On this day in 1953, a Celtic eleven ran out at Parkhead to take on Aberdeen in their fourth league match of the season, having already beaten Hamilton and Clyde and drawn with Rangers.
A crowd of 26,000 was at Celtic Park for the match and they were all in good mood as, only four months previously, their team had won the Coronation Cup. Now, the push was on for further honours and the enthusiasm in the ground was infectious.
The Celtic team was Bell, Haughney, Fallon, Evans, Stein, Peacock, Collins, Walsh, Duncan, Tully and Mochan and, against an Aberdeen side which had not started well in the season, they took control right from the start and eventually won the match 3-0. Most unusually, though, all the goals came from penalties and even more strangely, they were all scored by the same player – Bobby Collins.
There did not seem much doubt about the penalty decisions. For the first, in the 8th minute, Dons right-back Mitchell was adjudged to have pushed Jimmy Walsh; in 44 minutes, Mitchell was again penalised, this time for a foul against Bobby Collins; and the third came in 67 minutes, when Mitchell again was the guilty party. And in all three cases, the Wee Barra slotted the penalties home.
On this day in 1914, George Paterson was born. Left-half George signed for Celtic in 1932 and made 175 appearances over the following 14 years before he moved to Brentford.
George died in New Zealand on Christmas Day 1985 at the age of 71.
Jim Craig
