HAMPDEN GLORY – Part 1
Jock Stein apparently said soon after he took over at Celtic Park in March 1965 that he wanted to rid himself of Jimmy Johnstone, John Hughes and Charlie Gallagher. Whether he actually said this or not has never been proved, and it may just be a “story”. He certainly never said it in public, and subsequent events would indicate that if he did want to get rid of those three, he certainly did not do so immediately.
Indeed Charlie Gallagher was still there five years later, John Hughes a year after that and Jimmy Johnstone lasted until 1975! Nevertheless, any change of Manager can be a threatening experience for a player, especially when they had met before as, of course, had been the case in the late 1950s when Charlie was a young player at Celtic Park and Jock Stein was the Youth Coach. They remembered each other, and not necessarily with any great affection.
In the case of Jimmy Johnstone, Stein’s reputed statement does not square with the story of how when he was still Manager of Hibs, and metJimmy in the toilet after a reserve game in which Jimmy had been playing. Stein said to Jimmy “What are you doing here? You’re far too good a player to be playing in the reserves”. Clearly he saw some potential there. John Hughes and Jock Stein certainly did not get on (although this may have been more true of the later years rather than the earlier ones) and Yogi has not been slow to share his feelings with the world about Stein, and Gallagher has similar reservations about him, while at the same time admiring his managerial ability and tactical nous, and also agreeing that without Stein, things like the European Cup and the nine League Championships in a row would have remained fantasies.
The news of Stein’s appointment was released on Sunday 31 January 1965, but rumours had been going round for some time. As if sensing something was happening, Celtic, without Gallagher but with John Hughes playing in sandshoes and scoring 5 goals, beat Aberdeen 8-0 on Saturday January 30 (the day of the funeral of Sir Winston Churchill in London) and the Sunday papers were full of good news of the great victory over the Dons but also hints of big changes at Parkhead. Rodger Baillie of The Sunday Mirror went so far as to say “An old Celtic favourite is involved”. We were able from that to put 2 and 2 together and come up with Jock Stein, before the official announcement was made that very Sunday.
Hibs would not let Stein go until 8 March, insisting that he serve his notice. All this time, Gallagher was out of the team while the team with a left wing pairing of Lennox and Auld made a partial recovery in February from all the disasters suffered in January and before the New Year. Crucially Celtic stayed in the Scottish Cup, beating St Mirren 3-0, Queen’s Park 1-0 and Kilmarnock 3-2. The Kilmarnock game on 6 March was Jimmy McGrory’s last game in charge and also the last game that Celtic would ever play in their change strip of white with green sleeves. It was also a fine game of football and put Celtic into the semi-final of the Scottish Cup. But all this time, Gallagher was in the reserves and he must have wondered just what the future had in store for him once the new Manager arrived.
The decision to appoint Stein was nothing short of revolutionary. It was an admission, at long last, that Celtic had been on the wrongtrack, and that someone with a footballing brain was necessary. He also of course knew the club inside, having been there as a player and as a coach in the fairly recent past. Some newspapers decided to mention his religion. Possibly a few on the lunatic fringe of the support may have thought that it was significant, but the bulk of the huge, dormant, latent and increasingly desperate support scoffed at that being in any way important. One wonders however whether it was ever an issue at Board level.
But the main revolutionary aspect of all this was that Jock, and only Jock, would have total say about team matters – selection, tactics, team formation – and everything else. The days of the haphazard, chaotic, whimsical selection an hour before kick-off had gone. There would now be a definite selection policy – things has been so weird before that the word “policy” could not have been used. Jock would occasionally, out of deference to the wishes of his Chairman, drop a player for disciplinary reasons, perhaps, but that happened very seldom, and in the important decisions, for example, the one involving Bobby Murdoch, Jock would make the call.
In a sense, it was a return to the situation when Willie Maley was in charge. Maley was the Manager, an employee of the Board, who, theoretically, picked the team every week. In fact, such was Maley’s footballing brain, that he was given virtually carte blanche to do what he wanted, enjoying a good relationship with the Board and being very tactful in his decisions. This system had made Celtic pre-eminent in the great days before World War 1, and this was now a parallel situation of a brilliant tactical Manager, a supportive Board and a good relationship existing between them. In both cases, the “good relationship” would have its wobbles towards the end, but in both cases, Celtic would become the best team in the world.
Jimmy McGrory would stay in genteel retirement, almost, as a Public Relations Officer. Much respected and much loved, he was the ideal man to meet opposing teams, to deal with fans wanting to see the ground and to be around as the benign and totally acceptable face of Celtic. Stein insisted that the players called McGrory “Boss”, while everyone else, even Rangers fans, talked about Mr McGrory. He did not have an enemy in the world, and it was often hard to imagine that this soft- spoken, charming, gentle and modest man had once scored 550 goals!
These changes at the top made Gallagher wonder, particularly as he was now out of the team. He had never been a great favourite of Stein in the past, although he felt flattered in the 1961 Scottish Cup final when Stein told Willie Cunningham to man-mark him out of the game, something that was a total success as far as Dunfermline were concerned. He must have wondered, not for the first time in his life, what the future would be under this tough, abrasive but footballing genius of an ex-miner from the wilds of Lanarkshire.
To be continued shortly only on The Celtic Star…
David Potter
*Extract from David Potter’s wonderful book Charlie Gallagher? What a Player!
