August 1967 marked the beginning of Willie Wallace’s first full season in the hoops of Celtic. The striker marked it appropriately on the evening of Tuesday 22nd with his first hat-trick for the club, debutant Pat McMahon from Willie’s old stomping ground in Kilsyth notching the other two goals as Celts beat Partick Thistle 5-0 in the first round of the Glasgow Cup.
Pat McMahon scores for Celtic as hat-trick hero Willie Wallace watches on
Full-back Chris Shevlane had also made his first appearance for the Bhoys that evening, having been a teammate of Wallace’s at Tynecastle for several years before that. Shevlane would eventually move back to Edinburgh to sign for Hearts big rivals, joining Hibernian in May 1968.
Another extremely tough League Cup section saw Celts in with Rangers, beaten Cup-finalists Aberdeen and Dundee United, who had inflicted two of the team’s only three defeats in the whole of the previous season, the 1-0 loss in Novi Sad making up that set.
The Tannadice side would be dispatched home and away by that same 1-0 scoreline this time around, with a draw at Ibrox the only point dropped in the six fixtures. The key moment in the qualifying phase came at Celtic Park on Wednesday, 30 August 1967. Rangers were leading by an early Willie Henderson strike with 15 minutes remaining, when the same player went down following a challenge from John Clark.
Willie Henderson gave Rangers an early lead
Referee Tom ‘Tiny’ Wharton pointed to the spot and up stepped Kai Johansen to win the match and the group for the Ibrox side. Rangers’ Danish full-back had scored the late winner which had won the Scottish Cup Final replay the previous spring, his shot flashing past Ronnie Simpson after a goalless draw on the Saturday, however, this would not be his night.
His spot-kick rebounded from Simpson’s crossbar back to him, and as 75,000 supporters collectively held their breath, instinctively the Dane played the ball a second time, so giving away an indirect free-kick. Celtic raced up the pitch and Willie Wallace compounded Johansen’s error by equalising for the Bhoys. The Hoops then stepped up another gear to add further goals from Bobby Murdoch and Bobby Lennox, to win 3-1 and thus take the section.
September would contain both highs and lows for Celtic, Willie netting a double against South American outfit Penarol at Celtic Park on the first Tuesday, to give the Hoops a 2-0 win in front of 56,000 spectators. The Uruguayans had won the Copa Libertadores, then succeeded Inter Milan as World Club Champions in 1966, beating their European equivalents, Real Madrid, in both legs by the same 2-0 scoreline.
Just the week before the game in Glasgow, their South American crown had passed to Argentina’s Racing Club de Avellaneda, following a play-off victory over Penarol’s main rivals Nacional in Santiago. Both Penarol and Nacional were based in the capital city, Montevideo. Celts would face Racing Club imminently and Montevideo would, unfortunately, become very relevant. More, or perhaps less, on that to follow shortly.
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