15th August 1966
Jimmy Johnstone had received an ankle injury in the first 50 seconds of the match against Hearts and had come in Sunday for some treatment. By Monday, he was feeling much better.
After training, Jock Stein said
“the players did well on Saturday and I was pleased with their performance but I have a number of good players standing by and they will ALL be considered before the team is chosen for Wednesday”
From a personal point of view, I was very much hoping that the Boss meant what he said. Whether at right-back or centre-half, I felt I was playing well in the reserves but the reserve side was the second team and I was keen to get back into the first team.
At the same time, although I was training with the full-timers, I was also having to spend most of my time during the day at the Dental Hospital dealing with patients then spending the evenings and weekends studying, It was tough going and I was finding it difficult to juggle my time. And, as always happens at the time like that, everyone seems to want a bit of you and nobody else really appreciates just how hard it is to fit every aspect into a busy day.
16th August 1966
We had a reserve team match at Parkhead against Queen’s Park. As it was a ‘Combined Reserve League’ the management took the opportunity to give a game to a few ‘trialists’, players who usually were with junior clubs but who were given the chance to make their mark with a senior club – in this case Celtic. These ‘trialists’ were designated by a variety of names, depending on which club was involved.
It could be ‘trialist’ or ‘A N Other’ or ‘Junior’ or ‘Newman’; Celtic usually employed the latter two pseudonyms and there were a few of them in the side that night, so the team had an odd look about it on paper. It was;
John Kennedy, Jim Craig, John Halpin, Sammy Henderson, Frank McCarron, ‘Junior’, ‘Newman’, ‘Newman’, Jim Clarke, Tony Taylor, ‘Newman’
Tony Taylor in Crystal Palace colours
The game went well and we won 4-2, the goals coming from ‘Newman’ (outside-left) 2, ‘Newman’ (inside-right) and Jim Clarke.
Unfortunately, after all these years, I have no idea of the names of the trialists or whether any of them made the grade.
17th August 1966
In the Celtic View, the directors and management condemned the behaviour of the fans who caused so much damage to the special train from Edinburgh to Glasgow after the previous Saturday’s Hearts/Celtic match.
They made it quite clear that the good, well-behaved supporters of the club had no time for the miscreants and asserted that the club did not want them at any of Celtic’s matches.
Although I really could have done with spending the evening studying, I thought it would be a good idea to put in an appearance at Parkhead for this League Cup tie against Clyde. I was glad I did, as I was welcomed by both the players and the management, although one or two, who knew of my difficulties at that time in juggling the various aspects of my life, were surprised at seeing me.
I also knew a few of the Clyde players, whom I had played against while coming up through the ranks, particularly midfielder John McHugh. The Bully Wee had started the league Cup campaign with a good win over St Mirren and would definitely be up for the match. They also had a reputation for some tough tackling; so our guys would need to be up for the contest too!
Brass Neck
A man walked into the Post Office in Dalvait Road, Balloch today, snatched £50 and escaped in a car.
Good Money
The US Air Force paid the British Navy today the sum of £2,261,000 for fishing up the H-Bomb lost for 80 days off the Spanish coast in April – around £23,000 a day.
Billy On Top
Jack Nicklaus, who won £4280 for finishing runner-up in the Thunderbird golf tournament at the weekend, has moved to 2nd place in the top money-winners of US golf with £26,700.
Arnold Palmer slipped to 3rd place with a total of £26,290. Leading the list is Billy Casper with 4 wins in 17 tournaments and a total of £35,470.