The record for the highest-ever goals tally in one game by a Celtic player belongs to Jimmy McGrory, who scored 8 when Celtic beat Dunfermline Athletic 9-0 at a rain-swept Parkhead on 14 January 1928.
For a man with a reputation for headed goals, it was surprising that only one of the eight was scored in that fashion.
A young man called Willie Hughes also got 8 goals when playing in a Celtic shirt but this was in a non-competitive game, when he turned out for the Celtic/Falkirk select which beat a Scottish League select 10-7 in Patsy Gallagher’s benefit match in January 1932.
On this day in 1973, though, that record of McGrory’s came under threat. Celtic were playing Partick Thistle in a league match at Parkhead and Dixie Deans was right on song, scoring 6 in Celtic’s 7-0 victory. Dixie’s first came in 8 minutes, the others followed in 16, 24, 56, 74 and 89 minutes.
A small crowd of only 22,000 was there to see this plethora of goals – a post-war club record for a competitive match – and one of them was Jimmy McGrory, glad to see that his record had survived.
Jim Craig
