3. BACKS TO THE WALL
13 April 1918 was the day that it all ended for Celtic, and it almost all ended for the British Empire as well. The German Ludendorff Offensive had been launched a month before and was clearly succeeding with a breakthrough to the Channel looking likely. Sir Douglas Haig had issued his “backs to the wall” order on the Thursday, and by the Saturday wild rumours were sweeping Glasgow about a British surrender.
But Celtic, League Champions for the past four years, had the visit of the quickly improving Motherwell to deal with at Parkhead for their last League game of the season, while Rangers had the less than impressive Clyde at Ibrox. Both teams were level on points, and if both teams had won, there would probably have been a play-off as there had been in 1905.
Without being in any way too impressive, Rangers beat Clyde 2-1 but Celtic were held to a draw. Patsy Gallacher scored half way through the second half, but then Motherwell took advantage of shoddy defending from the makeshift Celtic half-back line to equalise just on half-time.
The second half was one of constant Celtic attack as Patsy Gallacher (“the most talked about man in the trenches”) and Jimmy “Napoleon” McMenemy inspired Celtic – but they simply could not score as Motherwell’s defence of Rundell, Robertson and McSkimming; McIntosh, Finlayson and Stewart held out “with their backs to the wall” as a Sunday paper put it.
Rangers thus won the League (they had invested a considerable amount of money to hire “guest” players all through the season), and 30,000 frustrated Celtic fans left Parkhead to face what seemed like an uncertain future. It wasn’t all that bad, though, for before the end of the season, they won the War Shield Fund trophy and the Glasgow Charity Cup – and of course, the British Army with considerable help from the French and (decisively) the Americans eventually held the line and turned the tide.
4. THE THOMSON PILGRIMS
Most people know that 5 September 1931 was Celtic’s saddest day when goalkeeper John Thomson was accidentally killed at Ibrox. Fewer are aware of the hundreds of Celtic supporters who walked from Glasgow to attend his funeral at Cardenden on Wednesday 9 September. They had little option because this was 1931 and the depth of the depression. Eighty years later in early September 2011 an intrepid group of about 50 supporters performed the walk to commemorate this occasion.
5. THE POWDER MONKEY
Peter Somers has been grossly undervalued by Celtic historians, although never by his team mates nor his manager Willie Maley who was quite happy to describe him as “the powder monkey”.
The image was a good one, for a “powder monkey” was usually a small man (so that he could even crawl inside a cannon to pack the ammunition in, if necessary) who would load the cannons in the British Navy. Somers was small, but it was he who supplied the ammunition for Jimmy Quinn in that mighty side of the Edwardian era.
So too did Jimmy McMenemy, but as “Napoleon” lasted longer, more has been written about him, and the crucial role of Peter Somers has tended to be neglected or underplayed. Like a great many early Celts, Peter died young aged 36 in November 1914, but he remains immortal nevertheless.
