Jock Stein must have been delighted towards the end of season 1964/65, when the team he had only just joined won the Scottish Cup in April 1965. However, he was not altogether happy with the squad he had been given and was looking to bring in some new names for the following season.
When I was at St Gerards’ School in Govan and making my way up the ranks, I was constantly being compared to a player who had been at the same school three years before me. I got to the stage where I really disliked this guy – although I had never met him – and I was tired of comments like ‘you’ll need to do better than that if you want to do as well as him”.
The player’s name was Joe McBride and he was the guy that Jock Stein wanted to bring in during the summer of 1965. No wonder! When he started his career at Kilmarnock, he scored 36 goals in 26 games for the reserves then 24 in 57 for the first team. At Wolves, in the reserves, he got 12 in 12 matches; with Luton, 9 goals in 25 games; at Firhill, 40 goals in 71 games for the Jags; then at Motherwell, the figure was 51 in 88 matches.
Joe arrived at Parkhead on this day in 1965 and did not take long to make his mark on the team. And when I eventually met him, I found him to be a really great guy!
Jim Craig
THE CELTIC STAR PODCAST which recently won the Podcast of the Year at the Football Blogging Awards in London, has a special edition out this week, which features a brilliant interview with Celtic cult hero Rudi Vata. It’s another great listen…
