PO Box 306, Glasgow, G21 2AE, Scotland
the
start of an era
part 1
To commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of Jock Stein taking over as manager at Celtic NTV featured a series of articles commemorating the Big Man. This stroll down Amnesia lane looks back at the 1965-66 season. manfred Lurker takes up the story from the club's 'seven lean years' to the appointment of Big Jock.
The Celts were failing miserably to mount any sort of challenge in the league season after season, cup success was proving elusive, good players were being allowed to leave and the fans were so frustrated that they were demonstrating outside the stand demanding the head of Kelly on a spike.
No, it wasn't the Nineties, it was during the period which followed the 7:1 demolition of the huns in the 1957 league cup final. Little did supporters realise that once they'd sobered up from the party which followed in the wake of that game that they'd have to wait nearly eight years before they'd have another excuse for a hoolie.
The late Fifties and early Sixties were indeed a time of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth for the Timmites. The 1957 team broke up following the untimely departure of Bobby and Evans and a succession of injuries to key players such as Fernie, Fallon and McPhail. Iinstead of replacing these established players with seasoned professionals - who might have cost money - the board of the time, under the benevolent tyranny of Bob Kelly, embarked on a strategy that was to become the infamous 'youth policy'.
Sadly, the youngsters who were regularly pitchforked into struggling Celtic sides of the time were doubly handicapped by having few players of proven experience upon whom to rely for advice and by a chairman whose Corinthian ideals may have been worthy enough but who was rapidly finding that they were becoming increasingly anachronistic within the context of an ever-changing game. Such was Kelly's neglect of such mundane tasks as running the club efficiently or with organisation that 'Bob Kelly and the Easybeats' was the cruel epithet attached to the hapless colts of the early Swinging Sixties.
Not that Celtic was a club entirely devoid of talent in those days. Players such as Billy McNeill, Dunky McKay, Bobby Murdoch, Pat Crerand and jimmy Johnstone were all outstanding talents; but all too often the rest of the side would be comprised of raw youth, players in the twilight of their careers or obscure buys who arrived with dodgy reputations and departed back into obscurity soon afterwards - often in the dead of night with blankets over their heads.
The misery for the fans was compaounded, as is so often the case when Celtic are in the doldrums, by the fact that the huns were rampant.
The only blip in what was otherwise a relentless downward spiral was an extraordinary run in the Cup Winners' Cup of 1963-64 which saw Celtic progress to the semi-final stage. In the first leg, played at Parkhead, the Hoops romped into a 3:0 lead against MTK Budapest. They looked odds-on to reach the final.
Alas, it was all too much for them. Cool heads and a steady defence were all that were needed in the away leg in the Hungarian capital; neither showed up on the night and the Celts slumped to a dismal 0:4 defeat.
At the start of the 1964-65 season Bob Kelly's youth policy came to fruition when the club tried to sign Alfredo di Stefano from Real Madrid, by then a sprightly 38 year-old. The element of low farce which went along with this gallant bid was somehow in keeping with the general atmosphere surrounding the Celtic board at the time.
Back in the real (as opposed to the Real) world, by January 1965 it was business as usual for the long-suffering fans. The League Cup final had been lost to Rangers in a 2:1 defeat the previous October in one of the great encounters between the two clubs and Celtic had been summiraly despatched from the Fairs Cup by Barcelona.
In the league Celtic's form had been erratic. Rangers had been gubbed 3:1 early in the season but defeats at the hands of Hearts, st.Johnstone, kilmarnock, dundee and Dunfermline saw the team languishing in fifth place in the table.
The Scottish Cup was all that was left to play for and frustration was forcing many of the club's best players to consider continuing their careers away from Parkhead.
Then it happened. Although he wasn't to take up the managerial reins until March 10th, the board announced that Jock Stein was about to take over at Celtic Park. The effect of that announcement was almost instantaneous. Campbell and Woods described it thus in The Glosry and the dream: "The slide was halted on january 30th with a dazzling display on an icy Celtic Park when the players visibly uplifted (as if sensing a wind of change) routed Aberdeen by 8:0. Less than 24 hours later the situation, with its gloom and fears, was to experience a transformation which began with the bustle of a press conference and was completed a few weeks later, by Bob Kelly's firm handshake and the words, 'It's all yours now'"
Jock Stein had been around a bit since leaving the job of reserve team coach at Parkhead, giving the town of Dunfermline the time of its life by steering the Pars to safety in the first division, winning the Scottish Cup by defeating Celtic then embarking on a series of European adventures which scared the pants off some very big names indeed. he then went to Easter Road for a stint as manager there, but now he was coming home in a reshuffle which saw Jimmy McGrory take over as PR Officer and Sean Fallon appointed Assistant Manager.
The fans weren't aware of it yet, but the best ever ride in the theme park was about to start rolling.