Season 1960/61 saw Charlie Gallagher break into the team in the second half of the season, but the season was dominated by one tragic event – the loss of the Cup final to Jock Stein’s Dunfermline on that terrible night of 26 April. There had also been a false dawn at the start of the season in the Scottish League Cup, but the Scottish Cup final defeat was particularly hard to take because the team had shown definite signs of improvement in the approach to the final.
As far as Charlie was concerned, his form mirrored that of the team. He had broken through in January on the right wing, which was by no means the ideal position for him, but he had played well until the final itself, after which he was side lined and would stay out of the team for some considerable time.
That he was struggling to find a place at the beginning of the season 1960/61 became apparent when he was in the “whites” (ie the Possibles) rather than the “green and whites” (the Probables) for the public trail before the start of the season. He was not chosen for the first few games, and thus he cannot be held responsible for this particular one of the Celtic horror stories. The Scottish League Cup was an all-Glasgow section of Rangers, Third Lanark and Partick Thistle. Celtic, for whom a superstar called John Hughes seemed to be emerging, were off to a bright start beating Third Lanark (twice) and Rangers before succumbing to the almost inevitable by blowing up in the last two games, including a tragic game at Parkhead to Rangers. We thus did not qualify for the League Cup quarter final, and then, as frequently happened after a reverse, went down 1-5 to Rangers at Parkhead in a particularly shocking performance in the first Old Firm Scottish League game.
But there was still the Glasgow Cup and Charlie Gallagher was very much involved in that. In their whirlwind start to the season Celtic had defeated Rangers without Gallagher’s help, but he did play in the two semi-finals against Third Lanark. The first game at a gloomy Cathkin (where the floodlights were decidedly sub-standard) Gallagher mirrored the floodlights. He “started well but faded badly” in a 0-0 draw that was dull in more senses than one, but then in the replay at Parkhead, he was brought in to change the forward line after the League Cup collapse to Rangers, and attracted a good Press, scoring a goal in the 3-1 win over the experienced Third Lanark side
One might have thought that that performance would have been enough to guarantee him a run in the team, but he did not play in the Scottish League game against Rangers on the Saturday after, nor the Glasgow Cup final against Partick Thistle. Perhaps tellingly, Celtic lost both these games. The only game in which he played at that time was a goalless draw against Aberdeen at Celtic Park, a desperately awful game in front of a small and disillusioned crowd of little more than 10,000. The poor display was on the Saturday immediately before the Glasgow Cup final, and probably militated against his selection.
It was however a dreadful atmosphere in which a youngster had to learn his trade. There was nothing vaguely approaching a team selection policy, and everything seemed to have been done on the whim of the Chairman.
The story is well known about the young reserve goalkeeper standing at a bus stop to go and support the team at Airdrie, being given a lift by the team bus and ending up playing for the team that day! Similar things would happen with the forward line as well with the team being changed between arrival at the ground and the exchange of the team lines. It would be laughable if it were not so serious, and things would give no indication of any improvement for the rest of 1960, as any possible League challenge evaporated in the general inconsistency of Celtic’s play in November.
Training was “not very good” as Charlie himself delicately puts it. Stories are told of player being given old, sub-standard, unhygienic training gear and told to do nothing other than run round the track. The “wily old
pros” got wise to this, and were known to nip into the Jungle, (no-body was there to oversee their exercises) and hide, even smoking cigarettes!
There was little in the way of development, and it was a very rare occasion that the players were given a ball to practice with. The thinking behind this strange concept was the bogus one that players would be all the more determined to kick a ball on a Saturday in a game if they had been deprived of one in midweek! It was unbelievable, and the end result was that Celtic, although full of potentially very fit youngsters, were often outpaced and overrun by the opposition.
One good thing that happened, however, was that Willie Fernie was brought back from Middlesbrough. Why he was allowed to go in the first place remains a mystery, but there was little doubt that some maturity and stability was needed in the forward line. (It is surely significant, incidentally, that although Willie Fernie was at Middlesbrough for less than two years, he is still hailed on Teeside as a “legend” with his photograph on the walls of pubs alongside his team mate Brian Clough! The word “halcyon” is frequently used to describe the Fernie era in North Yorkshire.)
The chopping and changing of the youngsters was something that did few favours to anyone, not least a fringe player like Charlie. Fernie and Gallagher immediately struck up a rapport. Both good ball players and both detecting in each other a kindred spirit, they became friends with Fernie taking the young Gallagher under his wing and nursing him with words of advice and encouragement – something that that not necessarily been forthcoming from other areas of Celtic Park. Gallagher would begin to flourish with Fernie around.
The last day of 1960 saw Charlie, at last, get a game in the first team. A complicated combination of injuries in the forward line saw Charlie invited to play at inside left for the visit of the strong going Kilmarnock to Celtic
Park. A good crowd of 30,000 thus saw Charlie play brilliantly and score the winning goal in the 3-2 victory, even though Kilmarnock had opened the scoring before most of the crowd got in. It was one of Celtic’s better performances, and Gallagher played superbly as Steve Chalmers scored twice, before Charlie himself picked up a ball halfway inside the Celtic half, then ran on and scored to give himself and the Celtic fans a happier New Year than they had had for some time.
The only fly in the ointment was that this result had actually helped Rangers, for Kilmarnock were one of the very few realistic challengers for the title in season 1960/61! Celtic “challenge” had never even started!
Charlie might have expected, in these circumstances, to be given a game in the 2 January game against Rangers at Ibrox. Sadly he would be disappointed. It was a game, in some ways typical of Old Firm games at that time, in which Celtic were the better team… but Rangers won 2-1. The question was asked however why young Gallagher who had done so well against Kilmarnock was not given a game. The answer was that it was all to “protect” him from the rigours of an Old Firm game!
But opportunity knocked by the end of the week. Third Lanark came to Celtic Park in a snow storm and played a game of sorts before a miserable crowd of 10,000. Charlie found himself on the right wing with Steve Chalmers now at inside left. Thirds won 3-2, but it was difficult to judge or condemn anyone in such conditions, and he was given another chance. He would seize this chance, and would retain the outside right position until the end of the season. It was hardly accidental that the form of the team improved from now on.
One of the great things about a Scottish season is that, for the big clubs at least, the Scottish Cup does not usually start until January. This gives them a fresh start, as it were, and a chance to redeem themselves after
failures in the early part of the season. Added spice comes from the fact that there has never been any attempt to “seed” the draw of the Scottish Cup or to “doctor” things for a Celtic v Rangers final, for example. Celtic had won the Scottish Cup 17 times in 1961, twice more than Rangers, and it had always been looked upon as Celtic’s special tournament with epic finals recalled from as early as 1892 and including those of 1914, 1925, 1931 and 1937 passed down to the younger generations who were seeking to emulate these feats.
But seven years had now passed since the last victory in 1954, the same amount of years as had passed between 1892 and 1899, as well as the more recent years 1937 – 1951 when, (if one ignores the war years when
the Scottish Cup was not contested), another seven seasons had passed without the Scottish Cup being decked with green and white ribbons.
So the “Seven Year Itch”, a famous 1955 film starring Marilyn Monroe, meant something quite significant to the eager Celtic fans of 1961. In truth, although no-one could really say that Celtic’s record since 1954 in the Scottish Cup had been a failure, the intervening six years had brought more than their fair share of heartbreak. There had been two defeats in the final, both brought about by a faulty team selection and one of them in 1955 after a crazy last minute goalkeeping error in the last minute of the first game before a narrow defeat in the replay. There had been three other appearances in semi-finals. Two of them had seen total collapses to St Mirren in 1959 and Rangers in 1960, and the other in 1957 a replay against Kilmarnock in which serious questions were asked
about Celtic’s defence, the serious questions, shall we say, being directed at their integrity as well as their competence!
So it was a love-hate relationship with the Scottish Cup and Celtic found themselves paired, at the end of January, with Falkirk at Brockville. This was a ground that was looked upon as something of a bogey ground for Celtic, even though it had been the scene of Charlie Tully’s twice taken corner kick goal in 1953.
But before Celtic went to Falkirk, Charlie played in two League games, both of which might have gone badly wrong but which in fact showed that this fast improving team was winning well and playing some nice football. A Scottish Cup run was already being predicted by the optimistic.
The distant field of Pittodrie, for example, in mid-January, saw a 3-1 victory with 3 fine goals from Gallagher, Chalmers and Divers. A forward line of Gallagher, Divers, Hughes, Chalmers and Auld combined well on the bone hard surface, so that the 3-1 scoreline in no way flattered the visitors whose large travelling support were in ecstasy at it all while the home support (Aberdeen were not doing well at this time in their history) had turned on their own team and were reluctantly applauding some of the good Celtic play. It was noticeable and much commented upon that this forward line in particular was playing as a unit, passing to one another and reading each other’s intentions rather than the more rustic, “hope for the best” stuff that had been seen earlier in the season.
Even better came the following week at home to Airdrie as Celtic triumphed 4-0, the third goal in particular earning widespread praise, it coming from a defence splitting 30 yards pass from Gallagher to Chalmers who hammered the ball home first time. This was Celtic at their best, and now producing the football that had not been seen at Celtic Park for some time. It was crowd of well over 20,000 and although it was a dull and dark day, the Parkhead lights were on for most of the game and the sight was something to behold with the four pylons creating four shadows for each player on the field, and as they were moving so fast, it was a remarkable spectacle. Words like “eager-beaver” and “trigger-happy” were freely used, and the optimistic were now beginning the hope that glory days were on their way back.
But this Gallagher-inspired Celtic revival would count for little if the team did not win at Brockville on 28 January. Anxiety centred on two areas – Brockville had been far from a happy hunting ground for Celtic in recent years, and the Celtic crowd had not always been on its best behaviour at that ground in particular. Celtic succeeded in one of their objectives. They won the game, but once again some of their less enlightened fans let them down with bottles, glasses and cans being thrown onto the field. For this they were duly and rightly castigated in the Press and on TV, although there was a certain obfuscation of “banner waving” and “bottle throwing”, which was confusing.
Waving a banner is possibly provocative but basically harmless, throwing a bottle is not – and even Celtic goalkeeper Frank Haffey had to run away from a bottle or two coming from his own so-called fans behind the goal. In later years this might be known as “friendly fire”!
Things had not been helped by Falkirk stating first of all that the game would not be all-ticket, then changing their mind under pressure from the police, and then when there were some tickets still unsold on the morning of the match, allowing fans to pay cash after all! The result of this was that there seemed to be more people in the ground than there should have been, and at several points, the terracing was distinctly over crowded with
the occasional spilling of fans on to the track.
Such muddled organisation was sadly typical of Falkirk in the 1950s, and one wonder how on earth they managed to win the Scottish Cup in 1957.
The game itself was an absolute cracker and it was a shame that the idiotic behaviour of some of our fans deflected attention from what was really a great Celtic performance in which Gallagher played a superb part. By no means a game which lent itself to Charlie’s elegant style of play, nevertheless, he had a fine match on the right wing.
Celtic won 3-1 in front of the packed crowd, and of the 4 goals scored by both teams, 3 were penalty kicks, all correctly awarded by referee Bobby Davidson. The exception was a clever goal scored by Bertie Auld from a narrow angle, and Bertie Peacock sunk Celtic’s two penalties. Gallagher might have won the Man of the Match award, if there were such things in these days, but Willie Fernie had a great game as well.
It was a happy Celtic party that left Brockville that night, and they were rewarded with a home tie in the next round against Montrose. Before that however, the team suffered a rare reverse as they went down 1-2 to St Mirren in the Scottish League at Love Street. The result was of no great importance for only the most absurd of optimists would have said that Celtic had a chance in the Scottish League, and it is one of those things that can happen when there are so many youngsters in the team.
David Potter
From David Potter’s wonderful biography of Charlie Gallagher – Charlie Gallagher? What a Player! published in 2016. More to follow exclusively on The Celtic Star…
