For yours truly, however, the return game was much more memorable, falling as it did on my eleventh birthday. Dad surprised me with a Main Stand ticket in my card and so on we went to the recently-refurbished structure that night, quite a sight in its day, particularly under the floodlights with 75,000 packed into the old ground.
The dangerous Hungarian striking duo of Ferenc Bene and Anton Dunai combined well for the latter to level the tie within five minutes and it would be a further hour before Macari settled Celtic nerves with a beautifully-lobbed equaliser from a George Connelly through ball, the 3-2 aggregate win setting up a last-four rematch with Inter Milan, five years after the joy of Lisbon. That tie would produce two goalless draws before a penalty shoot-out catastrophe for my hero, Dixie Deans, as Celts missed out on a chance to avenge the quarter-final defeat by Ajax the previous season, on the ground of Feyenoord, the side who had beaten them in Milan in the 1970 European Cup Final.
Just seven months after that initial Celtic v Ujpest clash, they were drawn together again, this time in the second round of the 1972/73 European Cup. Celts had enjoyed home and away victories over Rosenborg Trondheim, in the first of what would prove to be a regular and ongoing relationship with the Norwegians, whilst the Hungarians had edged out another club who feature multiple times in our European history, Switzerland’s Basel, when they met in Glasgow on Wednesday, 25 October 1972.
The 51,000 crowd was stunned as once again the visitors took the lead, through Bene on twenty minutes. The second half brought wave after wave of Celtic pressure against one of the best sides to play in Glasgow for many years. Kenny Dalglish came to the rescue with a double, his first a neat side-foot finish from a George Connelly cross within five minutes of the restart before getting his head to a cross from substitute Bobby Lennox, to give the Hoops a priceless lead with fifteen minutes to play.
Sadly, that lead lasted less than ten minutes in the return leg in Budapest, on Wednesday, 8 November 1972. I guess the writing was on the wall when the repeat run home from school was met by a blank screen, the STV pictures this time failing to reach Scotland.
Perhaps it was just as well. Within twenty minutes, Celtic were three goals down and heading out of Europe at the earliest stage I could recall. Bene scored either side of a Fazekas penalty, as the Hungarians tore the Celtic defence to shreds.
Both Kenny Dalglish and Billy McNeill struck woodwork, a case of ‘if only’ late on. However, in truth, we had been outclassed by a superb team on the night. Ujpest would then draw twice with Italian champions, Juventus, in the quarter-final, exiting on away goals after a 2-2 draw in Budapest, despite having again taken an early two-goal lead. The Turin club would then eliminate English champions, Derby County, in the last four, before succumbing to a Johnny Rep header in Belgrade, as Ajax won a third successive European Cup, thus awarded permanently, the trophy lifted for the first time by Billy McNeill in Lisbon.
Cesar was the Celtic manager for the next Hoops visit to Budapest, on Wednesday, 7 September 1988, choosing to make one change from the weekend victory over Hamilton Academical – Derek Whyte for Joe Miller – as he sought to plug the recent defensive gaps by playing Roy Aitken in front of his back four for the first-leg tie against Honved.
There were around 9,000 fans in the Bozsik Jozsef Stadion, named after another of the legendary Magyar squad, a best friend and neighbour of the young Ferenc Puskas. It may well have been a different decade, however, the defensive frailties of a Celtic side were yet again exposed in the opening minutes, as first striker Gregor dallied when faced with a wonderful chance to score then Fodor beat Andrews with a free-kick from the touchline from all of thirty yards out, another dreadful blunder by the new Celtic keeper. All this within eight minutes. The only saving grace from a dire Hoops performance is that there would be no further scoring on the night, leaving Celts with a decent chance of turning things around in Glasgow, a fortnight later.
That disappointment would be put into some perspective the next night, when Celtic’s young midfield star, Steve Murray, suffered a horrendous knee injury following a challenge by Motherwell’s Jamie Dolan, in a reserve fixture at Fir Park.
The 20-year-old had been signed for £50,000 from Nottingham Forest the previous summer and was tipped to go all the way by those who usually knew these things. He would never play again, undergoing five years of painful surgery before finally receiving a six-figure sum in compensation from Dolan in November 1993.
It brought back memories to me of the incident at Celtic Park on Saturday, 8 September 1973, incredibly fifteen years to the day of Murray’s injury. As Jock Stein’s Celtic celebrated the unfurling of their eighth successive League flag by beating Clyde 5-0 in the opening home fixture of the new campaign, all eleven Celts wearing the number 8 on their shorts, young Brian McLaughlin was stretchered off following a brutal challenge by Shawfield defender Willie McVie.
I remember the excitement of two years earlier, when Jock Stein, using one of his famous marketing ploys, had tempted me and thousands of others along to Celtic Park to watch a League Cup tie with Clydebank with the promise that we would be watching his latest wonderkid, the 16-year-old Brian McLaughlin.
By early 1973 he had fought his way into the first team, viewed as the ‘new Dalglish’ before fate and McVie took a hand. Although, he returned briefly to the first team more than a year later, he would never be the same player, eventually leaving for Ayr United after just twelve starts and two goals in six years in November 1977, a deal which ironically brought Joe Filippi to Parkhead to replace Danny McGrain, after the Celtic skipper had suffered his own horrendous injury.
In later years, Brian was a storekeeper at ScottishPower in Falkirk, thus a work colleague of mine, although sadly our paths never crossed. He should have been celebrating his 65th birthday this week. Instead, tragically, he was found dead in a nearby canal in August 2009, aged just 54, his Celtic dream long since crushed. Only McVie will know what was on his mind when he lunged at Brian that day. I know that, rightly or wrongly, I have never forgiven him for it. Rest in peace, Brian. You lived your dream, however briefly.
