On the 25th May I was up at 6am and was soon in Alex Owens car heading for the airport. It was a lovely sunny morning – just perfect for the task that lay ahead. Our first stop was St Andrews Cathedral. It was the feast of Corpus Christi and a special early Mass had been arranged for those flying to Lisbon. Outside the church the non-Catholics waited while inside their mates said their prayers with special requests for any divine assistance that might be available for a favourable outcome in the Portugese capital.

Then off to the airport. Perhaps not unsurprisingly our flight was slightly delayed. The airport was very busy and probably most of the passengers were flying for the first time.

Holiday Enterprises were taking no chances. When we received our flight tickets we also received a tag to wear around our necks with a piece of string. This confirmed our flight number and what to do. It was similar to the children being evacuated during the war! This was a time before replica strips had been thought of so most people were formally dressed. Quite a lot of men even in suits – after all it was a special occasion.

I had my usual ‘lucky gear” – Celtic scarf, Celtic Tie and Tiepin and Celtic cuff links. On my head a woollen Celtic tammy. I had not given too much thought to the fact that Portugal might be warmer than Scotland but even if I had it would not have made any difference. This outfit had seen Celtic lift every trophy in Scotland. I was not changing my routine and risking bad luck at this stage of the season.

After a few hours we began our descent into Lisbon. I had a window seat so had a great view. What struck me the most was how bright everything seemed especially the roofs which were all a brilliant red. Just then I realised I had a problem. My ears were getting sore and I was struggling to hear. I explained this to Alex but his only words of sympathy were telling me to shut up and get out of the way so he could see out of the window. When we landed my ears were still sore and sounds were muffled. Now instead of thinking about the greatest day in Celtic’s history I was more worried that I was going deaf!

Then from somewhere I remembered about pinching your nostrils together and blowing. I did so and bang! I could hear again!

We were quickly through customs and on to our bus. Jim McGinley welcomed us aboard. He must have been exhausted already. Up until now such large numbers of ordinary football fans had never travelled so far. He had taken a chance in getting planes booked months ago but he knew that if Celtic did make the final then they would not lack support.

He advised us all that due to the later than anticipated arrival of some flights there would not be time to make the specially arranged Mass. However anyone who had not got to Mass would not have to worry. He assured us that the obligation to attend Mass did not apply when travelling between countries. So a knowledge of religious affairs was also an advantage to travel agents handling Celtic fans!

We did not have too much time to spend in the city as the kick off was set for 5.30pm and we were scheduled to get there about an hour before the start. Still even the relatively short time we had was revealing. To someone who had only seen cities and towns in Scotland it was breath-taking. Wide, clean streets and avenues with gardens in the middle of them. There were even flamingos in the park.

At one point we tried to cross a busy road much wider than anything we had experienced in Scotland. We were stopped by a policeman waving frantically from the other side and eventually we realised he was indicating an underpass for us to use. By now we were in need of some sustenance and we looked for a place to eat. We had no idea of foreign food (my mother had suggested bringing a few peeces for lunch!), so what should we do? Fortunately the local café owners seemed to have done their homework on the visitors from Scotland and soon we were sitting down to a large plate of chips washed down by a cold beer.

Then off to the game. At one point our bus stopped in a line of traffic outside some cafes. There was a knock on my window. It was Chic Doherty and the Viewpark boys, having a last refreshment before heading to the game. Our journey to the stadium took us out of the city to what seemed a more rural area. We could see people working in the fields as we passed.

We parked the bus and walked up to the ground. Very different from what we were used to in Scotland. Rather than being surrounded by houses it was set in the slopes of a wooded valley. There were no turnstiles as such. Just someone at a gate tearing a stub off your ticket. I handed mine over and was given the receipt part back. It had cost 10 shillings and meant I could sit anywhere on the terracings behind the goals.

I thought it was a curious stadium. It was of white stone and seemed more like a Roman or Greek amphitheatre we had seen in our school books. It was really just 3 sided with what looked like a temporary stand on the side where the entrance gates were. That stand seemed to host what Inter fans there were. The rest of the stadium had been taken over by the Celtic fans and the locals who all most certainly seemed to be cheering for the team from Glasgow.

We had only been in the ground a few minutes when we met Neil Houston and Michael Sherry (Shanzy), friends of ours from Baillieston who had hitchhiked all the way. Michael was wearing a long white coat, like the ones the guys at the dog tracks wear I thought. On it he had dabbed in green lettering – Celtic. This had helped to get lifts across France and Spain and I was quite envious as I listened to their tales of the fun they had had on the road.

However I was glad my return journey was more assured. We made our way to a spot on the terracing to the right of the entrance. Even the terracing was different from Scotland. The steps were bigger and further apart and designed for sitting on rather than standing. The atmosphere was different too. Different aromas and the smell of warmth. Although I was clad in jacket, shirt, tie and scarf I did not find it uncomfortably hot.

We were able to get refreshments from the vendors who wandered round the terracing selling beer which they carried in small crates packed with ice. This too was different from the Scottish terracing merchants with their spearmint chewing gum and macaroon bars. Or the guy I used to see walking through the Celtic End with a large cardboard box with cheese or gammon rolls. When he was making a sale he would put the box down on wet (with various substances) terracing steps. I had never been that hungry that I had made a purchase from him.

The Lisbon vendors seemed more appealing. At that stage I had only tried a few sips of beer. In those days the terraces had plenty of punters who would go to the game with a large carry out. McEwan’s Pale Ale or Tennents Lager seemed to be the most common beverages but I had never seen the point of drinking something that was so warm. Here, thanks to the ice, it was different and we were glad of the refreshment.

We had been in our spot for about 5 minutes when the Celtic team came out onto the park, in their club blazers to inspect the pitch. The cheers were tumultuous. Inter had virtually no support compared to us. About 40 minutes later Celtic reappeared. This time in their kit, side by side with the great players of Inter Milan. The greatest game in Celtic’s history was about to begin.

Although generally cautious I had great confidence in getting a win this day. Right from the kick off Celtic were in attack. We cheered but in their first attack Inter nearly scored, Ronnie Simpson having to scramble a header away. Then we were back at the other end looking for the opening goal. Instead it arrived at the other end. Jim Craig brought down Cappellini and the referee pointed to the penalty spot. There was a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. For the first time I now had some doubts about winning. When Mazzola scored the resultant penalty I was suddenly aware of the long journey back and the Spanish exam awaiting me.

However the dismay soon disappeared as we roared on the Celtic players in their incessant attacks on the Inter goal. Of course we all knew about “Cattenaccio” and how good Inter were at defending but I had never seen a Celtic team as energetic and forceful as on that day.

At half time we decided to walk round the ground so we would be behind the goals that Celtic would be attacking. That was something I had done on a few occasions at away games but never at Parkhead as my place in the Celtic Choir at the Celtic End was essential to the team’s performance. None of us were particularly expert in football tactics but the common agreement was that we should try and get a bit wider and set up a cut back for someone to come from midfield and have a crack.

And in 63 minutes that is exactly what happened. Jim Craig rolled the ball back to Big Tam and his shot from outside the box thundered into the net. We were ecstatic. We knew then this game was ours.

There were moments though when you did wonder. I was on my feet cheering a certain goal, only for Sarti to grasp the ball with one big hand on the line, and we were yelling for a penalty when the Inter keeper pulled the feet away from Willie Wallace.

When the winning goal did come however there was still a feeling of disbelief, at least on my part. When Tommy Gemmell had scored I was on my feet instantly, cheering and hugging anyone in my vicinity. When Stevie Chalmers poked home the second there were a few seconds of quiet. I felt almost as if I was in a dream and not part of the thousands celebrating beside me.

It reminded me a bit of the way I had felt at Hampden a couple of years earlier when Big Billy had scored the winner against Dunfermline. On that occasion I felt a sensation that was like lifting a curse, realising not just that we had won a trophy but that there were more to come. And now here in Lisbon I realised we were not just leading in a European Cup Final but that we could be as significant a European club as Inter Milan, Benfica, and Real Madrid.

Of course those moments of thought lasted only a few seconds and my semi-trance state was broken as bodies around me hugged and danced and I joined in.

We saw out the last 5 minutes or so without feeling any great concern and the final whistle blew to confirm our status as the Champions of Europe.

Immediately Alex, Neil & Shanzy with thousands of others were over the boundary wall and moat and onto the park. I hesitated. I recalled all the times when being taken to games as a boy by my father, by Peter Dickson’s father and uncle, and by John Fagan’s father – they always told us “You never run on the park”. Of course in previous years invading the field of play was seen in very negative terms, usually to get away from or be involved in some violence. This was very different. Nothing but genuine exuberance.

I did have another reason for not immediately going onto the park. Those memories of earlier times came flooding back. The people, friends and family, who had taken me to games as a youngster. My family who had had a love for Celtic for over 60 years. None of them were there but I was. My first game had been a not too surprising defeat to Third Lanark. Now little more than 6 years later they had gone defunct and we had won the European Cup.

My reverie only lasted a few seconds and I headed down towards the pitch to join my mates. As I got up on to the boundary wall I did not think the “moat” was too much of a challenge but a smiling Portuguese policeman with a gun “suggested” I stay where I was. I made my way round to the side of the pitch near the where the team benches were and tried to spot Alex and the others.

Just then I was suddenly aware of something happening away up on the other side of the stadium. I am not sure how it caught my eye. Most people on the pitch had not noticed anything up there. It was Big Billy getting presented with the Trophy. I had my cheap little Woolworths camera with me and took a snap. Unfortunately my camera was very unsophisticated with no zoom lens but it did mean I had my own photo of Cesar lifting up the European Cup.

A few minutes later Alex spotted me and came running over. Possibly he thought that being a year older he maybe had to do a bit of looking after me. “Here – something for you” he said and handed me a sod of the turf which went into my pocket and was eventually planted in a plant box at the front door of my parents’ house.

Neil and Shanzy had their sods too although I did wonder how they would look after them on the long walk home. They told Alex of a bar they had found the night before – it was like a British pub more than a Portuguese bar they said and we agreed to meet there later. Alex and I got on our bus for the journey back into the city. All along the route we were cheered by locals many of them waving green and white colours as we passed.

Then we were in a taxi with Alex trying to explain to the driver where we wanted to go. I was glad of Alex’s company. He seemed more assured of the situation than me. Even getting a taxi was foreign to me. My family would only have used a taxi for something like a wedding or a funeral.

The taxi trip was short and as we got out of the vehicle a bus went past with the sounds of the Celtic Song coming from it. As we glanced up at it we realised it was the team bus.

A few minutes later we were in a busy, noisy, jubilant bar. It was the first time I had been inside a pub. Someone, I am not sure who, thrust a pint of lager in my hand. After all the heat and excitement of the day it was the most enjoyable and refreshing drink I had tasted in my life. There was no singing in the pub, just excited chatter with everyone trying to tell everyone else how they felt.

I met an Australian guy who by chance had arrived in Lisbon earlier in the week as part of his big OE as the Aussies call it (Overseas Experience). He was amazed at the enthusiasm of so many people who had travelled so far to see their team. He had got completely caught up in the atmosphere in the city over the last few days and was celebrating as if he had come from Shettleston rather than Sydney.

At one table though sat a couple of guys looking subdued. It turned out their bus had broken down en route and the passengers had all had to scramble into whatever alternative transport they could to get to Lisbon. These two had actually got to the stadium a few minutes before the final whistle. So near and yet in a way so far. I did feel a few pangs of regret on their behalf. Soon it was time to head back to our bus for the airport and we said our goodbyes to the hitchhikers and all the other revellers.

The bus was surprisingly quiet. Some of that no doubt due to the fact that we were not like a normal Supporter bus where everyone knew each other. We were travelling in groups of 2 or 3 and had generally gone our way at the game and afterwards. However I suspected that the relative quiet was also a result of people taking in what we had just achieved.

The Portuguese bus driver seemed to think we should be making more noise and waved his microphone to try and encourage some singing. One lady did take up his offer and sang “Galway Bay”. Someone else at the back sang a bit of “Kevin Barry” – Neither of those songs are particularly raucous or celebratory but that did not spoil the feeling of quiet elation.

The flight was of course delayed and I spent some time at the airport in conversation with an older Portuguese gentleman who was eager to discuss football with us. We conversed in a mixture of broken English, Spanish and Portuguese and I discovered he had a reasonable knowledge of Scottish football including the “cultural” differences between Celtic and Rangers.

He signed the green and white ribbons on my flag and wrote “Celtique 2 Inter 1 25/05/67” beside it. He then put his name and address on the inside page of one of dozen or so programmes I had bought. It was well after midnight before we took off and it was almost 6am when I got home. 24 hours from leaving for the greatest day in my life.

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!

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.

By then I knew I was emigrating to New Zealand so I started a special bank account in order to have money to fly home if and when Celtic reached another European Cup Final. The account was closed about 10 years later.

I now realise that it is very unlikely Celtic will be Champions of Europe again but I am glad to say I feel a lot more comfortable celebrating Lisbon again. It has certainly given me pleasure and even some brief and very restricted fame over the years. Even in this remote part of the world.

Around the time of the 40th Anniversary I was asked to do a brief account of the occasion for a local Auckland radio station. Having been in Lisbon on that glorious day somehow seems to lift my status in the eyes of some people.

A few years ago I was still involved with the NZCSC football team. My own playing days were well over but I had the position of kit manager so I could still enjoy the dressing room banter. By then the makeup of the side was more mixed and not everyone was an ex- pat Scot or Irishman.

We had a young Kiwi lad, Brendan Boyce, from the Waikato who was playing with us while studying theology in Auckland. He knew of Celtic through his Irish grandfather. Unlike the majority of the team he was a quiet boy who only drank an occasional lager. At an end of season at a team do in the Claddagh Bar I was talking to a couple of lads at the bar when it was mentioned I had been in Lisbon.

Brendan, who had been sitting quietly a bit away from us heard this remark above the hubbub of pub noise and was on his feet and at the bar in a split second knocking past people in a most uncharacteristic fashion. “You were there?” he asked in an almost reverent tone. “Tell me what it was like”. He had heard stories of this great occasion and now was meeting someone who was there.

In May 2005 (in fact the Monday after “that” Sunday at Fir Park) my wife, Christine and I enrolled in an evening class. We thought we would expand our knowledge by getting out and learning Irish. Our tutor was Seamus Kenny a North Dublin man about the same age as myself and as I discovered from his saddened look that evening a bit of a Celtic fan. His teaching methods were not as orthodox as others and one class was held in the Clare Inn, a local pub where some of the staff spoke Irish. The idea was that we would spend the night conversing in Gaeilge.

After a couple of pints though the format changed to a more relaxed mix of English and Irish. Somehow we got onto dates. Everyone mentioned their “Kennedy moment’ of remembering where they were at a famous event in history. Seamus who by now knew I was a Celtic fan said he was sure I would remember the date 25 May 1967. “ Of course I do – I was in Lisbon” Again the reaction was startling – He got up out of his seat, mouth open, shook my hand to the amazement of the rest of the class to whom the date would have meant nothing and shouted over to the bar- “ get this man a pint!”

In my years in New Zealand I have met a few older Celtic fans who had emigrated down under decades before I did. For most of them the European Cup Final was simply a line in the New Zealand Herald Sports results that read Celtic 2 – Inter Milan 1. In early January 2017 I was at an 80th Birthday Party. The Birthday Bhoy was Tony McVey originally brought up like myself in Baillieston but had immigrated to New Zealand in the early 1950’s.

Despite the distance his children, and grandchildren are Celtic fans. He was lucky in that about six months after the actual game he and his family got a reel of film with highlights of the match on it. At that party I could simply say I was going to Lisbon in May and say no more as everyone knew what I was talking about.

Obviously my own children have realised the importance of Lisbon and all three of them have made the journey to Celtic Park (indeed my daughter Nichola has even been to Lisbon!) The boys, Stephen and Sean are regular watchers of Celtic games despite the time difference problems and know the names of the Lisbon Lions as well as they do present day players.

Over the years I have been fortunate enough to meet the majority of the Lions and I regularly contact a couple of them every time I am back in Scotland. For someone of my era one of the greatest thrills I had was in 2000 sitting in the home dressing room at Celtic Park one Thursday afternoon sharing tea and biscuits with Billy McNeill and John Clark and listening to their recollections of great European games. On another trip some years later I was accompanied by my youngest son Sean who was delighted to meet the first ever Scotsman to hold the European Cup and receive a special limited edition Lisbon Lions portrait signed by Cesar himself.

So every year when 25th May comes around I allow myself a few moments to recall all the feelings of that day now so long ago. And I remember those words of Mick Boyle about being an old man and being able to say “I was there!” The day I went off to Lisbon, in the green.

Mike Maher

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