This one perhaps fell under the radar at the end of last week, so it’s well worth a catch-up as Matt Corr, with the valuable assistance of Celtic historian Pat Woods, provides us with a fascinating insight into the groundwork from Jock Stein – carried out before he was appointed as manager of Celtic – that led to that glorious triumph against Inter Milan in the European Cup Final in Lisbon on 25 May 1967.
Catch up here before continuing if you’ve missed these brilliant Celtic articles…highly recommended, high quality Celtic content right here…
PART ONE…Matt Corr with Pat Woods: When Jock Stein met Helenio Herrera – The Invitation
Enjoyed that? Then read part two which is even better!
PART TWO…When Jock Stein met Helenio Herrera. Part Two: The Meeting
And then onto Part Three and that’s you caught up…
PART THREE…When Jock Stein met Helenio Herrera – Meanwhile, Back in Scotland
When Jock Stein met Helenio Herrera – How our protagonists fared…
So how did our main protagonists fare in the years following their meeting of November 1963. Let’s do this in reverse order, starting with Willie Waddell before we move onto Helenio Herrera, and then it’s a case of saving the best for last with Jock Stein…
Willie Waddell
Waddell’s Kilmarnock would once again finish runners-up in the First Division of 1963/64, the fourth time in five seasons they had done so. They would also lose to Dundee in the semi-final of the Scottish Cup, however he would finally enjoy his day in the sun in April 1965, as Killie beat League leaders Hearts at Tynecastle on the final day of the season to clinch the title on goal average, by 0.04 of a goal!
Waddell would not hang around too long to enjoy that success, as by June he had left professional football to commence a career in journalism with – amongst others – our old friends at The Scottish Daily Express! He would return to football in 1969 when he replaced Davie White as Rangers manager, thus resuming his rivalry with Jock Stein, which had begun as a player back in the 1940s. The 1965 League flag would be his only such success as a manager and to this day is Kilmarnock’s only top-flight title win.
Waddell would have one crack at European football with Kilmarnock, in the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup of 1964/65. Killie recovered from a 3-0 first-leg defeat to former European Cup finalists Eintracht Frankfurt and the loss of an early goal in the return match to blast the Germans out of the tournament with a thrilling 5-1 win at Rugby Park.
They would fail to reproduce that form in the next round, losing both legs to Everton to exit the competition 6-1 on aggregate.
Next up is Helenio Herrera, so stay tuned before we concluded with Jock Stein!
Hail, Hail!
Matt Corr, with thanks to Pat Woods for provision of the original article and his insights on it.
