In the summer of 1904 Celtic embarked on their first tour of continential Europe. This tour saw Celtic visit Austria and Czechoslovakia to play a total of three games. In Vienna Celtic defeated Union Wien 6-1 and Wiener AC 4-2 before heading to Prgue where they won 4-1 against SK Slavia Praha.
So while Celtic won all their matches and very much impressed those who saw them play or played against Willie Maley’s Celtic team, there was also the story of Celtic’s first ever European mishap. David Potter tells the story below…
Mention has been made of Maley’s desire to bring to the fore the “missionary” aspect of Celtic. He had already this year taken them to the north of Scotland and to England. This one was slightly further afield, and he was already eyeing the possibility of a tour to the new world of Canada and the USA.
Austro-Hungary had of course only 15 years to live before it brought about its own destruction, but in 1904 it was opulent, effete, decadent and appallingly ill-divided with the ruling class dreadfully out of touch with its peasants and working classes.
There was, as in Russia, a revolution waiting to happen. Football was in its infancy in Europe but all football people there were thrilled at the prospect of the famous Scottish team coming to play a few games against their teams in their cities of Vienna and Prague.
Celtic sailed on Monday 16 May 1904, and by the following day the party reached Frankfurt. The players had been travelling for over 24 hours and were glad of a chance to stretch their legs around the station, where they had to change trains for Vienna.
Then something strange happened, and we will never know the exact truth, but it appeared that Maley called the players together and told them to get on the train in 5 minutes. Stations are noisy places and Sunny Jim thought that Maley had said 25, so went off on his own for another wander, this time outside the station, and missed the connection.
There are at least two strange aspects to this story – one was why no-one went with him (had he fallen out with some of them?) and the other was why he didn’t notice that he was on his own. Maley must accept some of the blame for not ensuring that everyone was on the train, but there exists a small possibility that Young deliberately got lost, perhaps feeling ill in the intense heat and unable to face more of the train journey, perhaps having quarrelled with Maley and wanting to make his own way home. The most likely explanation, however, was that he simply was a young Scottish lad, overwhelmed by his first trip abroad and fascinated by the sight of Frankfurt.
In any case, the Celtic party on the train were well out of Frankfurt before someone said “Where’s Sunny?”. Panic ensued for there was no way of getting in touch with the wayward Young who had now reappeared at Frankfurt Station and discovered that the train had gone.
Not only that, but there wasn’t another train direct to Vienna until 4.00 pm the next day, although he could take a less direct route at 6.00 pm that evening. And Young was a “gallus” Kilmarnock boy with no real experience of the ways of the world.
A helpful stranger who spoke some English enabled Young, however, to send a telegram to the hotel which he knew Celtic would be staying at in Vienna, and thus anxiety was eased somewhat, but Young didn’t rejoin the Celtic party until the Thursday when Jimmy Hay found him looking lost in Vienna.
There was a certain amount of ribbing and one assumes a severe dressing down from Maley. Some thought that he had been waylaid by the attractions of a German fraulein; others thought that he had had too much German beer, but Maley, although angry and upset, nevertheless had sufficient regard for Young that he insisted that the affair remained confidential. It was years later before the truth was released, although stories reached the Scottish Press about “a Celtic player” getting lost.
Young himself may have been upset about the incident, but he did not let it bother him, telling everyone that “If it hadnae been for my command o’ languages…”. In fact he only ever spoke broad Ayrshire and could hardly be understood in Bristol, let alone Frankfurt or Vienna!
He thus missed the game on Wednesday 18 May when Celtic beat Wien AFC 4-2 in Vienna’s Athletiksportsplatz. Maley was able to indulge himself in this game by taking Sunny’s place at right half. Maley was still only 36 and still reasonably fit, and his own position had been right half but he changed his position to left half in the second half so that he would be playing in the shade! He was after all “the Boss”!
The errant Young played in the next game against a Vienna Select team on Sunday 22 May. Celtic won very comfortably 6-1. Then after a few jokes about putting a rope round Sunny and dragging him along so that they wouldn’t lose him again, the team went on to Prague where they beat SK Slavia 4-1 on 25 May and “a German club” 3-0 on 29 May. It was light-hearted none-too-serious stuff and went a long way to building the rapport and team spirit which would characterise the Celtic team of the next few years.
David Potter
2 of 4 #scotsfoundedfootball ‘Celtic’s ‘short-passing game was much admired.’ and ‘The Austrians are big, strong and very fast and they have a sound conception of the dribbling game…’ Main complaint? Refs not knowing the rules and being frightened to penalise the home team.
— Ged O’Brien (@gedboy58) September 12, 2021
4 of 4 #scotsfoundedfootball So what? The Viennese and Czechs will have seen the Scottish Combination game in all its glory. They added it to their theory of how the game should be played. It allowed players like Matthias Sindelar the Paper Man to succeed like a #scotchprofessor
— Ged O’Brien (@gedboy58) September 12, 2021
