1937 – Celtic 2-1 Aberdeen
Images of old football games can often show colossal crowds in comparison with the modern era. Even Celtic Park’s 60,000 capacity is dwarfed by the attendances of old.
The biggest of these came in 1937. On that occasion, Celtic met Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup Final. It was a tight match; the Hoops took the lead on 11 minutes thanks to Johnny Crum, but the Dons equalised within a minute. It took until the 72nd minute for Willie Buchan to score the game’s final goal to give Celtic the win.
Willie Buchan and Johnny Crum. Image The Celtic Star
As exciting as the game had been, the most memorable part was the numbers that turned out. Officially, 147,365 fans crammed onto Hampden’s slopes, which is the largest ever crowd for a match played in Europe.
Strangely, less than a week after Scottish Cup victory, Celtic suffered their all-time record defeat when they lost 8-0 to Motherwell in the final league game of the season.
Interestingly, Celtic and Hampden Park also hold the attendance record for a UEFA club competition. In 1970, the Hoops beat Leeds United in the European Cup semi-finals. The Glasgow game was played at Hampden, with an official crowd of 136,505, although it is believed that thousands more sneaked in.
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