Pre-Match In some ways, the pressure was off. Unless we had some kind of disastrous performance against Motherwell and lost heavily, the League was ours. We all knew that was the case but no one was thinking along those lines ; the Boss had already reminded us that he expected us to end the …
Read more “7th May 1966: Motherwell v Celtic League – Part Two”
You might think that, after winning the league title on 7th May, the players would have done their stint for the season and training would be wound down. Nothing could be further from the truth! There was a tour of North America coming up and everyone needed to be ready. Apart from me, that is. …
Read more “12th May 1966: North American Tour – Bermuda v Celtic”
The next match was only three days away and it was against Bermuda YMCA. The boys did some light training before the match but oh! horror of horrors, three of them, Jinky, Ian Young and Frank McCarron, also spent too much time under the golden orb, went down with sunstroke and had to miss the …
Read more “15th May 1966: North American Tour – Bermuda YMCA v Celtic”
On the morning after the match against Bermuda YMCA, the Celtic party travelled north to New York, their hotel just a few minutes from the Empire State Building in Manhattan. The next match would be on Wednesday 18th May and would be against the New Jersey All-Stars in Kearney, a place visited by Celtic side …
Read more “18th May 1966: North American Tour – New Jersey All-Stars v Celtic”
After beating the New Jersey All-Stars 6-0 on Wednesday 18th May 1966, the Celtic party moved north, to Toronto, where they would meet Spurs on Saturday 21st May at the Varsity Stadium.
After the previous match against Spurs, held in Toronto, the Celtic party only had a short trip to reach Hamilton where the next match would be played, against a most unusual side. Hamilton Primo was very much a scratch team, put together by a Scot called Bill Paterson, who had been at centre-half for …
Read more “25th May 1966: North American Tour – Hamilton Primo v Celtic”
After two matches while based in Toronto, the Celtic party moved back to the New York/New Jersey area for the next game, which would be played in the Roosevelt Stadium, Jersey City. This venue was generally used for baseball and American football, being the base for the Jersey City Dodgers and the Jersey City Giants. …
Read more “27th May 1966: North American Tour – Bologna v Celtic”
After Celtic’s first four matches in the tour had all taken place on the east coast, the party travelled west to St Louis for the next game, against an All-Stars eleven. The encounter was played at Roosevelt High School – which unlike the pitch for the Bologna game, looked in reasonably god condition – on …
Read more “29th May 1966: North American Tour – Celtic v St Louis All-Stars”
The team had arrived in San Francisco a couple of days before this match, so they were able to get in a bit of sightseeing and some light training. Billy McNeill was fit again after sitting out the match in St Louis and that would be important for Celtic, who were expecting a tough time …
Read more “1st June 1966: North American Tour – Celtic v Tottenham Hotspur”
For this match, it was a trip to Vancouver for the party, the encounter being played at the Empire Stadium and a crowd of around 18,000 turned out for it. The teams were ; Tottenham Hotspur; Jennings, Beal, Knowles, Mullery, L Brown, Mackay, Posse, Clayton, Weller, Venables, Robertson. Celtic; Simpson, Gemmell, O’Neill, Murdoch, McNeill, …
Read more “4th June 1966: North American Tour – Celtic v Tottenham Hotspur”