Sunny could hardly wait for the start of the new season. He trained hard in his determination to be as fit as possible, for he knew that in Scottish football there was nothing easy. There was no such thing as an easy game or an easy team. He was also aware that Celtic were one of the teams that everyone else wanted to beat. Third Lanark, of course, were the League Champions, and Rangers were the biggest rivals in terms of support, but a strong challenge could also be expected from the two Edinburgh teams, and further afield, from Dundee. As it turned out, Airdrie would also be a good team this year.
Various friendlies and benefit matches were arranged, but the League season opened on 20 August 1904 in glorious weather at Meadowside the home of Partick Thistle. To Sunny Jim went the honour of scoring the first goal of the season in ten minutes from a free-kick, and Celtic remained on top for the whole game, even without Jimmy Quinn who was used sparingly in his recovery from his horrendous injury of last May.
Young himself picked up an injury in a benefit match against Rangers in midweek and missed the next two League games, the capable Willie Black filling in for him at Clune Park, Port Glasgow in an easy win and in a less pleasant game, the visit of Hearts to Parkhead. Sunny was badly missed as Hearts were allowed a late and undeserved equaliser. The appearance of Parkhead was odd, for there was now no stand on the North side of the ground after the fire of May 1904 and although Celtic wanted to build a new enclosure, they were held up until 1907 by the bureaucracy of Glasgow Corporation.
Hearts gave Celtic a certain amount of trouble in autumn 1904, for they beat them at Tynecastle on the Edinburgh Holiday Monday of September 19 as well, and this time Sunny was playing. It was one of the those days when Celtic played as well as Hearts did, but it was the Tynecastle men who got the goals. Curiously, on that same Holiday Monday, Rangers also travelled to Edinburgh to play Hibs, with both sets of fans apparently mingling harmoniously on the trains! It is difficult to imagine that scenario today!
But there was no real doubt that the competition that was exercising the minds of the Glasgow population in autumn 1904 was the Glasgow Cup, then competed for with much intensity and excitement between the six teams of Glasgow – Celtic, Rangers, Partick Thistle, Third Lanark, Clyde and Queen’s Park, and the final normally held on the weekend of the Glasgow Autumn Holiday. The format was of “two ties and two byes” and Celtic were not lucky enough to get a bye in the first round and had to entertain Queen’s Park, with an Englishman, one John Lewis from Blackburn Rovers, invited to referee, lest there might be accusations of bias about Scottish referees!
The weather was beautiful on 10 September at Celtic Park, and Celtic, with Young, Loney and Hay in commanding form in midfield, won comfortably 3-0 in front of a good crowd of 21,000. Two weeks later the weather was a lot less hospitable and the crowd correspondingly smaller at Parkhead as Celtic took on Partick Thistle in the semi-final. Only 6,000 were there, a larger attendance being seen at Ibrox to see Rangers take on the League champions, Third Lanark. The Glasgow Herald claims (improbably) that “Thistle were easily the better team” but it was Celtic who got the goals through Peter Somers and Willie Black, and thus, as Rangers beat Third Lanark in the other game, New Hampden would stage its third “Old Firm” (as Celtic and Rangers were now called because of their ability to make money) Cup final of 1904.
Celtic had won the Scottish Cup, and Rangers the Glasgow Charity Cup last year. This would be the decider, as it were, and some reports say that 65,000 (more than the Scottish Cup final) were there to see it. 31 turnstiles were now in operation at Hampden Park, and the ambitious claim was made that 900 hundred could be admitted every minute!
The consensus of opinion, however, seems to indicate that the attendance was 55,000, and they saw the following teams take the field on Saturday 8 October . Celtic, having beaten Queen’s Park in the Scottish League the week before with Young being singled out “as the best of the winners” in The Daily Record and Mail were confident of a victory, although the Press tended to think that Rangers were marginally better.
The teams were;
Celtic: Adams, McLeod and Orr; Young, Loney and Hay; Bennett, McMenemy, Quinn, Somers and Hamilton
Rangers : Allan, N Smith and Fraser; May, Speedie and Robertson; Mackie, Kyle, Hamilton, McColl and A Smith.
Referee: T Robertson, Queen’s Park
The weather was ideal, and the turf in perfect condition. In spite of the early loss of a goal, Celtic came really good in this game, as the Rangers attack “died away”. Sunny Jim, having mastered the dangerous Bob Hamilton, took control of the midfield, spraying passes, shouting, cajoling, winning balls and feeding Bennett and McMenemy. Quinn (some say Bennett) soon equalised and then in the second half, Alec Bennett (who, it will be remembered did not play in the Scottish Cup final because his loyalty could not be depended upon!) scored the winner off a rebound after Davie “the Dancer” Hamilton hit the bar. (”The air was vocal with Celtic jubilation” says The Glasgow Observer. ) Rangers then renewed their efforts for an equaliser, but Celtic defended well with goalkeeper Davie Adams playing “out of his shell” in the last desperate ten minutes. But Celtic held out for a narrow but deserved win, until “Tom Robertson’s bugle sang truce” in the poetic words of the triumphant Glasgow Observer.
“The Celts now romped off the field” winners of the first Cup of the season. It was totally deserved on the turn of play. It was (amazingly) their first win in this competition since season 1895/96 and Sunny Jim now had won in less than eighteen months a winner’s medal in four different Cup competitions – the Gloucestershire Cup, the Glasgow Charity Cup, the Scottish Cup and the Glasgow Cup. And he was still only 22!
“Bedouin” in The Daily Record and Mail sums up this game by saying that “By an all round exhibition of pluck and determined play, the side least expected to win rose to the occasion against an eleven reputedly more clever in attack, and gained the Glasgow Cup in a manner than left no dubiety in the minds of the vast throng as to which was the most deserving side on the run of the game”. The Evening Times credits the Celtic defence for the victory, and in a classic piece of Edwardian prose says that “ Hay and Young were largely responsible for the spoliation of Rangers deadliness forward”.
The Glasgow Observer is in gloating mood. It puts its opinions into the mouth of a fictitious character called Riley who talks about “… the teetotal (sic) failure of the Rangers forwards. For two months now the country has rung with the praises of the Ibrox front line. Their skill was poetic, miraculous. It hasn’t taken Sunny Jim long to burst that bubble… the halves (Young, Loney and Hay) are guilty of a sort of athletic gluttony. They monopolise the play”.
The Glasgow Cup, being held in October, was like the Scottish League Cup in the 1950s and 1960s when it was normally done and dusted at that sensible time of the year. The winners had a sense of achievement that stayed with them for the rest of the season. It was a great encouragement. Flushed with this success, Young stepped up his game. A Scottish League medal was still missing, and Sunny was determined to get the full Scottish set.
To be continued…
David Potter
Meanwhile The Celtic Rising, which had completely sold out a week or so ago, is now back in stock and we have signed copies available for same day, first class post, order using the link below.
