supporters, clapping, cheering, waving scarves and jumping on each other’s backs in sheer euphoria, as the players all embraced and hugged each other. For the moment, the team and the season had been saved.
