1950 was a year that was declared the ‘Holy Year’. A Holy Year is a jubilee of the Catholic Church that usually occurs every 25 years.
In 1950 Celtic were invited to travel to the Eternal city to take on Lazio who were celebrating their own landmark in the shape of their 50th anniversary.
Being a club with strong Roman Catholic roots it was an honour for our football club to travel to the Holy City in such an important date in the church’s calendar and ultimately a meeting with the Pope would be on the horizon.
It would also be the first time that the club would take on Rome club Lazio, so in the days before European football there was plenty to look forward to for the manager and players of Celtic Football Club.
One such player described a brilliant tale of his trip to the Holy City and that was the legendary Charlie Tully. There was a humorous story back then that Charlie got his photo taken with the Pope and the joke was to ask the question ‘who is that fella standing beside Charlie Tully?’ That shows just how popular the skilful Irishman was back then.
Charlie along with the rest of the side met the Pope, which for the players and managers was a big deal especially the devout Catholics as in those days it was unheard of for ‘ordinary’ working class people to meet such a figure.
It was on the trip to Italy that a brilliant tale was later recalled by Tully himself. Tully along with his teammates were on a boat that was travelling to Ostend en-route to Italy and onboard was none other than legendary Crooner Bing Crosby.
Tully later recalled in his autobiography how he and a few of his teammates introduced themselves to Crosby and after chatting away they eventually burst into tune led by the legendary crooner singing ‘I belong to Glasgow’ with Tully and his teammates adding the harmonies along with some nuns and orphan girls. That surely would have been a sight to behold!
The main reason the club was in Rome was to play football, and that they did as they took on Lazio. It was only meant to be a ‘friendly’ but with no such thing as European competition it was a big deal for players to play foreign teams so they could test themselves against different opposition, so it was a game that would see one hundred percent commitment from both sets of players.
This one was no different and the players would later describe details of the roughhouse tactics deployed by the Italian players. Bobby Collins even said that it was the most vicious game he had ever played in. Off the park was just as intimidating, indeed at one point the game was held up for more than five minutes as people invaded the ground while club officials and the referee tried to restore order.
Celtic though were hardly shrinking violets and gave as good as they got, which was proved when the referee sent off Lazio player Leandro Remondini and our own John McPhail.
But according to McPhail himself the referee asked him to follow the Italian off the park just to appease the hostile crowd!
The game ended in a 0-0 stalemate, and Celtic would leave the eternal city with enhanced credibility. The hoops and John McPhail would gain their revenge when Lazio visited Glasgow later that year and the Italians were convincingly beaten 4-0 with McPhail himself scoring all four goals!
The Scotsman reported on that second meeting in 1950 between the sides at Celtic Park as follows…
Celtic 4 -0 Lazio – The Scotsman, Tuesday, 5 September 1950 (page 3).
Four goals by M’Phail, the Celtic centre inflicted a decisive defeat on Lazio, the first Italian team to play in Scotland, when they appeared at Parkhead, Glasgow last night. The visit of the Italian team was in return for the game between them at Rome in June, when they finished level.
In last night’s encounter the visitors were deservedly beaten, after starting with the usual flourish of quick moving Continental play. Celtic however were able to show them a few tricks in controlled footwork, and they led by two goals at the interval, the Italians had the old fault of shot-shy forwards. Apart from a low grounder by Cecconi, the home goalkeeper was little troubled.They could move smoothly, but too often the effort broke down with one or more of the attack running into an off-side position.
McPhail opened the scoring after twenty-seven minutes, with a header which crashed the ball against the crossbar before it squirmed into the net. Six minutes from half-time, the centre converted a. penalty given against right-half Alzani.
Celtic continued to dominate in the second half, though the Italian outside left took the eye with several good efforts. McPhail had his hat-trick with another fine header from pass by Peacock in the seventy-fifth minute, and he completed a great evening’s work by converting another penalty, just before the finish.
Estimated attendance, 45,000.
This of course would not be the end of the rivalry between Celtic and Lazio…
Just an Ordinary Bhoy
Bing Crosby Photo – Imago, remaining images courtesy of the wonderful The Celtic Wiki, a fine resource for all Celtic supporters.
