The Celtic Rising: The League Cup final on this day in 1965…
Part 3: Winners and losers
The full-time whistle came, the Cup was presented amidst great scenes of joy, and Celtic set off on their half-lap of honour to show the beautiful three-handled trophy to their own fans.
It did not go down well among the “thickos” at the Mount Florida end and some managed to get on to the pitch. No real damage was done, although both trainer Neil Mochan and Ian Young were manhandled, and the real heroes of it all were the Celtic supporters who did not retaliate.
It was possibly just as well that superbly fit athletes like John Hughes and Tommy Gemmell did not turn on the undernourished youths of Govan and Larkhall. What a mess they would have made of them!
Breathtakingly, some newspapers managed to say that it was Celtic to blame for it all because of their “provocative” lap of honour (cheerfully ignoring all the times that Rangers had held a lap of honour!) and the upshot was that such laps of honour were banned for several years, something that punished Celtic almost exclusively!
The Celtic View wrote eloquently in Celtic’s favour and managed to remind readers of the night of the 7-1 victory in 1957 and how the BBC had managed to lose its pictures of the game! It had nothing to do with 1965, of course, but it kept the pot stirring!
To be honest, the BBC had been one of those who had indeed played down, even eschewed, the disorder at the end, and had stressed what a poor, disappointing game it had been. The bottom line, however, had been that Celtic had now won the Scottish League Cup for the third time.
Indeed, The Celtic View enjoys itself this week. Reluctant to let a good story go, it gives a couple of precedents about League Cup semi-final venues being changed when it came to a replay. It features Billy McPhail, the hat trick hero of the 7-1 game, has a picture of some Rangers players playing in Celtic shirts in a benefit game, and has a story about Davie McLean who played for Celtic in the 1900s (indeed Davie had attended the game on Saturday with his brother George) but fails to mention that Davie also played for Rangers!
That was, of course, by way of a sideshow. The important thing was that Celtic had won the Scottish League Cup and had shown to the world that they were no longer going to lie down to Rangers as they had done so often, so abjectly and so abysmally in the past.
The anonymous writer of The Times, in an excellently restrained and thoughtful piece of writing, puts things very well when he sums it all up perspicaciously by saying, “They (Celtic) are moving into a new era of success.” No-one knew just how successful we were going to be, but everyone agrees that things might have been different, if we had not beaten Rangers in this final which was low on skill, but high on significance for the future.
And Rangers and their fans knew it! It was my misfortune that evening to be “caught behind enemy lines” as it were, “cut off from my unit” and to be travelling back into Glasgow Central from Mount Florida Station rather than King’s Park. My fellow travellers were downcast and even a little angry with the turn of events.
I had my Celtic scarf crunched into my pocket and lived in fear of it being exposed as the others in the crammed carriage moaned, swore and blamed it all on a man who lived in the Vatican in Italy, whereas I knew perfectly well that it was a man who came from the Lanarkshire coal mines and started playing for Albion Rovers who was the cause of it all. I didn’t feel like telling them that, though! Oh, what an uncomfortable journey it was, and how glad I was to see Central Station with all the women laden with their shopping, bearded students, and above all else, policemen!
I was aware that two men on that train kept looking at me. One of them insisted on talking to me and asking me what I felt about the game while I confined myself, contrary and alien to my nature, to saying things like “Aye” and “That’s richt,” nodding sagely and continuing to employ my theatrical skills in trying to look unhappy.
It was the other man who accosted me once I had left the train and was walking through the huge (and safe) concourse of Glasgow Central Station. “You’re a Celtic supporter,” he said, pointing a finger at me. As bravely as possible, I said, “Whit maks ye think that?” “Because Ah’m one tae!” was the reply as he took his green and white scarf from his pocket. “Ye can always tell!” We laughed with relief and joy, and after that, I more or less flew home on a cloud of happiness!
And so once again, we had a trophy! Two in 1965 or three if you counted the Glasgow Cup! Happy days were indeed here again! And everyone now knew that Stein’s Celtic were going places, and we simply could not wait for Wednesday night and Dens Park to play the game that should have been played on League Cup final day.
And once again, we had a Monday morning on which we could look forward to going to work and to school. And slowly, slowly, we now began to see the waverers and the neutrals (if there are such things in Scottish football) beginning to side with Celtic in arguments. No-one could now dismiss the Scottish Cup final triumph in April as a temporary blip. Celtic’s return was permanent and real.
David Potter
An extract from The Celtic Rising, the new blockbuster from David Potter which covers the events of 1965, the year Jock Stein changed everything. The book is out this week and all advance orders will be posted on Thursday and will have been personally signed by the author. Order details are below…
Next Up – Part 3: Winners and Losers…
