1967 and all that, then Charlie Gallagher stars in the Celtic Spring of 1968

Part 11 – Charlie comes in from the cold to inspire Celts to the title

After the euphoria of the triumph over Vojvodina, it was back to Scottish Cup action for Celtic on Saturday, 11 March 1967. For once, the men wearing the hoops were not the side being cheered on by the majority of supporters on a cold, miserable afternoon in Glasgow’s east end, as Second Division Queen’s Park, once proud holders of the record number of wins in the country’s most prestigious competition, were dispatched by five goals to three.

This was the occasion when James Bond himself, the late Sean Connery, was photographed with the players at the side of the pitch. Celtic’s own midweek secret agent, Charlie Gallagher, sat this one out but returned seven days later for the 3-2 home victory over Dunfermline Athletic, Alex Ferguson’s double for the Pars not enough to negate first half strikes from Stevie Chalmers, Tommy Gemmell from the spot and Willie Wallace. Charlie would miss out again as a 5-0 demolition over Falkirk at Parkhead and first League victory in a decade at Tynecastle saw Celts pull clear at the top of the table, a double cause for celebration on the day Charlie became a dad, following the birth of his son Paul back in Glasgow.

The last Saturday of March saw Gallagher back in the team at Firhill, Willie Wallace unusually deployed at right-half as Celts continued their pursuit of a second successive League title with a 4-1 win over Partick Thistle. He moved on to the bench for the midweek Scottish Cup semi-final with Clyde at Hampden – a youthful looking Harry Hood part of the Shawfield effort which battled for a 0-0 draw, as they continued their remarkable season under Davie White – then returned for the midweek replay in place of John Hughes. Celtic’s place in the final later that month against Aberdeen was secured within the opening 20 minutes, by which time both Bobby Lennox and Bertie Auld had scored. A third successive Scottish Cup final now beckoned.

Three days later, Saturday, 8 April 1967, Celtic returned to the scene of their title-clinching party the previous season, Charlie struggling badly with an injury to his instep and eventually replaced by Jim Brogan at half-time in the 2-0 victory over Motherwell at Fir Park. As timing goes, this could hardly have been much worse, Gallagher sadly missing out as Celts qualified for the European Cup final with a 3-1 aggregate victory over Czech champions Dukla Prague, then regaining the Scottish Cup with a 2-0 win over Aberdeen at Hampden, Willie Wallace netting doubles in two of those games, as the Lisbon Lions finally got a run of games together.

That selection sequence would be interrupted four nights after the cup final, as Charlie returned for the home game against Dundee United, a match deferred from the weekend. Saturday, 3 May 1986 will live long in the memories of those who travelled through to a wet Paisley to see David Hay’s Celtic win the most dramatic and unlikeliest of League titles, however, on that same date back in 1967, there was a more straightforward challenge to be overcome to secure a second consecutive championship flag.

A single point against mid-table United at Celtic Park was all that was required as 40,000 supporters made their way to the east end that Wednesday evening, most still on a high after the Hampden triumph. The script would go badly wrong though, despite Tommy Gemmell opening the scoring midway through the first half. The Tayside club had inflicted Celtic’s only domestic defeat of the season to date, winning 3-2 at Tannadice on Hogmanay, and they would repeat that scoreline to put the champagne on ice, once again coming back from 1-0 and 2-1 down to win the match with two late goals, just as they had done some four months earlier.

The following morning, Celtic fans would awake to the news that Inter Milan would be their opponents in the European Cup final in Lisbon three weeks later. The Italians had struggled to overcome CSKA Red Flag in the semi-final ties, the great Facchetti on target in Milan then Sofia as both legs finished 1-1. The ‘neutral’ play-off in nearby Bologna would always appear to favour Inter, and so it proved as an early Cappellini header was sufficient to eliminate the Bulgarians and set up a third European Cup final in four seasons, this time against Celtic.

The Dundee United defeat on the same night as that play-off would prove to be Charlie Gallagher’s final appearance in the Hoops for that glorious, unforgettable 1966/67 season. He would be an onlooker with Inter manager Helenio Herrera and James Bond in the Ibrox stand, as the future Lisbon Lions secured the club’s first domestic Treble in the modern era with a 2-2 draw in the Govan mud three days later, thanks to a Jimmy Johnstone double, then a much-changed line-up paraded those trophies plus the Glasgow Cup at half-time as the League programme ended with a 2-0 home victory over Kilmarnock on Monday, 15 May 1967.

Charlie would see action the following Sunday, 21 May 1967, proudly wearing the emerald green shirt of Ireland as they faced Czechoslovakia at Dalymount Park, Dublin in the latest qualifier for the European Championship. The retired Noel Cantwell now assisted captain and player-manager Charlie Hurley in a coaching role as the selection committee produced the following line-up.

Alan Kelly (Preston North End);
Theo Foley (Northampton Town) & John Dempsey (Fulham);
Mick Meagan (Huddersfield Town), Charlie Hurley (Sunderland) & Al Finucane (Limerick);
Charlie Gallagher (Celtic), Andy McEvoy (Blackburn Rovers), Ray Treacy (West Bromwich Albion), Ollie Conmy (Peterborough United) & Eamon Dunphy (Millwall).

The Czech side that afternoon featured three of the Dukla Prague players who had faced Celtic recently, including their legendary goalkeeper, Ivo Viktor, and they would take a measure of revenge for national pride by winning 2-0, thanks to goals either side of the interval by Juraj Szikora and Vojtech Masny. Football fans of a certain vintage may recall Masny’s younger brother Marian, who was part of that great Czech side who became European Champions in Belgrade in 1976. This loss would effectively end Irish hopes of qualification for the Italian finals the following summer. It would also turn out to be the second and final international cap for Charlie, the first Scots-born player ever to appear for Ireland.

Charlie would return to Glasgow on the Monday then leave for Lisbon with the Celtic party the following day. With only the 11 Lions and substitute goalkeeper John Fallon stripped, he would take his place with the other squad members in the stand below the marble lip where just after 7pm on the evening of Thursday, 25 May 1967,

Billy McNeill somehow summoned the energy to lift the beautiful new European Cup high above his head to signify that Celtic, the club formed to help the poor of Glasgow’s east end 80 years previously, were now the Kings of European Football. The legend of the Lisbon Lions – The Immortals – had been born.

Three months after the euphoria of Lisbon, Charlie would reappear in a Celtic side which introduced two debutants for the Glasgow Cup-tie with Partick Thistle at Parkhead. Full-back Chris Shevlane had arrived following his release by Hearts whilst inside-forward Pat McMahon had stepped up from junior outfit Kilsyth Rangers. Shevlane’s old colleague at Tynecastle, Willie Wallace helped himself to a hat-trick whilst McMahon grabbed a double either side of the interval, during which a third new-Bhoy, Hugh McKellar from Ardeer Recreation – from where Celtic had signed Bobby Lennox several years earlier – had replaced Jimmy Johnstone to take his own bow as a Celtic player, Gallagher moving wide right to accommodate him as the Hoops progressed with a 5-0 win.

Both Charlie and Pat McMahon did enough in this match to merit inclusion in the squad for the weekend trip to Tannadice, Gallagher starting whilst the youngster would remain on the bench throughout Celtic’s 1-0 win, a victory which kept them top of a League Cup section which also included Aberdeen and Rangers. McMahon would then remain involved through September to the exclusion of Charlie, before the Irish internationalist replaced him for the second-leg of the League Cup quarter-final tie with Ayr United at Somerset Park, a young Lou Macari coming off the bench for Bertie Auld to make his own first-team debut that night, as goals from Jim Brogan and Willie Wallace added to the 6-2 first-leg lead to ease Celts through.

Charlie Gallagher would then endure the longest spell on the sidelines as the glorious spring and summer of 1967 turned sour through the autumn and winter which followed. As January 1968 ended, the Hoops had lost their European Cup in the first defence against Dynamo Kiev, the World Club championship then the plot against Racing Club of Argentina, and the Scottish Cup to Dunfermline Athletic at Parkhead, Jock Stein’s first defeat in that competition outwith the final since taking over Celtic three years earlier. Rangers were also six points clear at the top of the table, albeit the Bhoys had two games in hand. Only the League Cup had been retained, a third successive win in that competition, following a high-scoring victory over Dundee at Hampden immediately before the ill-fated trip to South America in October 1967.

The first of those games in hand saw the reinstatement of Charlie to the team on Valentine’s Night, a home fixture with Stirling Albion, which Celts won 2-0, and he remained there as the Hoops hammered Kilmarnock 6-0 at Rugby Park on the first Saturday in March. Willie Wallace was the star of that show with four superb goals, whilst youngster Jimmy Quinn, grandson of the Bhoy from Croy of the same name, came off the bench to mark his debut with a late goal. Jimmy Johnstone wore the number seven shorts that day, as he had when making his own debut five years earlier on the same ground. How much things had changed in that period for both Jinky and Celtic, the current European champions having been on the receiving end of that same scoreline in Ayrshire on a dreadful night back in March 1963.

The goals kept coming and coming early in the re-arranged midweek fixture with Aberdeen at Celtic Park, Charlie setting up two goals in the first seven minutes for Bobby Lennox then Billy McNeill with textbook crosses. Lennox had completed his hat-trick before half-time, the Hoops easing off in the second half as young David Hay came off the bench for Gallagher to become the latest of the Quality Street Kids to receive a Celtic debut. A late Dons consolation goal saw the match end at 4-1.

There was controversy as Rangers withdrew from the Glasgow Cup semi-final tie with Celtic, scheduled for the following Monday at Ibrox, claiming they had too many other competitions to play for. Not for the first or last time, a club from Ibrox would throw everything at preventing or emulating a Parkhead success, on at least one of those occasions with fatal consequences. Their burden was promptly relieved somewhat, as Hearts knocked them out of the Scottish Cup at Tynecastle on Wednesday, 13 March 1967, with a late Donald Ford goal.

On the same night, Jock Stein’s champions had continued to keep the pressure on Rangers at the top of the table, by racking up the goals and the points. On the receiving end of a 4-0 drubbing at Parkhead had been Airdrieonians, ironically another club who would be liquidated in later years. Willie Wallace added another hat-trick to his impressive tally, after Bobby Lennox had opened the scoring midway through the first half. Both men would score as an unchanged Celtic team won 3-0 at Brockville three days later, Tommy Gemmell this time with the opening goal from the penalty spot, with Wispy then hitting yet another treble on the following Saturday, this time against his former club Raith Rovers, in a 5-0 home victory.

A fantastic month was then completed another two superb high-scoring wins. On Monday, 25 March, the Bhoys travelled to Perth and put Scottish Cup semi-finalists St Johnstone to the sword at what had traditionally been a difficult venue. This time it was Bobby Lennox’s turn to steal the limelight, with four of Celtic’s six goals in a 6-1 mauling of the hosts, Jimmy Joihnstone and, of course, Willie Wallace with the others. Five days later, the Hoops returned to Tayside and beat Dundee United 5-0 at Tannadice, Lennox with a double and Davie Cattenach scoring his only goal for the club in the last-minute as Celts finally went to the top of the table on goal average, Rangers now with a game in hand.

The March 1968 report card read Played 7, Won 7, Scored 33, Conceded 2. I would struggle to remember another month in my lifetime where such a standard had been set. It was the form of Champions, and Charlie Gallagher had started every game on that incredible run.

This series will conclude tomorrow on The Celtic Star…

Matt Corr

Thanks, as always, to the folk behind the Celtic Wiki, a wonderful source of information, and to David Potter, author of Charlie’s biography, Charlie Gallagher? What a Player!

Follow Matt on Twitter @Boola_vogue