7. Training was very poor. Several players, notably the late Charlie Gallagher, mentioned that other teams often finished the game in better shape than Celtic did. There was a training ground of sorts at Barrowfield, a few hundred yards away on the other side of London Road, but quite a lot of the training was done on Celtic Park itself and it consisted of endless running round the track under no supervision, and very rarely was there any practice in ball skills.
Stories are told of players nipping into the Jungle for a smoke when they should have been training. This is often told in the context of “laddish” behaviour and “oh, weren’t they awful” but this slipshod approach to training probably cost Celtic several trophies. For this the Manager must take some of the blame.
8. Youth policy – shortly after the 7-1 game in 1957, the team began to break up and established players were replaced by youngsters. There was an excellent example in England of a very successful youth policy employed by Manchester United Manager (and unashamed Celtic supporter) Matt Busby.
They were called the Busby Babes, and the Chairman looked for a Scottish parallel, calling them the Kelly Kids. The trouble was that youth policies take time to work, and need to be strongly monitored, but the club allowed the departure to Dunfermline Athletic in 1960 of the one man who might well have made a success of all this, Jock Stein.
No-one seemed capable of moulding the talented youngsters, and things were allowed to drift, with, for example, youngsters being given two or three games in the team and suddenly dropped without anyone telling them why. On several occasions, Mr McGrory gave journalists the impression that he did not even know the names of some of his youngsters.
9. Referees – only to a very limited extent can one blame referees for Celtic’s lack of success. Yes, Celtic got the occasional bad deal from an official, but so too did other teams. Bobby Davidson of Airdrie, for example, was much excoriated at Parkhead, but where he was really unpopular was Ibrox after the 1958 Scottish Cup semi-final replay when what looked to Rangers supporters a very valid equaliser was ruled out. As far as Celtic were concerned, it would be very hard to sustain a case that the 20 years of failure were in any way contributed to by any sustained campaign against them by referees. The odd decision, yes, but no more than other teams.
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