‘Parkhead erupted as it had never done so before,’ David Potter’s 7 Magnificently Random Celtic Stories

ANOTHER Seven Magnificently Random Celtic Stories from club Historian David Potter this morning…

1. TOMMY SINCLAIR – CELTIC’S RANGERS GOALIE

A case could be made out for arguing that Celtic best ever goalkeeper was not John Thomson, Charlie Shaw or Ronnie Simpson but Tommy Sinclair in that 88% of his games for Celtic were shut-outs and in the one game that he played that was not a shut-out, he won a medal! Not only that, but he was actually a Rangers player on loan at the time!

These remarkable events occurred at the start of the 1906/07 season when Celtic’s goalkeeper Davie Adams cut his hand badly on a nail sticking out of a goalpost at Ibrox during a benefit match for a Rangers player.

Rangers were upset about this and Manager William Wilton (being the nice man that he was) offered his friend Willie Maley the services of their reserve goalkeeper Tommy Sinclair until Adams’ hand healed up. Sinclair was very happy about this for it gave him first team football and he was in any case a good friend of Alec Bennett and Jimmy McMenemy with whom he had played at Rutherglen Glencairn.

Tommy duly played the first nine games of the 1906/07 season. In truth he had little to do other than watch Jimmy Quinn score fourteen goals at the other end, for Celtic had a superb side winning their first six League games and reaching the Glasgow Cup Final without losing a goal, with Sinclair dealing superbly with whatever came his way.

But in the Glasgow Cup Final on 6 October 1906, although Celtic won, two goals were conceded to the chagrin of the likeable Tommy who was however much mollified by the award of a medal. That game was also the first game that season in which Jimmy Quinn had NOT scored for Celtic, so presumably the great Crojan was equally upset.

Davie Adams returned the following week, and Tommy was on his reluctant way back to Ibrox where he once again failed to get a first team place. Near the end of the season, he was transferred to Newcastle United for whom he played a few games in their triumphant capture of the English League Championship. Tommy could therefore feel that he contributed to the winning of the League Championship in both countries! And of course, he had a Glasgow Cup medal as well!

2. WINNING THE LEAGUE FOR RANGERS

Saturday 18 April 1959 saw Glasgow in a strange state of puzzlement. Rangers lost 1-2 to Aberdeen at Ibrox, and Celtic beat Hearts 2-1 at Parkhead. Such a combination of results would normally bring great joy for Celtic and dark despair for Rangers, but the problem here was that Celtic’s victory gave Rangers the League Championship!

Both games followed remarkably parallel paths – Rangers and Hearts were both one up at half-time (Rangers would have won the Championship if these results had stayed unaltered) but then both Aberdeen and Celtic scored twice each, Celtic’s goals coming from a deft flick by Bertie Auld and then a diving header from Eric Smith.

This meant that although Rangers lost to Aberdeen and were duly booed off the park (deservedly so, according to the Press) they had won the League thanks to Celtic. Rangers and Celtic fans alike did not know whether to laugh or to cry!

3. TEN MEN WON THE LEAGUE

Celtic have won the Scottish League on many occasions often with a degree of excitement, but never surely in more dramatic circumstances than those of Monday 21 May 1979 at a packed Parkhead. This game had originally been scheduled for the New Year but had fallen victim like so many games that bad winter to the weather.

It was Celtic’s last game of the season, and they had to win it, otherwise the title would be likely to go to Ibrox. Rangers were 1-0 up at half-time and then early in the second half Johnny Doyle was sent off by referee Eddie Pringle for foolishly aiming a kick at a Rangers player lying on the ground. Oh dear!

A victory seemed so unlikely but Celtic’s ten roared into action galvanised by Roy Aitken. Aitken himself scored in a goalmouth scramble, then George McCluskey put Celtic 2-1 up – only for Rangers to equalize. But this Celtic team did not know how to lose, and within the last ten minutes persuaded Rangers’ Colin Jackson to score an own goal. With time running out, Murdo MacLeod decided to try for goal from an impossible angle and distance, reckoning that the ball would at least go into the Celtic End and use up valuable seconds. But he scored! And Parkhead erupted as it had never done so before.

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…