On 14 August 1971 Celtic played their home tie in the League Cup against Rangers at Ibrox, due to the work that was being done to the Main Stand at Celtic Park.
The change of venue was irrelevant really as Celtic ran out comfortable 2-0 winners, with the goals coming from Jimmy Johnstone and Kenny Dalglish.
The League Cup started in sections in those days, pretty much like the Champions league format that ended at the end of last season. That meant that Celtic had to return to Ibrox shortly afterwards for the ‘away’ leg and that obviously gave the old Ibrox club a chance for some quick-fire revenge.
So on 28 August 1971 Celtic went back to Ibrox looking to repeat the trick from a fortnight before and Jock Stein’s impressive side actually went one better by coming away with a thumping 3-0 win with the goals all coming in the second half, from Kenny Dalglish, Tommy Callaghan and Bobby Lennox.
Then on this day – 11 September – in 1971 Celtic went back to Ibrox, this time on league duties looking for two points and also for a history making third consecutive win at Ibrox in a month!
There’s a match report clipping on The Celtic Wiki, that doesn’t show which newspaper it came from, but it does a great job in outlining what happened. Here’s what was written:
History was made on a sunlit afternoon on this day in 1971 when a Celtic team visited Ibrox for third time in a month – and scored a third magnificent victory. The cold details of facts and figures will enter the record books but no Celtic fan who was privileged to witness the trilogy of triumphs will ever forget it.
The final victory was not an easy one – far from it. Rangers had far too much to lose. Their League Cup chance had gone. The traditionally great club had been humiliated by two defeats within a fortnight on their home ground.
Now was the chance to restore lost prestige, boost morale and grab a head start in league against their old rivals. And Rangers fought – they fought magnificently. Every man jack played his heart out that day. They tackled like trojans and they fought for every ball in a last despairing effort to end the Celtic hoodoo. All in vain.
Again young men like Dalglish and Macari proved their ability and Tom Callaghan and wee Jimmy Johnstone set the seal in victory.
Dalglish and Macari scored and in a white-hot climax with the score at 2-2, Jimmy Johnstone rose high above the heads of every Ibrox defender to score the winner for Celtic.
Here’s that report…
And here are the match highlights…
Incidentally there are no reports of Rangers fans, despite being angry and bitterly disappointed in their team losing three times inside a month to Celtic on their own patch, demanding a reduction in the away allocation for Celtic supporters. The attendance was 67,000 that day.
The real spoilt brats are the current generation of Ibrox supporters who follow the latest club to play their home games over there if and when the stadium is available.
Anyone at these three games at Ibrox? We’d love to hear from you…
ON THIS DAY 11th SEPTEMBER 1971
Rangers 2-3 Celtic, League Division 1
Celtic’s third win at Ibrox within a 28 day period.
Celtic fans sing ‘They’ll be jumpin’ oot their windaes when we win !’
Goals – Macari , Dalglish (55), Johnstone (90) ☘️☘️☘️ pic.twitter.com/8eSiXHKH1R— Willie Collow (@CollowWillie) September 11, 2024
ON CELTIC SHORTS…Sky Pundits Sutton and Boyd make their Scottish Premiership title predictions
COMING SOON ON CELTIC STAR BOOKS…CELTIC IN THE THIRTIES, VOL 1&2 BY MATT CORR…
Who would have thought that Jinky’s goal would get ruled out for offside when it certainly wasn’t. Some things never change.
Yes I was one of those
Soldiers that was at all three games the headlines from the first game when Kenny Dalglish took the penalty to send Peter McCloy the was hilarious the caption on the photo was where are you of to Peter absolutely priceless