ONE OF my happiest recollections as a young Celtic fan was watching Jock Stein’s side beating Liverpool 1-0 at Parkhead on an unseasonably cold and windy evening of April 14 1966.
I had celebrated my 14th birthday on January 28 – yup, dear friends, I turned 73 yesterday – and was already a fully paid-up member of The Jungle alongside my dad John and Uncles George and Hughie.
I remember heading for Paradise that evening for the first leg of the European Cup-Winners’ Cup semi-final with an extra spring in my step and no little trepidation about facing Bill Shankly’s mighty Merseyside machine.
It had been rammed down our throats by Kenneth Wolstenholme and his BBC sports-commentating mates that the Anfield side were unstoppable and it was tantamount to a waste of Celtic’s time to bother turning up for what was destined to be a one-sided affair.
Didn’t turn out like that, did it? An astonishing crowd of 76,446 saw Celtic annihilate Liverpool by a solitary goal, claimed by Bobby Lennox shortly after the interval.
PICK IT OUT…Bobby Lennox lashes in Celtic’s winner past Liverpool keeper Tom Lawrence at Parkhead in April 1966.
The scoreline was an absolute travesty. Lennox, Stevie Chalmers and Joe McBride, normally so accomplished in their predatory penalty-box instincts, missed three glorious opportunities all from within 10 yards of Tom Lawrence’s goal.
Celtic paid a heavy price on Merseyside. Second-half efforts from Geoff Strong, a towering header, and Tom Smith, a long-range free-kick that took a nick off the defensive wall and skidded on the muddy surface to flummox Ronnie Simpson at his right-hand post, put the kybosh on our hopes of watching Big Jock’s Bhoys in the Hampden Final the following month.
Hopefully, the mists of time have not diminished my memories of events in both ties, but I seem to recall Dame Fortune snarling on Celtic in Glasgow and Liverpool.
Borussia Dortmund beat Bill Shankly’s side in Glasgow in extra-time when a long ball hit Lawrence’s crossbar, bounced down, struck centre-half Ron Yeats, racing back to cover, and ricocheted into the net.
I remember my dad, rather unsympathtically, observing: “They probably used up all their good luck against us.”
Tonight, we once again lock horns against the so-called Auld Enemy; this time in the shape of Aston Villa in the Midlands.
Who still doesn’t get a warm glow from the reminisces of beating Graeme Souness’ Blackburn Rovers home and away and John Hartson’s breathtaking solo run and devastating finish to polish off Liverpool at Anfield en route to Seville in 2003?
HEAD TO HEAD…Brendan Rodgers squares up again to Unai Emery this evening.
There are many reasons why Brendan Rodgers’ team must win tonight.
For a start, there is the £1.8million prize money that comes with three points, the outside possibility of an automatic place in the knock-out stages, the opportunity to display our superiority and, of course, the kudos of silencing the bigmouths from the wrong side of Hadrian’s Wall.
However, I have a more personal and urgent requirement for a Celtic triumph this time around. My wife, Gerda, is from Birmingham, my many in-laws are all Villa fans and four are season ticket holders.
If Celtic lose, I’ll never hear the end of it.
Go on, Celtic, please wipe away the sad recollection from fifty-nine years ago for a wee kid from the Glasgow housing scheme of Castlemilk and get the job done.
ALEX GORDON
*DON’T miss the unbeatable match report from Aston Villa v Celtic this evening – only in your champion CQN.