7. AMAZING BUT TRUE
Surely no-one in world football has made his debut in more bizarre circumstances than Willie Goldie. Willie was one of the reserve team goalkeepers but, on 1 October 1960 wasn’t playing for anyone, so he decided to go along to see the first team playing at Airdrie.
So there he was standing waiting at a bus stop, green and white scarf tied round his neck, for the normal service bus to take him to Airdrie. Suddenly a bus stopped for him, but it wasn’t the service bus, it was the Celtic team bus!
Chairman Bob Kelly had seen him standing there and ordered the driver to stop and give him a lift. Slightly embarrassed Willie got on, greeted with cries of “Who’s this hooligan?” and “No bottle throwing to-day, Willie!”.
It got worse, for suddenly Bob Kelly decided that Willie was playing and poor John Fallon, the regular goalkeeper, was informed that he would be watching the game from the stand. Had this ploy succeeded, Bob Kelly would have been looked upon as a genius. As it was, Airdrie won 2-0, poor Willie had a bad game and never played for Celtic again!
David Potter
We’ll have another Seven Magnificently Random Celtic Stories from Celtic eminent historian David Potter tomorrow morning only on The Celtic Star.
CELTIC v RANGERS – THE BHOYS GREATEST VICTORIES
*David Potter’s latest book which I was delighted to receive a copy of earlier this week, is titled Celtic v Rangers – The Bhoys’ Greatest Victories. Having had a quick flick through it does exactly what it says on the cover. The Celtic historian has selected 50 notable and most enjoyable victories over the various clubs playing out of Ibrox and calling themselves Rangers.
There’s Jimmy Quinn’s hat-trick in 1904, the astonishing Scottish Cup semi-final skelping in 1925, the 7-1 League Cup final from 1957, the 4-0 Scottish Cup Final doing from 1969, the 6-2 ‘Demolition Derby’Game in 2000 and there are even victories over the new club established by ‘founding father’ Charles Green in 2012.
David I suppose accurately uses the O** F*** term, referring to the wins against the Ibrox club that died in 2012, so please don’t let that put you off. Book review to follow in a few days…
David’s new ‘feel good’ Celtic book is out now on Pitch Publishing and you can order via Amazon.
