What the Papers Were Saying
‘The championship contenders, Celtic and Rangers, are both away today, both on tough assignments.
Celtic go to Easter Road for the second game in their vital 10-day spell which could bring them the league, the Scottish Cup and entry into the cup-winners’ tournament.
Today, its Hibs. On Tuesday, comes the second leg of the Liverpool tie. And, on Saturday, the cup final against the other half of the Old Firm.
Will there be any reaction after Thursday’s efforts in the first leg against Liverpool? Will big John Hughes return to the Parkhead side?
These are the questions to be answered at Easter Road. Hughes is fit and will be considered. There are no fresh casualties.
It looks odds-on for John to return and play at Liverpool, too.
As for reaction, this hasn’t bothered Celtic previously this season. Every game they play now carries stress and strain’.
A Conflict of Interests
My Dad had been a major influence in getting me interested in sport from an early age and had always been there to encourage me all the way though childhood and adolescence. In his job, he worked on a Saturday so was forced to miss out the matches on that day but he was always there to see the midweek ones. He was very pleased that I had signed for Celtic and was keen to see me do well but when it came to clashes between the green-and-whites of Glasgow and Edinburgh, he did have a decided problem. Dad, you see, brought up in Great Junction Street in Leith, was a Hibbie!
I was not playing in the match on that particular Saturday but before he left for work, he shouted his usual cheers up the stairs to where I was still lying in bed, “Hope it goes well today…go easy on them!”
The Morning of the Match
The atmosphere in the camp that morning was very positive. Many people might have been worried about only having a one-goal lead to take down to Merseyside but no one in the squad made reference to it; in fact, most thought that a match against Hibs was the ideal one to be sandwiched in between European ties.
Hibs teams in those years – and before – always tried to play football. There might have been times when they should have ‘tucked-in’ and played it a bit tight but they seldom did, an attitude which pleased the neutral but must have been frustrating for their fans.
Anyway, from the moment we all arrived at Celtic Park in the morning, on the bus trip to the Norton Hotel for the pre-match meal and then the trip to Easter Road on the other side of the Capital, the whole squad exuded a very positive air and the Boss realised that no boost in confidence was required and used his team talk to merely go over the way he expected the team to play.
The Team
With John Hughes coming back, the Boss re-jigged the forward line, so the team was –
Simpson, Young, Gemmell, Murdoch, McNeill, Clark, Johnstone, Lennox, McBride, Auld and Hughes.
Hibs brought Pat Quinn back and switched Colin Stein to inside-right – Allan, Duncan, Davis, Stanton, McNamee, Cousin, Cormack, Stein, Scott, Quinn and Stevenson.
The Play
In the morning of the match, Easter Road had been covered with a little layer of snow which the ground-staff managed to clear before the kick-off. But seated in the stand, it was still bitterly cold and I was very grateful that I had stuck a scarf in my pocked before leaving the house that morning.
In those days, the Easter Road pitch had a decided slope on it and if Hibs won the toss, they would kick uphill in the first half and downhill in the second. That was exactly what happened on that afternoon but, my goodness, did we give the home side a shock right from the kick-off.
The first ten minutes or so was the most amazing start to a match I had ever seen, The ball was scarcely out of the Hibs half and Celtic won corner after corner; I read in the papers the next day that they had won 8 corners during that time. Unfortunately, we did not score and one former Celt – John McNamee at centre-half – and one future Celt – Pat Stanton, in the middle of the park – worked hard to keep their team in the game.
Before half-time, the crowd of some 24,000 had seen several chances scorned by Celtic plus a couple of opportunities for Hibs and as usually happens, the team which had been the under-dog in the first-half comes out with a different attitude in the second.
Hibs lived up to that expectation and the play suddenly was about 50/50 but although there were further chances at both ends, the elusive goal just refused to arrive.
A headline in one report the next day read ;-
A Late Wing Switch By Celts
but although that did happen, wee Jimmy and Yogi switching over, it did not yield any great dividends and at the end of 90 minutes, the match was still goalless.
The Table
Rangers had beaten Morton 5-0, so these results made the league table look like this;
| P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts | |
| Celtic | 31 | 24 | 3 | 4 | 101 | 29 | 51 |
| Rangers | 31 | 22 | 5 | 4 | 83 | 27 | 49 |
| Kilmarnock | 32 | 19 | 4 | 9 | 71 | 45 | 42 |
| Dundee United | 31 | 19 | 3 | 9 | 75 | 46 | 41 |
| Dunfermline | 30 | 17 | 6 | 7 | 84 | 49 | 40 |
A Game from the Past….and a Moment to Remember
Sponsored by the Jim Craig CSC
A Game from the Past……..Celtic signed inside-forward Jimmy Drummond from Bellshill on 23rd May 1901 and he first played for the Stripes ( and scored) against Hibs in the 1st Round of the Glasgow Exhibition Cup on 21st August 1901.
And a Moment to Remember…..Jimmy’s league debut came against Morton down in Greenock on 24th August 1901 when Celtic won 2-1 and he then appeared in the final of the Exhibition Cup against Rangers, which Celtic lost. Happily, of course, they were able to win the trophy back the following year.
Jimmy made 4 appearances in total for Celtic during that one season of 1901/02 before moving south to Manchester City – along with Willie McOustra – for a combined fee of £600.
Lions A-Plenty
The Marquis of Bath, in conjunction with Jimmy Chipperfield, opened Longleat Safari Park, with the ‘Lions of Longleat’ at his Longleat House, the first drive-through park outside Africa.
Lucky Boys
Two boys, aged 12 and 13, who ran away from their homes in Fayetteville, North Carolina, sneaked on to a railroad car and then found themselves locked inside for the next 13 days. The sealed car was carrying a cargo of nearly empty beer bottles to the Schlitz Brewing Company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. For nearly two weeks, the boys survived by drinking small amounts of beer, until the train arrived at the depot and workers heard their cries for help.
More Deaths
An American military spokesman reported that there had already been 1,361 US personnel killed in the Vietnam as of 9 April this year, compared to the 1,342 who died during the whole of 1965.