Jim Craig: Jinky argued his case too vigorously and was ordered off

I missed out on the tour of North America in the summer of 1966. For full details of the reasons, check out ‘Setting the Scene – Right Back to 67, A Lisbon Lion Diary.

By this date on the nearly four week tour, Celtic had played Tottenham Hotspur twice and won both times, 1-0 in Toronto and 2-1 in San Francisco. On this day in 1966, the teams met again, this time in Vancouver and things were beginning to get tough for Celtic, as they had some injury worries, with Frank McCarron, John Cushley and Bertie Auld all out.

A crowd of 18,000 was present in the stadium and they saw a very competitive match, where Bobby Lennox opened the scoring for Celtic after 19 minutes and Terry Venables equalized for Spurs five minutes from time.

A few Celtic players protested about Venables’ goal, stating that he had pushed Bobby Murdoch to get the ball.

Unfortunately, Jinky argued his case too vigorously and was ordered off.

The Celtic players then took issue with the referee again and this time were joined in their protest by Spurs captain Dave Mackay. In the face of all this anger, the referee changed his mind, Jinky stayed on and the match ended in a 1-1 draw.

This was supposed to be the last match for Jinky before he came home to get married but because of the injuries, the Boss persuaded him to wait till after the match against Bayern Munich in three days time.

Jim Craig

*Pic at the top was from the match in 1967 between the same two sides, which ended in a 3-3 draw.

About Author

The Celtic Star founder and editor, who has edited numerous Celtic books over the past decade or so including several from Lisbon Lions, Willie Wallace, Tommy Gemmell and Jim Craig. Earliest Celtic memories include a win over East Fife at Celtic Park and the 4-1 League Cup loss to Partick Thistle as a 6 year old. Best game? Easy 4-2, 1979 when Ten Men Won the League. Email editor@thecelticstar.co.uk

Comments are closed.