| Match Pictures | Matches: 1969 – 1970 | Road to Milan | 1969-70 Pictures |
European Cup semi-final second leg (agg: Celtic 3-1 Leeds)
Trivia
- Celtic qualify for the European Cup final for the second time, to face Feyenoord from the Netherlands in Milan (match).
- Celtic won what was dubbed the “Battle of Britain” against overwhelming favourites Leeds, aggregate 3-1 (first leg 1-0)
- All ticket game. Attendance 136,505 : Celtic v Leeds United (European Cup Semi-Final) – record highest for a UEFA competition match, unlikely to ever be beaten.
- An incredible 245,000 people have watched Celtic play in the last 4 days.
- Ranked by many as one of the greatest Celtic victories ever.
- Jinky touted by many as a legend throughout Europe, one of his highmarks in an already illustrious career. He was now bracketed in the £250,000 class.
- Leeds are given 4,000 tickets and actually returned tickets. Desperate Celtic fans wait at Central station for Leeds fans to arrive with spare tickets.
- Many in the English press rated Johnstone better than George Best after his magnificent performance.
- Celtic players take a lap of honour at the end.
Review
Pre-match
(following is by Tom Brogan, taken from http://stateofthegame.co.uk)
On Saturday April the 11th both sides were involved in their national cup finals. Celtic suffered a shock defeat, going down 3-1 to Aberdeen. A result the Daily Record called “probably the biggest upset in a final since the war”.
Leeds were held to a 2-2 draw with Chelsea in a game played on a heavy sand covered pitch, the Horse of the Year show having been at Wembley the previous week.
At Parkhead on Monday April 13th, while a few hundred people watched Celtic Reserves beat Partick Thistle Reserves 4-1 inside, 4,000 fans queued up outside for 5,000 extra tickets for the big match. Leeds had failed to shift their allocation of 10,000 and had advised Celtic that they would send them up the unsold tickets.The tickets were advertised as going on sale at 4 o’clock, but they failed to arrive and at 10pm a loudspeaker announced, “Leeds have let us down very badly”. The dejected fans took the news well and trudged home.
Leeds claimed there had been a misunderstanding; they had still been selling tickets throughout the day. Secretary Keith Archer assured fans that, “Five thousand five hundred 12 shilling tickets are now on their way to Celtic.”
The tickets arrived at Celtic Assistant Manager Sean Fallon’s house just after midnight. They went on sale at 7pm on the eve of the match.
Willie Wallace injured himself in training and was ruled out of the game. In addition Captain Billy McNeill was struggling to shake off an ankle knock.
In the day prior to the second leg the Leeds players relaxed by playing bingo and carpet bowls.
At Leeds’s East Kilbride hotel Revie said, “We have been told that no team who are a goal down at home in a European Cup semi-final have ever reached the final of the tournament. But we won’t let that worry us because we are history makers, we are record breakers. And if ever a record can go, then this one can.”
The Match
(following is by Tom Brogan, taken from http://stateofthegame.co.uk/)
Leeds United, indeed no other side in Europe, had ever faced such a one-sided support as this one. With only 4,500 fans travelling up from Yorkshire, the support for Celtic was overwhelming. The attendance was a record for a European Cup match. It still stands to this day and is unlikely ever to be beaten.
The Scottish press suggested that for at least this match, bigotry in Glasgow had been forgotten, as many Rangers fans had gone to the game to support Celtic.
In Archie MacPherson’s book “Jock Stein – The Definitive Biography” he describes Stein’s team talk. “Revie’s ******** himself. I’ve never seen that man as nervous in all my life. He’s as white as a sheet. If he’s like that, what do you think his players are like? They are there for the taking, believe you me.”
John Hughes had missed the 1967 final and Stein, legendary for his unique ways of individually motivating his players took him aside before this match.
“I know you were sick about missing the last final, but if you do well for me tonight and we reach the final, you’ll definitely play.”
Celtic forced six corners in the opening eight minutes as the Scots attacked right from the kick-off. Murdoch, Connelly and Auld took control of the midfield and created a succession of chances.
In 14 minutes, Leeds captain, Billy Bremner, edged forward with the ball before smashing in a shot from around 30 yards out that flew into the net off the angle of the post and the crossbar. Despite Celtic’s domination, the aggregate scores were now level at 1-1.
Bremner later recalled that after he had scored the massive crowd fell silent. He confessed to being disconcerted at the funeral atmosphere his goal had momentarily created. It was, however, the one moment during the match where his team-mates could hear him urging them on. He said, “The crowd then began chanting: ‘Celtic … Celtic’. It was the type of noise that made many an Englishman freeze in internationals.”
Cooper and Madeley would both clear the ball off the Leeds goal line in the first half as they hung on in the face of constant Celtic pressure.
It stayed one-nil Leeds until half-time. Were the game to remain this way, with the sides tied on aggregate at one-all, there would be no coin toss as there was earlier in the tournament. It was decided that a replay would take place at Hillsborough in Sheffield. The venue was decided after the toss of a coin between Stein and Revie at the end of the first match. But that would prove to be unnecessary as within minutes of the restart, Celtic were well in command of the tie. On 47 minutes, Davie Hay took a short corner, Auld whipped the ball across goal and there was John Hughes to head into the net.
Moments later Gary Sprake, the Leeds goalkeeper, was carried off following a challenge from Hughes. On came future Scotland international David Harvey in his place. He was hardly on the pitch before it was 2-1 to Celtic. Bobby Murdoch played a one-two with Johnstone then lashed the ball past Harvey.
Jimmy Johnstone ran both Terry Cooper and Norman Hunter ragged. They had swapped positions after Hunter complained to Cooper about his ineffective marking of the winger. “Kick him!” Hunter was said to have shouted to his colleague. “You try and kick him!! was Cooper’s retort. In “Hail Cesar” (McNeill’s autobiography) Billy McNeill recalls meeting Terry Cooper on holiday years later. The 20 times capped England international reflected on his encounters with Jinky. “I still have nightmares. I reckon I had good anticipation, but I could do nothing to take the ball off Johnstone.”
With Celtic holding a 3-1 aggregate lead, there was no way back for Leeds. Celtic were the first British team to make it to two European Cup finals.
Jock Stein resisted his players’ attempts to hoist him onto their shoulders at full-time.
Bertie Auld procured a bowler hat from a fan and paraded the field wearing it. He recently told the Evening Times about the night. “Incredibly emotional,” he said. “We seemed to grow by the minute after they had taken the lead and to prove, home and away, that we were better than a much-vaunted Leeds was a lovely feeling.” The crowd didn’t seem to want to go home and they stayed on the terraces after the game chanting Jock Stein’s name. There was one man that Jock Stein wanted to acclaim. That man was trainer Bob Rooney. “I don’t know how Billy McNeill was able to play tonight. It’s a miracle. And Bob Rooney is the man responsible for it. I don’t know how Bob did it. Really Billy played that game on one leg. It was a tremendous performance from him. In any other game I would not have risked him.”
After shaking hands with the many well wishers Stein retreated to a small back room in Hampden to wind down. Hugh McIlvaney reported in The Observer that Stein turned to him in that room and said, “What about that, then? What did you think of that? It wasn’t bad, was it? Eh?”
A despondent Don Revie said, “We lost our chance at Leeds. When we scored I thought we could do something, but Celtic are a very, very good side. I sincerely hope they win the European Cup again.”
The English press were now fulsome in their praise for Celtic. The Daily Telegraph wrote “They may have only one world-class individual player, Jimmy Johnstone, in what is essentially a team. But what an individual! What a team!”
The Daily Express said, “Britain couldn’t have a team of greater splendour to represent them than Celtic.” And in The Guardian, “Celtic last night were superior in every phase of the game. The midfield was theirs to dominate and exploit as Giles and Bremner gave best to Auld and Connelly. But the man of the match was again the tiny but wily Jimmy Johnstone.”
In Norman Hunter’s autobiography “Biting Talk” he paid tribute to Celtic. “I played in a lot of European games for Leeds United. That Celtic side was probably the best I played against.”
He wasn’t the only Leeds player in awe of Celtic. In David Saffer’s book “Sniffer ” the Life and Times of Allan Clarke”, Clarke said, “Looking back they were the better team over the two matches there’s no doubt we were jaded. That said Jimmy Johnstone was magnificent.”
Tommy Gemmell had this to say in “Lion Heart”: “These games against Leeds were two of the easiest that I experienced in all the years I played in European football with Celtic.”
Celtic were in the final, the favourites beaten and the Scottish media in a frenzy. Before the Leeds match the great Helenio Herrera, then manager of AS Roma, tipped Celtic for the final, but added, “Watch out for Feyenoord.”
Teams
Celtic:
Williams, Hay, Gemmell, Murdoch, McNeill, Brogan, Johnstone, Connelly, Hughes, Auld, Lennox. Substitutes: Fallon, Craig, Hood , Callaghan, Macari
Celtic scorers: Hughes (47), Murdoch (51).
Leeds United:
Sprake (Harvey 48), Madley, Cooper, Bremner, Charlton, Hunter, Lorimer, Clarke, Jones (Bates 70), Giles, Gray
Leeds United scorer: Bremner 14
Stadium: Hampden Park, Glasgow
Referee: Michel Kitabjian (France)
Att: 136,505
Articles
- Match Report (see below)
- A Truly Historic Occasion (Jojax of the KStreet forum)
- The Soul of Celtic- Best of British
- Mighty Leeds – match review
Links
Pictures
KStreet
Quotes
“I should hate to be in Glasgow on the night when dreams are broken. Because for all of their support and belief, I do not regard Celtic as good enough to achieve what has prove d beyond others in Britain. ”
Daily Mirror – London edition on the eve of the European Cup semi final clash with Leeds United, 1970.
“The media put them on a pedestal. So we were like, ‘Let’s do ’em, let’s f****** show these boys.'”
Jimmy Johnstone
Interview with Billy Bremner:
Hunter recovered [from injury] in time for the second leg, but another misfortunate had struck. Paul Reaney had broken a leg. “Reaney couldn’t play football,” Bremner said. “He was 28 before we let him take a free-kick. But he was a tremendous athlete. He always marked George Best out of the game. Bestie would say: `Oh, not you again.’ `Just doing my job,’ Reaney would tell him, and then stuck like glue.”
Still, even without Reaney’s fly-paper marking to dim Johnstone’s dazzling talent, Leeds were not a bad side, featuring a solid mass of internationals, with the genius of John Giles a nd the passionate buzzing of Bremner in midfield. And, after 13 minutes of the second-leg tie, Bremner, the captain, levelled the score with a viciously swerving long-range shot.
“There were 136,000 packed into Hampden Park and it was so silent we could hear ourselves congratulating each other,” Bremner said. “I’d told the boys, `Don’t be intimidated by the crowd,’ but I knew we had to quiet them early on.
“Then it started: `Celtic, Celtic.’ It is a noise like that which made many an Englishman freeze in internationals.” But Leeds were not frozen to death; in Bremner’s opinion, they were axed. “It was a terrible, terrible tackle on Mick Jones by wee Bertie Auld that did it. His leg was in a terrible state at half-time.
“Well, I chased Bertie a few times that night. He knew I was after him. But no chance. He was too fly.”
Ironically, it was Auld’s cross that Hughes headed into the net that regained the lead for Celtic. Murdoch clinched the victory.
“Revie didn’t say a word after the match. He never di d. If we got beat he’d just stand over in the corner for two or three minutes, go over to the mirror, comb his hair and say: `Back to the bloody drawing-board.’ Then he’d go out and bang the door.”
Evening Times 15th April 1970
Evening Times 16th April 1970
