Celtic have been synonymous with great goal scorers throughout their history, but only McGrory, Lennox, Larsson and Quinn scored more than Stevie Chalmers, who died this morning, aged 83. But, unlike all the other greats in our history, Stevie scored the winning goal in a European Cup Final. If he did nothing else in his entire time as a footballer, this would be enough to ensure a vaulted place in the history books, but Stevie did much more.
In a portent of what lay ahead, Celtic were without a league title for 12 years when Stevie scored a hat-trick against Rangers in January 1966. That feat boomed across the land: Celtic were in command. The next nine league titles would go to Parkhead. Goals galore followed for Stevie, who rejoiced in his role as Celtic centre forward.
Stevie’s journey to the top was unconventional. Serious illness blighted his early adulthood and he was 23 before he joined Celtic, his first senior club. He played through the difficult early 60s until the return of Jock Stein, whose magic sparked the most remarkable run of success known in British sport.
Like his great captain Billy McNeill, Stevie suffered dementia in recent years. Both lived the lives of Celtic supporters before becoming players and legends. Like all of that great team, Stevie remained accessible to fans throughout his life. They were magnificent on the field and magnificently normal human beings off the field. It was as though Stevie would never allow himself to believe the full impact of what he did.
April 2019 has taken its toll on our greatest team ever. Rest in Peace, Stevie.
We also lost one of our most respected CQN’ers yesterday, MurdochauldandHay. Rest in Peace, Stephen.
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FAVOURITE UNCLE.
I’m not very well at the moment, but if I feel well enough to go on Friday I’ll let you know before hand.
OLDTIM67 on 29TH APRIL 2019 8:34 PM
ok thanks.i want to see BT and DD.can you tell BT i have lost his mobile no.
https://thecelticstar.com/time-for-a-happy-lisbon-lion-story-in-the-saddest-of-weeks/
FAVOURITE UNCLE
BT,usually calls me on a Wednesday,an if I feel fit enough,I’ll ask him if he fancies a drink in the B/V on Friday,Richie if he’s available will also come,I usually put it on the blog if I’m going in to Glasgow for a wee drink.
OLDTIM67 on 29TH APRIL 2019 8:43 PM
ok .i hope your health improves.
VP at 8:36
That’s a great story, right enough. The Original Holy Goalie getting his original medal back. Couldn’t believe it when I heard how he had been “robbed” of it in the first place. Bet you Stephen is well chuffed, too.
Two Lions Together
Old Tim, 67. My grandson still goes on about meeting you in the BV. Thought you’re one of the Lions as he thought BT was your son. When I explained you were in Lisbon in 67 but not in the team, he said it didn’t matter- it still made you a Lion.
Hope you’re feeling better soon.
RIP Stevie Chalmers, your goal in Lisbon realised a dream for our forefathers and set the next generations on the Celtic path.
YNWA
SCANIEL.
Thanks for that post it cheered me up, It was nice meeting the pair of you in the B/V. I wish I was good enough to play for the bhoys back then.
I have not been on for a while.May I offer my prayers and condolences to the families and friends of Billy and Stevie. Also MAH family and Delaney’s Dunky you have had it really tough ,stay strong. Does anybody know if big Yogi is okay,I thought he might have been on the park with the Lions on Saturday. Newsted Braw I knew Father Eugene O,Sullivan when he was in Perth a great character hope he is keeping well.HH
PapaJoe
Did you know Owenie Duffy from the fair city?
Only 5 more breakfasts till we get the chance for a double 8 in a row celebration – (1) 8 league titles in a row; and (2) 8 consecutive domestic trophies won. So Saturday could be “88 Day”. Now, where have I seen that number before….
TAL I am not from Perth I live in a little village called Muthil about 20 miles away from the fair city, but my 4 brothers all lived in Perth unfortunately only 2 left ,what age range is Owenie my brothers Con and Charlie are well known in Perth they are 73 and 77 ,HH
Jobo 9.52pm
Gary Hooper :-)
Papajoe55
Thanks for your reply.
Owenie, my cousin, was 80 when he passed away a couple of years ago. Big Celtic man.
I’m sure you brothers would have known him.
He was ,like the rest of the family, a brickie – and helped to build McDairmid park.
I remember visiting the family home in Ainslie Place whenever we visited Muirton.
Happy times.
HH pal
Stevie Chalmers – Celtic Legend, thank you for being the Bhoy who achieved the Big Star on our strips
May you Rest In Peace, and Let Perpetual Light Shine Upon You
You Will Never Walk Alône Stevie
Its a long read but worth it. Super insight from Matthew Syed in The Times on Stevie Chalmers.
“When I think of Stevie Chalmers, I don’t just think of a fine footballer. I don’t just think of a remarkable man who overcame a bout of tuberculosis meningitis as a 20-year-old, spending six months in hospital and coming close to death, before signing for Celtic two years later.
I don’t just think of how much has changed in the game since those days, a time when players like Chalmers earned a few quid a week, lived in single-enders, and whose wives experienced little of the glamour associated with being a wag. “We had none of that,” Sadie, his wife, told me. “Our first home was a tenement in Denniston . . . We had one room that served as a bedroom, kitchen and living room, and the toilet was outside on the landing.”
The Celtic side that Chalmers thrived in had a keen sense of community, nurtured by Stein
Instead, I think about the concept of “community”. That was the word that seemed to reverberate through our conversation when I first got to know the great-uncle of my wife, Kathy. One of his first memories was hunkering down with his fellow Glaswegians in a shelter during World War Two, and when he started playing football, the game was defined by solidarity between teammates, and between players and fans.
Chalmers would win his highest fame by scoring the winning goal in the 1967 European Cup final, helping Celtic to become the first British team to win that special honour. But it was the make-up of that squad that remains so vivid: 15 players, each born and raised within 30 miles of Celtic Park, coached by a fellow Scot in Jock Stein who was not only an innovator in tactics, but had the wisdom to nurture a sense of community.
When you read the memoirs of Sir Alex Ferguson, you gain an insight into how social solidarity emerged from the dense tenements of Scottish industrialisation. The former boss of Manchester United has long argued that one of his strengths as a manager was tying the human instinct for connection to the beautiful game. “That’s team spirit,” he would say to new players, “when you give your life to someone. No one at the club ever wins a thing without the other ones.”
The Celtic side that triumphed in the European Cup had this spirit. They were not just a group of players who shared the same employer. They were not just united in receiving a pay cheque from the same institution. No, they were Celtic. Their identity was bound up with the club, with the city, and with each other. “There was an incredible togetherness,” Chalmers once told me. “Stein was a coach with a brilliant tactical brain, who changed things around a lot . . . But he realised that one of our biggest strengths was our unity, which he nurtured.”
“It wasn’t just the players who were close to each other, but also the families,” Sadie said when I interviewed her in 2017. “John Clark, Billy McNeill and Jimmy Johnstone used to get a lift every day into training from Jock Stein, who would meet them in his car at the bus stop. Stevie always used to room with Bobby Murdoch when they went away. You could have the team in a room with 500 people at a club function and, within minutes, they would be sitting together as a group, sharing stories. It is like a family more than a football club.”
Chalmers was a modest man, but he could occasionally be tempted to share his memories of the final of 1967, a night when Celtic shocked Inter, a team coached by the fabled Helenio Herrera, and masters in the catenaccio. Stein’s stroke of genius was to negate the man-marking of the Italians by instructing his players to run into unusual positions, freeing up space for the full backs to charge forward. As Chalmers put it in his autobiography: “With Willie Wallace and Bobby Lennox making similar runs and with our full backs overlapping frequently, it is easy to see how the Italians’ finely tailored marking system was rapidly coming apart at the seams.”
Chalmers continued to play in Celtic green and white for four years after that unforgettable night, before leaving the club, and ultimately working in the pools and hospitality departments. He remained physically fit (and very handsome) into his eighth decade, a single-figure handicapper in golf, a game he came to love.
It wasn’t until his mid-seventies that the family noticed the first signs of dementia, possibly caused by the heavy footballs used in his day, and his deterioration was both swift and cruel. When Rita, my mother in law, posted on the family WhatsApp group last week that Stevie was critically ill, the family braced itself. The last few years have been particularly tough for Sadie, who has cared for the man she loved, but who has had to witness the slow seeping away of memory and identity.
Chalmers will always be remembered as the man who scored that most celebrated of goals, but also as a wonderful father, husband, uncle and friend. In that interview in 2017, Sadie said: “I regularly sit down with Stevie and we look at photo albums of his grandchildren, and black and white shots of him playing in his Celtic strip. “Every now and again, there is a flicker of recognition. ‘That is me, isn’t it?’ he will say. ‘Yes, that’s you, darling,’ I reply. ‘You were a wonderful, wonderful player.’ ”
TAL My oldest two brothers married 2 girls from Ainslie Gardens both of Donegal parents .Eddie would have been 82 this year and would have definitely known Owenie, unfortunately he passed away in October he had dementia like Billy and Stevie. He was a very good striker and headered the old laced leather ball very well, he also boxed for Scotland in the early 60s so that probably contributed as well. All 4 of my brothers were in the building trade so they would definitely have known Owenie.HH
Kelvinbhoy – lovely article, thank you. Time for ma kip…..
KELVINBHOY, cap doffed that was lovely writing,hh.
I absolutely loved Stevie Chalmers. Probably the first genuine icon that I remember adoring at the age of 8 or 9.
When we moved to Springburn, my wee mammy had great difficulty dragging me to St Aloysius. Father Meickleham had frightened the absolute shoite out of me.
One Sunday she decided to walk through Springburn Park and attend mass at The Immaculate Heart of Mary on Broomfield rd. Who would be standing in front of me looking like a Hollywood film, resplendent in a grey suit and sparkling white shirt was a Lisbon Lion winner. From that moment on, wee Jean had no more problems from me getting up on a Sunday morning. I was hooked and loved the man forever more. He even took my big sister’s autograph book in to training and got the bhoys to sign it ( god, I hope she still has it).
As I post this , my wee mammy lies in the Royal fighting for breath due to a major stroke and pneumonia setting in. Im afraid she maybe joining Billy, Stevie and our own Stephen (MA&H) very shortly.
It’s been a shoite week right enough?
Matthew Syed,a proper journalist, not like Traynor’s Lackies in this country.
Papajoe55
If I’d known your whereabouts, I would have asked you that question a few years ago. Ach well.
I was on a subway train in Canada when a loud bang came from under the train.
I said to the lady beside me – dont worry these wheels fall off all the time. Upon hearing my accent we started talking and finding out she came from Perth, I mentioned the Duffy’s, and Ainslie place. She told me she came from the same street and that her mother and father used to go out socially every week with my aunt and uncle and were the best of friends.
Some of us just make conversation and find out how much we have in common.
It’s a small world.
Nice talking pal.
TAL
HH
Papajoe55…….Muthill passed through the wee village a few times on route to Comrie …….Sweeney coaches were always present outside the stadium on the Euro nights….ie the good nights of few years back.
Hello again all you young rebels.
KELVINBHOY
Great article that and as one of those bhoys who also was reared
in a single end and slept in two old chairs stuck together i can relate
with Steve’s wife Sadie.
But it never deterred the man from becoming a great Celtic football
player.
“Eager beaver Steve ” was a popular headline in the papers back in the
day and it epitomised exactly how he played, a never say die attitude
and a style that would have been perfect for todays modern game.
RIP STEVIE CHALMERS.
My thoughts to the families of Stevie Chalmers and MAH.
YNWA
Social media as you know is awash with rumour after rumour.
But today / tonight hearing one, that when it lands you just know it’s true.
Hearing strongly, that there is no managerial search.
Hearing strongly, that the job is already Neil Lennon’s.
Make of that what you will.
BLUEGRASS CELT
I’ts a tough time when one of your family is seriously ill
i hope the thoughts and prayers of the CQN fraternity
help you through this.
H.H Mick
RUGGYMAN
That’ll do me.
H.H Mick
TOPKAT I travel down to all home games on Sweeneys bus pick up in Crieff Muthill and Vinnies in the Raploch.TAL nice to talk with you as well ,agree it’s a small world.HH
Ruggy
Was it not reported he was in France looking at players, unusual unless he’s a new scout?
I know I’ve posted this before.
The link between heading a ball and dementia is not the rights place to be looking for the cause, I believe.
And my reasoning is simple, of the 5 people I know personally who have or had dementia 80% are women and the one man never played football. And I don’t think Barbara Windsor was a footballer.
Research needs to be focussing its efforts elsewhere.
And they gave us James McGrory and Paul McStay, they gave us Johnstone Tully, Murdoch Auld and Hay.
You will be sorely missed Stephen, and well remembered.
Those who live on in the heart of those they leave behind never die.
I was just doing a bit of history researching there and having looked at the final 09/10 (Mowbray) League table i was surprised that we amassed 81 points that year which was incredibly 1 point more than our 17/18 total.
We are 1 point away from our 50th title which will be 14 in the last 19 years. Of the 5 we didn’t win, 4 went to the final day and 1 lost by 6 points which was 09/10 as above. 03′ lost by a goal and 05′ black Sunday. 11 lost by a point and 09 lost by 4 points after a 0-0 draw at home to Hearts on the final day. All 5 titles were of course lost to a Club using tax evasion instruments and spending millions they didn’t have. In simple terms cheating. So if you’ve only won 5 of 19 titles and cheated to win the 5 you would be worried about the future, wouldn’t you?
So the moral of the story is this, whoever we appoint as Manager next season, it is going to be pretty hard for anyone else to knock us off our perch. Not impossible but hard. I occasionally listen to Scottish football shows, radio, TV etc etc. It’s Old Firm this and Old Firm that. One thing always strikes me but is never mentioned, the elephant in the room that is Scottish football. If you asked 100 football supporters why Rangers went bust, they will tell you it was because of financial mismanagement. Wrong. The answer and root cause is it was because they were trying desperately to keep up with Celtic, but couldn’t.
What Doc said.
BLUEGRASS CELT – our thoughts are with your wee mum, you and your family.
HH
BGFC & Wee BGFC
Matthew Syed lived in our street when we lived in Reading.
He went to the same school as my sons & in the same primary too the only male teacher was Peter Charters who was a very keen table tennis player. This man took young Matthew under his wing with the old ping pong and the lad became a top player at international level. Won the mens titel at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and more besides.
His book “Bounce” is really worth a read, dealing with the business of talent or hardwork in sport.
I didn’t realize that he had married into the Celtic family.
Loved his article so thanks Kelvinbhoy.
HH