Mike Maher on the long Road to Lisbon – Billy McNeill lifts the European Cup and I was there

A couple of weeks later Celtic beat Real Madrid 1-0 in the Bernabeau stadium. It was only a testimonial but in some ways it was as important as Lisbon. Real Madrid had been the team who had opened so many Scottish eyes to the beauty of football. They were still regarded as the world glamour side. And now they had been beaten in their own backyard by the Champions of Europe.

My cousin- Michael Maher – had managed to get to that game. When the first Michael Maher had arrived in Scotland 66 years earlier Celtic Football Club was only 13 years old and at that time seen as part of the Irish immigrant community. That community had now become more established in Scottish society as had the club. Nevertheless our roots were still there and my grandfather would no doubt have enjoyed that his name bearing grandsons were there to see the moments the Club that had represented that community was now the greatest in Europe.

As I look back from a distance of over 50 years and 18000 kilometres I sometimes wonder if I really did go to Lisbon and many other venues following the Bhoys all those years ago. (the last time I saw Michael Sherry and Neil Houston was in that bar in Lisbon. And after Alex Owens dropped me home after our return I never saw him again).

It might be a cliché but things were different then. The trip to Lisbon whetted my appetite for more travel and over the next seven seasons I got to all but a couple of Celtic games in Scotland and another half a dozen European Cup trips. That was before Ryan Air and Jet Star and the days of cheap flights. I did manage to organise a couple of trips myself but mostly I relied on Jim & Kathleen McGinley at Holiday Enterprises to make the arrangements.

We travelled by charter plane and generally stayed at (to me anyway) top class hotels. From being innocents abroad in 1967 soon we were seasoned, sophisticated jet setters (that may be a slight exaggeration!) For most away games in Europe Celtic would have not much more than a plane load of fans and I got to meet some of the regular travellers who were real Celtic men (and women). On one trip to play Vejle in Denmark we even had to stay in the team hotel as it was the only one of any size in the town. Someone remarked it was like playing a European Cup match in Airdrie.

And yet there came a time when I got a bit fed up talking about Lisbon. That was in the late 1980’s, early 1990’s.

My reason was not boredom or not recognising the magnitude of what we had achieved in 1967. It was that I was by now talking about our only European Cup success rather than our first one. We should have achieved more. It still hurts that we went out at the first hurdle the following season. We were just a bit to overconfident before the opening game V Dynamo Kiev and lost 2-1. If we had got past that game we certainly had the players capable of retaining the trophy.

Over confidence probably was our downfall in 1970 too. In hindsight I wish we had drawn anyone but Leeds in the semis, much as I enjoyed the atmosphere and results of both those famous games. Leeds were such favourites for the trophy that when we beat them a lot of people though the hard bit had already been done. With the incentive of Leeds in the final we would have still been up for the semis. Good as Feyenoord were and bad as we were on the night it still took them to almost the end of extra time to beat us. Over 2 legs we would have mastered them.

Dixie’s penalty miss against Inter in 1972 meant we would not be having a trip to Wembley to face Ajax. Good as Cruyff’s team was, with what would have been a huge support behind us we could have taken the trophy.

When Kenny Dalglish left in 1977 I realised in my heart that our days as a genuine competitor in Europe were on the wane. Hopes were briefly revived in 1982. As I came back from Amsterdam with Biff and the rest of the lads from Heraghtys after eliminating Ajax we felt we could look forward to more big European nights again. Billy McNeill was manager. We had players like Pat Bonner, Roy Aitken, and Paul McStay in key positions. And we had Charlie Nicholas up front. What potential.