On the morning after the match against Bermuda YMCA, the Celtic party travelled north to New York, their hotel just a few minutes from the Empire State Building in Manhattan. The next match would be on Wednesday 18^th May and would be against the New Jersey All-Stars in Kearney, a place visited by Celtic side in the past. Continue reading →

The next match was only three days away and it was against Bermuda YMCA. The boys did some light training before the match but oh! horror of horrors, three of them, Jinky, Ian Young and Frank McCarron, also spent too much time under the golden orb, went down with sunstroke and had to miss the match. The Boss was apparently fuming and, to put it precisely in Glaswegian, did a Benny! Oh! If only I had been there to see that!

Anyway, it meant that the team had to be re-jigged a bit and the eleven which eventually took the field was Ronnie, Tam, Willie O’Neill ( Pumper), Chopper, Cesar, Luggy, Charlie, Stevie, Joe, Bobby and Bertie.

There was a crowd of 3,000 for the contest and it took Celtic 17 minutes to break down the opposing defence, Joe making the breakthrough but after that the goals came thick and fast. By the interval, Bobby L had scored two more and Joe converted a penalty to make it 4-0.

After the break, Tam quickly got into the act to knock in number 5, Bobby got his hat-trick as he made it 6-0, then Tam made it 7-0 with a 20-yarder. Ten minutes from the end, John Cushley (Wilbur) who had come on for Cesar, stumbled on the bumpy pitch and had to come off with what looked like ligament damage.

On the following day, Wilbur was apparently limping quite badly and he was possibly going to be a passenger for the remainder of the trip. However, the general feeling among the party as they made their way to the airport and a flight north to the US would surely have been one of satisfaction. 17 goals in 2 games was a good start to any tour!

Here in Scotland, the fans were happy with what they were hearing from across the Atlantic….and they were even more delighted with the news that Celtic would play Manchester United in a pre-season friendly at Celtic Park on 6^th August.

You might think that, after winning the league title on 7^th May, the players would have done their stint for the season and training would be wound down. Nothing could be further from the truth! There was a tour of North America coming up and everyone needed to be ready. Apart from me, that is.

I was still in my final year at the Dental Hospital and, as my next exams were coming up in June, I had to, with some reluctance, forego the trip.

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Pre-Match

In some ways, the pressure was off. Unless we had some kind of disastrous performance against Motherwell and lost heavily, the League was ours. We all knew that was the case but no one was thinking along those lines ; the Boss had already reminded us that he expected us to end the campaign on a high and that meant a victory that afternoon. Continue reading →

Press Reaction

On the Thursday after the Dunfermline match, the main story in nearly all the papers was that Celtic were now almost certain winners of the league title. On this particular topic, there were no dissenters among the press corps but manager Jock Stein was not as convinced as others : “what if Motherwell beat us 4-0” he told the journalists. But for probably the first time ever, comments from the Boss were treated with a little bit of scepticism!

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The Build-up

On the morning of the match against Dunfermline, I was at the Dental Hospital for a few hours, then got ready to push off home for a rest and a bite to eat.

The Dental Hospital at that time was in Renfrew Street, one road up from – and parallel to – Sauchiehall Street, so my route home took me down Renfield Street and across the River Clyde. There were some puzzling pedestrians that day in the centre of town, guys – and gals – wearing red scarves and sweaters. There was a crest on the jerseys but, with driving the car, I could not read it clearly and I was getting annoyed that I could not work it out. Continue reading →

Tension

As a part-timer, I was in the slightly awkward position of only seeing my first-team colleagues on a match day, so I was unable to say with any certainty how they were feeling about Celtic’s drive for the league title.

From my own point of view, though, I was very definitely aware of the situation; in fact, it would be quite safe to say that I was pretty nervous about the whole thing.

This was surprising, as I have always been one of those – probably annoying – people  who cope well with stress. As I have explained before, my most nervous time before a match was at the run-through of the tactics, when the Boss explained how he wanted us to play and I sat there think to myself ‘that won’t work!’ or ‘he can’t do that!’ depending on the details.

However, with two matches left in the league race and me back in the side, I was feeling it and I suspect became a bit short with everyone, for which, after all these years, I humbly apologise.

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The Build-Up

As there was a reserve match on the Friday night against Rangers (see Preview), training on the Thursday evening was pretty light, although all the guys wanted to know the inside story of the defeat and I had to talk for most of the night. It was hard work! I was only getting over the loss myself, having gone through a similar confession with Mum and Dad, my Uncles, my colleagues and even my patients, all desperate to know why Celtic had not won when they had so much of the play. Continue reading →

Reserve Match

I know it seems hard to believe but on the evening of the Scottish Cup final replay, the Celtic reserves had a match at Celtic Park. They played St Mirren in the league and had a convincing 7-0 win, the team being Fallon, Halpin, McCarron, Cattenach, Cushley, O’Neill, H Quinn, Sweeney, J Quinn, Gallagher and Taylor. The goals came from Jimmy Quinn (3), Tony Taylor (2), Charlie Gallagher (pen) and an OG.

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Build-up

I did as I had been told – something my wife says I am not very good at – had a long lie, a light lunch then reported at Celtic Park early afternoon for a wee session, some light running, a few sprints, nae sign of a ball at all!

The atmosphere was quite relaxed and the banter just as boisterous as normal. It was a slightly surreal feeling to be doing some running in a huge empty stadium when in a few hours time, the next bit of running would be in another large arena with a possible six-figure crowd watching!

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