4. EIGHT GAMES IN TWELVE DAYS WINS THE LEAGUE
The dreadful events of the Hampden Riot of 1909 meant that the Scottish Cup was withheld. It is a shame that that momentous event tends to mean that less Celtic fans know about how the team won the Scottish League that season.
Beginning on the night of Monday 19 April, the very night that the SFA met to decide that there would be no replay of the Scottish Cup Final, Celtic played 8 games in 12 days to win the League, beating Hearts, Morton, Motherwell, Queen’s Park and Hamilton, drawing with Hamilton and Airdrie and losing only to Hibs. They played on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to earn enough points to win the Championship and pip Dundee who could only stand and watch in admiration and awe. With Sunny Jim, Jimmy McMenemy and Jimmy Quinn on board, no task was too much for Maley’s men!
The reason for playing so many fixtures in such a short time was that the season in those days finished rigidly at the end of April for reasons bound up with players’ wages and close-season tours. Celtic had had a few games postponed for reasons of bad weather and International fixtures and there had been a remarkable amount of replays in the Glasgow Cup in the autumn, and the Scottish Cup Final itself had of course used up two Saturdays.
Celtic were clearly not too exhausted after their efforts, for the day after they won the League by beating Hamilton at Douglas Park (the evening of 30 April), Celtic played a Charity Match in Aberdeen and then travelled to Fort William on Monday 3 May to play the North of Scotland in another game for Charity.
5. WILLIE O’NEILL
Willie O’Neill who died in 2011 was mainly a reserve, but a fine one. He is chiefly remembered for two things – one was his sudden elevation to play in the Scottish Cup final of 1961 after Jim Kennedy took appendicitis – a painful experience for Celtic, although O’Neill did not disgrace himself, and the other was the Scottish League Cup final of October 1966.
Fifteen minutes remained and Celtic were desperately hanging on to a 1-0 lead given them through a Lennox goal in the first half. Rangers’ Alex Smith was put through but he did not get a clean hit on the ball. It was however good enough to beat Ronnie Simpson and the ball was tricking agonisingly towards the goal line.
It was one of these times when time stands still and your whole life passed in front of you, particularly for the 50,000 of us standing behind that goal. Slowly, slowly it trickled goalwards.
It was going to be one of the softest goals of all time, but then out of nowhere appeared Willie O’Neill to turn it round the post for a corner. Ronnie Simpson patted him on the head, Billy McNeill said “Well done” and we all took a collective sigh of relief. The corner was dealt with, and Celtic held out for a 1-0 victory.
It was Willie’s moment of glory and the poetic among us said “Cometh the hour, cometh the man!” or as Scottish grannies would say “Ilka doggie has his day”.
6. FEAR OF FLYING
Jimmy Johnstone was afraid of flying. So indeed, to a greater or lesser extent are most people. It is something however that can be coped with. One takes a deep breath, grits one’s teeth, thinks positive thoughts and gets through it. The trouble with Jimmy however was that he was the greatest player in the world on his day, and therefore neurotic whingings tended to be taken more seriously even by the formidable Jock Stein.
On one famous occasion in November 1968, the situation was manipulated by both Jock and Jimmy to everyone’s advantage.
Celtic were playing Red Star Belgrade in the European Cup, the first leg being at Parkhead on 13 November. Jimmy was not keen on going to Belgrade a fortnight later, so Jock said that if Celtic were three goals or more to the good, he might not have to go. 67,000 were at Parkhead that night to see one of the best performances of Johnstone. He teamed up brilliantly with his friend Bobby Murdoch and scored two goals (one of them a magnificent solo effort) as Celtic won 5-1. He also had a hand in all the other three and ran off the field shouting “I’ll no need tae go!”. Indeed, he stayed at home for the second leg which Celtic drew comfortably.
On other occasions, Jimmy’s pleas to Jock were less successful with “You’ll get on that f***in’ plane like everybody else!” being the normal riposte. But Jock would detail the ever willing banter merchant Willie O’Neill to sit beside Jimmy and tell him dirty jokes to keep his mind off things. Jimmy would himself joke “I’m no feart o’ flying… just crashing!”. There is little doubt however that one of the reasons why Jimmy was ludicrously undercapped by Scotland was that he often found some excuse or other to dodge away fixtures.
7. PETER SCARFF
Tuberculosis has, thankfully, been more or less eradicated from the developed world at least. In the 1930s TB or consumption, as it was called, was a dreadful scourge, and this came home to Celtic when Peter Scarff, one of the heroes of the 1931 Scottish Cup Final (the forward line read R.Thomson, A.Thomson, McGrory, Scarff and Napier) coughed up blood one day after training in early 1932. Peter died at the Bridge of Weir Sanatorium in December 1933.
David Potter
There will be another Seven Magnificently Random Celtic Stories tomorrow on The Celtic Star…
