SIXTY YEARS ago the Celtic support were still basking in the glory from the glory at a sunny Hampden on the afternoon of 19th October 1957 when Celtic won the League Cup after thrashing Rangers 7-1.
Kevin Graham, CQN’s poet, reflected on this match on the anniversary last week and was inspired to read up on the 1957 League Cup Final and put his thoughts into this new poem.
WHEN FERNIE SAID IT WAS DONE
Jumped down the stairs
Sun glare from the grey untiled walls
Brightens the close
The slate is no longer cold
And the street reveals Glasgow
To be the dear green place of old
We would celebrate in the sun
It would be only over when Fernie said it was done
The sky no longer
Like the gates of hell
A soot covered nothingness
Of impenetrable grey
Away from the damped and the cramped
place I called home
We would celebrate in the sun
It would only be over when Fernie said it was done
As god’s eye itself
Looked down on me
Clambering the flatdeck
To cheer on the boys
Song’s fuelled by beer on their breath
With banners held high were fellow timalloys
We would celebrate in the sun
It would only be over when Fernie said it was done
Hampden the monolith
The terrace a wave of green
Passed done the front
into the crowd, I could hardly breath
But I could shout, as the Celts attacked
through the wizard of the weave
We would celebrate in the sun
It would only be over when Fernie said it was done
Slammin Sammy Wilson
Smiler in from the left
A Valentine’s massacre
On Hampdens emerald green
But no rejected flowers or broken hearts
Confettied our wildest dreams
We would celebrate in the sun
It would only be over when Fernie said it was done
Billy MacPhail with his head, then a tap
Rangers rattled like caurs
Simler, again, at the back post
The Celtic end was going wild
and Tully hadn’t even scored
Then MacPhail with his hat-trick smile!
We would celebrate in the sun
It would only be over when Fernie said it was done
And then there was the moment
A penalty kick, up stepped Fernie
To cap it all off
A goal for his vintage display
Dick Beatty with seven fingers aloft
It was seven past Niven that day!
We would celebrate in the sun
It would only be over when Fernie said it was done
The trolley bus home
Was a journey of joy
Waved through the streets
By young and old,
From condemned tenements
With tea towels for banners
The conditions we lived an irrelevance
We would celebrate in the sun
It would only be over when Fernie said it was done
My father rolled home
Evening papers in his pockets
Headlines celebrated the day
I cut out a picture
Of the wizard of the weave
Neatly folded it into the shoebox
Under my bed
So the memories i would always retrieve
We would celebrate in the sun
It would only be over when Fernie said it was done
*When Fernie Said It Was Done was written by Kevin Graham for CQN, in tribute to Celtic’s 1957 League Cup winning team and is based on the stories told in the fabulous Hampden in the Sun book by Pat Woods and Peter Burns.
