There was a pop song going the rounds in spring 1968 which always reminded one of Charlie Gallagher. It was called “Me The Peaceful Heart” and was sung by the Glaswegian pop star Marie Lawrie, better known as Lulu. In particular, the last two line of the chorus just seemed to sum up Gallagher’s approach “…wondering why the stormy weather Always finds me, the peaceful heart.”
There was indeed something very calm and re-assuring about Charlie. Everything else might be exploding in frenzy round about him, with some of Charlie’s team mates guilty of losing the place now and again, but there was always the reassuring presence of Charlie, now and again seen to have a “quiet word” with some of this colleagues who were giving signs of beginning to get riled by an opponent.
There was a picture which appeared in several periodicals of Charlie with an easel doing some painting. This also typified the man. Peter Marshall describes him as “exquisite” in everything that he did. In the same way as he used exactly the right colour for his painting, he knew exactly where to place his pass, and precisely the right weight to put on it.
Midweek once again gave Celtic the temporary lead in the League. Rangers were playing in Europe on the Tuesday night, losing to Leeds United at Elland Road, so Celtic had the chance on the Wednesday to gain the initiative in their postponed game at Pittodrie. Rangers fizzling out at Leeds – they lost 0-2 – was once again, one felt, a symptom of the strain they were under because of the pressure from Celtic, but the official Celtic line was “it’s of no consequence to us” (as Jock Stein said to a supporter as he boarded the train for Aberdeen that morning – but he had a twinkle in his eye!).
Everyone knew that Celtic would get a further boost from Rangers travails. Indeed the Ibrox world was now crumbling like a cake. They now ONLY had the League to play for, having lost everything else. In the space of a few weeks, after they had run away from Celtic in the Glasgow Cup, they had exited the Scottish Cup and the Inter Cities Fairs Cup. Celtic were already the possessors of the League Cup, and they were now desperately hanging on to their one-point advantage in the Scottish League.
But Rangers problems would count for nothing if Celtic could not win at the toughest ground, other than Ibrox, on the Scottish circuit – Pittodrie. Aberdeen, who had disappointed this season, had nothing to play for other than pride, which had of course been badly dented by their 4-1 defeat at Parkhead a few weeks ago. Celtic still had the luxury of an injury free squad, so the team once again picked itself – Simpson, Craig and Gemmell: Murdoch, McNeill and Brogan: Johnstone, Lennox, Wallace, Gallagher and Hughes – a few changes since Lisbon of a year ago, but changes for the better, it was felt.
Once again we must call into question the statement apparently attributed to Stein in 1965 that he wanted to get rid of Johnstone, Gallagher and Hughes. They were not only still there, they were starring, all three of them! Indeed, it was the opinion of many supporters that they were now playing better football and with more confidence than last year. And as at Tynecastle, another aspect of their play came into view – the ability to soak up pressure.
Amazingly well supported in the 25,000 crowd considering that it was a Wednesday night 150 miles away from home, (although what does “home” mean for Celtic, considering the support that they have in all parts of Scotland, including the surprising size of the pro-Celtic faction in the North East?). Celtic had what was probably their hardest game since the New Year, being indebted to Ronnie Simpson for at least three good saves from Davie Robb, one of which at least seemed net-bound. Celtic’s goal was a regulation Johnstone to Murdoch to Lennox in the 60th minute, and after that, Celtic were forced to defend, with Gallagher detailed to support the midfield and not venture too far forward.
Referee Eddie Thomson’s final whistle came as a huge relief, meaning as it did that Celtic were top of the League by one point with three games to go. Rangers had four to play, but, now still coming to terms with their failures in other competitions, the pressure was intensifying.
Saturday 13 April saw the repetition of a pattern that we had seen on many Saturdays this season – a convincing Celtic win and a scratchy Rangers one, and more frustration for the Celtic crowd. At Parkhead Celtic beat Dundee – no mean opponents under Manager Bobby Ancell (himself a football purist) for they were now in the semi-final of the Inter Cities Fairs Cup – 5-2 playing sparkling football to the delight of the 41,000 crowd, whereas at Stark’s Park, Kirkcaldy, Rangers had to hold on against a tremendous late Raith Rovers onslaught to edge home 3-2 before a huge crowd which delayed the kick-off by 12 minutes.
Thus the environs of Parkhead had the phenomenon of Celtic fans clustered round cars to hear how the game at Kirkcaldy was going. No-one in Kirkcaldy didn’t believe that Raith Rovers shouldn’t have had at least one penalty, but Rangers were still holding on. The full time whistle came to predictable groans and curses.
Writing in the following day’s Observer Hugh McIlvanney has no doubts about what was the main cause of Celtic’s superiority. “Most of Dundee’s difficulties stemmed from the killing accuracy of Gallagher’s passing. Gallagher’s languid air, his reluctance to become embroiled in any robust activity, masks a genuine menace. His eye for an opening is flawless and the sureness of his touch enables him to curve passes round defenders into the path of the running forward. He could release Lennox from apparently hopeless positions and when Lennox breaks, no defence is safe”.
Strong words indeed from a fine journalist who didn’t often try very hard to hide his love for the Celtic! Rangers, annoyingly, however were still that point ahead. But there are times in life when one’s faith in an all loving deity are reinforced. Celtic who had now scored 100 goals that season were still waiting for someone to beat or even draw with Rangers in order to give the team the break and the League title that their play had so richly deserved.
More and more people, not all of them of the Celtic persuasion, were beginning to say that it was time for justice to be done, and for the side that had so dramatically electrified the Scottish season since February to step up and claim the title. Charlie Gallagher’s role in all this was crucial. In 1968, it often seemed like blasphemy if someone said that a team played in a 4-2-4 formation, the tradition of the 2-3-5 M or W set-up dying hard. 4-2-4 or 4-3-3 was seen as a sign of defensive mindedness, so beloved by the Continentals. But to a supporter, it did seem very much as if this was what Celtic were playing, and doing so with conspicuous success.
The back 4 would be Craig, McNeill, Clark (or Brogan) and Gemmell, the middle 2 would be Bobby Murdoch on the right and Charlie Gallagher on the left, withJohnstone, Lennox, Wallace and Hughes in the front. Murdoch would tend to bring the ball forward himself before releasing it, whereas Charlie would beat one man and then deliver a silky, visionary pass to one of his eager front runners, the combative and talented Willie Wallace, the speedy greyhound called Bobby Lennox, and the two loose cannons in JimmyJohnstone and John Hughes, both of whom, Johnstone in particular, capable of winning any game virtually on his own.
But of course there were two other great strengths in the team. One was the fact that, notwithstanding what the perceived team formation was, the team was fluid. Great Celtic teams in the past – the Jimmy McMenemy inspired team of 1908, and the Jimmy Delaney and Malky MacDonald team on 1938, for example, both had this in common, that they could interchange almost at will and render themselves almost impossible for the opposition to man-mark.
In any case, a 4-2-4 system, the pure undiluted 4-2-4, seemed to exclude wingers. Celtic’s system emphatically did not do that. In fact Johnstone more than once asked at pre-match team meetings what was expected of him. Jock would say “You? We’ll get the ba’ tae ye and then ye can just dae whit the hell ye want!”
The other thing was the great team spirit. Everyone knew that JimmyJohnstone was, on his day, the best in the world – the old timers even permitted him to be included in the same breath as Patsy Gallacher and Jimmy Delaney! – but he was emphatically not a prima donna, at least as far as the rest of his team were concerned! Emotionally insecure on occasion, Jimmy would sometimes go on to the field saying things like “Ye heard fit the Big Man said. Gie me the ba’!” In this respect Charlie Gallagher was the perfect foil for him. Totally different characters, they nevertheless understood each other and fed off each other in an astonishing display of mutual symbiosis.
Jimmy liked being told that he was the best in the world, he did on occasion fall out with Big Jock, he could on occasion fall out with a referee and he certainly put Walter McCrae of Kilmarnock in his place when Walter tried to bully him with the Scotland squad – but he never considered himself above his team mates or indeed the Celtic supporters. He needed his ego massaged from time to time, but Jimmy was astonishingly like “an ordinary man”,as they used to say about Jimmy Quinn. And this could be said of them all. They all talked to supporters without ever giving the impression that they were talking down to them, they got on well together and they were all proud to be playing for the team that they loved. Some like Simpson, Gemmell and Wallace perhaps had not been born as Celtic supporters – but they were now!
They may have been well paid professionals, but they were never anything other than the man on the terracing – except that they had been blessed with the ability to play football. This was certainly true of the unassuming Charlie Gallagher, now recognised by most of the support as the man who was producing the“tick” in Celtic. So now we come to the dramatic events of Wednesday 17 April, and enter Greenock Morton, where Rangers went that fateful Wednesday.
This was Rangers game in hand over Celtic, and as it happened, Morton were due at Parkhead on Saturday. Celtic on that same Wednesday were at Hampden playing Clyde in the Glasgow Cup final, the trophy of course which Rangers had scorned in early March. Ironically, now that Rangers were out of the Scottish Cup and the Inter Cities Fairs Cup, they would have had all the time in the world to play their Glasgow Cup fixtures!
Celtic had no such problems about the trophy that was actually older than the Scottish League and only a few years younger than the Scottish Cup itself. In fact, they were the holders for the past three years in 1964,1965 and 1967 (it had not been played for in 1966 – because of fixture congestion!), and were proud to list this venerable old trophy among their 5 successes of last season! Stein paid Clyde and the Glasgow Cup the compliment of sending out his best available side.
Celtic delighted their fans with a great 8-0 victory at Hampden, in a game made remarkable at half-tine by the movement of fans from one end of Hampden to another on the running track, the better to see more goals going in after the break! They were already, by half time, 7-0 up!
Gallagher was substituted in the second half because the job was so obviously done and Stein wanted to give John Clark a run out in the team. Clyde supporters stood and clapped this great Celtic side, as their players simply shook their heads with that “What can we do?” look about them. Jock Stein paid tribute to Clyde for their sportsmanship and Gair Henderson in The Evening Times makes the astonishing suggestion (presumably, one hopes, as a joke) that if Celtic played continued to play like that, it might be an idea to introduce a handicapping system in football! The 8-0 victory equalled the record score in the Glasgow Cup set by Queen’s Park in 1889!
David Potter
To be continued…
