Having taken so long to finally win the League Cup, Celtic were determined to retain the trophy in the following season. Their efforts have become a celebrated part of club folklore.
Again, the Bhoys topped their group stage, this time finishing ahead of Hibs and Airdrie, as well as East Fife again. Beating East Fife was no small achievement; in the opening ten years of the League Cup, the Methil men were the most successful with three victories.
Following this, a comfortable 9-1 aggregate quarter-final win over Third Lanark set up another semi-final against Clyde, which the Bhoys again won. However, this time their final opponents would be Rangers, and they went into this match very much as favourites.
On 19 October 1957, Celtic and Rangers walked onto a sun-soaked Hampden pitch. By full-time, songs would be written about the encounter. The Bhoys took a three-goal lead, before the Ibrox men managed to get one back. However, four further green-and-white goals ensured a famous 7-1 triumph. Not only is this Celtic’s record scoreline in a major cup final, it is a British record too.
Over the following decades, Celtic continued to have memorable moments in the League Cup, although the Bhoys may not have truly wished to retain some of these thoughts.
On the positive side, Celtic enjoyed some very high-scoring victories to ensure their name was etched into the competition’s winners’ record. As well as the 7-1 win in 1957, Celtic put five past Dundee in 1967, and twice scored six against Hibs doing so in 1969 and 1974. The latter match included a Dixie Deans hat-trick, making him the only man to score a Scottish Cup and League Cup Final hat-trick for the Bhoys.
It’s not just in finals that there has been many high-scoring games. On numerous occasions, the Bhoys have scored at least six goals in a game. Most notably, this includes a massive 10-0 win over Hamilton in 1968, which saw five goals each from Bobby Lennox and Stevie Chalmers.
Unusually, Celtic also managed to win the League Cup twice in the same calendar year. The 1968 final was postponed following a fire at Hampden Park. Therefore, Celtic first won the cup in April 1969, before repeating this trick in October of that year.
Victory in the League Cup Final of 1966 was also the crucial first step on the road to Lisbon. The Bhoys beat Rangers 1-0, before going on to claim the Glasgow Cup, Scottish Cup and League. The next stop was of course Portugal where a memorable performance ensured immortality for Celtic’s Lisbon Lions.
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