On this day in 1945, Celtic met Albion Rovers at Celtic Park in a first round second leg tie in the Summer Cup. I have mentioned this competition before, a temporary affair to bring in some money for teams during the Second World War, as the Scottish Cup was abandoned during those years.
The Celtic team that day was Miller, Hogg, P McDonald, Lynch, Mallan, Paterson, Delaney, M McDonald, Gallagher, McLaughlin, Paton. A crowd of 12,000 turned up to see the match and they would have been more than a little surprised to see Celtic 2-0 down at the interval.
However, whatever manager Jimmy McStay said at the break seemed to spur the team on and they went out with a different attitude in the second half and eventually won 4-2, the goals coming from Gallagher, Paton and McLaughlin. And as the first leg at Cliftonville, watched by a crowd of 7,000, had finished in a 1-1 draw, that put Celtic into the next round on a 5-3 aggregate.
NB Because of the war, newspapers were not very voluminous and there was little print coverage of matches such as the above. The Albion Rovers side, for instance, is not mentioned in any paper but almost certainly had Jock Stein at centre-half. He had joined Rovers from Blantyre Victoria during the 1942-43 campaign and over the following few seasons was almost an ever-present in the Coatbridge side.
So, while I cannot say for sure that Jock Stein was at centre-half that day at Celtic Park, the chances of him being on the pitch are very good.
Jim Craig
