I managed to get about 3 hours in bed before heading for school for the Higher Spanish exam which would start at 10.00am. As I walked along Muiryhall Street someone noticed me and almost immediately scores of pupils were waving to me from the window. The conquering hero had returned!

At lunchtime I went as usual to the little shop across from the school to get some lunch. It was packed with pupils treating themselves to traditional West of Scotland nourishment – iced gingerbread, cream cookies washed down with Irn Bru. Everyone wanted to talk to me and see if I had a spare programme for them.

Even the usual lunchtime kick about was delayed as the guys were more interested in talking to me about Lisbon than play football. Of course I also was interested in hearing how they had watched the game. Hugh Dowdalls had watched at home and then gone to the rearranged Corpus Christi Mass in his parish in Caldercruix. As he arrived at the church he could hear the organist tuning up with “The Merry Ploughboy” Mick Boyle, who rarely missed a Celtic game, said to me…

“You are lucky, we all saw the game on the tele but when you are an old man you will be able to say – I was there”.

The afternoon exam session was tackled and then it was home for Friday fish and chips before getting the bus to Paradise. There was a huge crowd around and inside the stadium including all the usual mob from the school. We stood at our usual spot singing but this time there was no game on the field.

On this occasion the team came out of the tunnel in club blazers and carrying the European Cup! They climbed aboard a lorry which had been decorated with green and white bunting and were led around the park by the Coatbridge Shamrock Accordion Band some of whom would have been travellers on the Phil Coles buses we had used that season.

As the team disappeared back up the tunnel we headed into the city centre along with thousands of others. I had been used to big crowds but that night was something different altogether. We headed along the Gallowgate in a throng about 20 or 30 wide and thousands long. Traffic was at a standstill. People not in the crowd waved and cheered on the pavement, in pub doorways and out of tenement windows.

70 or so years earlier these streets would have been filled with our forebears celebrating Celtic’s first ever Cup win.

I was carrying a copy of the “Il Giorno” newspaper I had bought in Lisbon with a colour photo of Celtic on the front. Every so often someone would notice it and ask if I had been there and what it had been like. The rumour was that the team were going to the City Chambers so we continued our march to George Square. However we soon discovered that this was not the case and the crowd began to disperse. For me it had been a long couple of days with not much sleep. All day I could still feel the imprint of the tammy I had worn in Lisbon on my head. I decided that a good night’s sleep was the best way for me to continue the celebrations.

However there was no time for a lie in the next morning. The first phone call was from my cousin John Monaghan. He was a regular attender at Celtic’s games but had recently started a new job and could not get time off to go to Lisbon. He had made do with watching in a pub that he said had been “jumping” but he wanted to hear first-hand from someone who had been there. Several more phone calls of a similar nature followed throughout the morning. I had never been so popular.

Sunday 28 May was the 79th anniversary of Celtic’s first game. It was also my 17th Birthday. By this time all my grandparents were dead but we still made regular Sunday visits to the ancestral homes (a council house and a prefab) to visit the relations still there. At my father’s old home things were generally subdued but even Aunt Kitty saw the benefit of Celtic’s win to our community.

Uncle John was there, proud as punch. His son, my cousin Johnny, had managed to get to Lisbon too so the Maher family had been well represented. His other son, Michael, had not been able to go. I thought that as he was studying at the Scots College seminary in Valladolid he would have found it easy to get to Portugal but apparently not all members of the clergy had enthusiasm for Celtic. His rector refused any of the seminarians leave to go to the game.

Round at my mother’s side things were as usual more noisy. Everyone reflecting in the glory that the win had brought to our own family and our community. And of course I had been their representative there. My Aunt Mary was particularly proud. She was my godmother and 2 years earlier for my 15th Birthday she had bought me a new Celtic Scarf. Previously I had worn a simple woollen green and white bar scarf. Her gift was bigger, more ornate and had Celtic motifs on it. It had been worn at all of Celtic’s triumphs in the last 2 seasons and now it had been to Lisbon!