AMERICA proved to the the perfect launch pad for Celtic’s spectacular 1966/67 season when Jock Stein’s all-conquering heroes achieved unparalled success.
Billy McNeill and Co were unstoppable as they blitzed the opposition home and abroad to win EVERY tournament in which they competed.
The domestic treble was won in swashbuckling style before Big Jock’s juggernaut brought down the curtain on a glorious crusade with the historic European Cup triumph in Lisbon on May 25 1967.
The Hoops even threw in the Glasgow Cup for good measure!
In another CQN EXCLUSIVE, author Alex Gordon rolls back the years with an extract from his best-selling tribute book, ‘That Season in Paradise‘, which was published by CQN in 2016.
Please enjoy Part Two of your walk down memory lane!
TOMMY GEMMELL insisted it was not all fun and frolics on Celtic’s ground-breaking 11-game tour of America in the summer of 1966.
The flamboyant net-bursting defender said: “Big Jock became our social convener for a month and that drew us all together, but there was never any doubt who was the Boss.
“There was a line that was never crossed. I don’t want to paint a picture of a control freak because that wouldn’t be fair or accurate. But he let you know who made the final decision and would never be swayed.
“I pestered him on the trip to let me play up front in a game against one of the local sides. ‘If I can score all those goals as a left-back, gaffer, how many do you think I’ll get if I play as a centre-forward?’
“It was all a laugh, of course. However, our first game was in Bermuda against the Hamilton Select and he cut me some slack. We won 10-1 and I scored two. I was completely eclipsed by Bobby Lennox, though, as he got four and my wee mate Bertie Auld claimed a hat-trick.
THE BIG SHOT…Tommy Gemmell strikes a familiar pose as he practices his shooting at Celtic Park.
“Billy McNeill got the other and I recall their scorer was a Scot by the name of Jimmy Copland who used to play for Kilmarnock.”
Three nights later, Celtic took on the Bermuda YMCA and Lennox had to be content with a hat-trick in another one-way confrontation. Gemmell rattled in two and Joe McBride matched that in a 7-0 victory.
Stein, though, was raging before the match when he was told Jimmy Johnstone, Ian Young and Frank Carron couldn’t play because of sunburn. He gave the three of them a verbal dressing down and the manager remembered the incident a year later when Celtic were domiciled in Estoril before the biggest game in the club’s history.
After two days’ rest, Lennox, with praiseworthy consistency, fired in another treble in the 6-0 victory over New Jersey All-Stars at the Kearney Stadium and McBride added two with Bobby Murdoch joining in the net-bulging frolics.
A reporter noted: “It was all very easy, all very pleasant – even for the American fans, who were shown a brand of football entirely new to their eyes. Indeed, but for a mountain of a man, goalkeeper Gary Grantz, who looked as though his huge bulk would make him as agile as a sloth, the score would have been well into double figures.
“Grantz was astonishingly deceptive. He made an entire series of super saves and, although he was beaten with relentless monotony, he still ended up with the title of “Star of the All-Stars”. Deservedly so, as well.”
