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Trivia

• Celtic destroy the much vaunted Manchester United and give warning of the season to come.
• Seven days previously Charlton and Stiles had won the World Cup with England at Wembley.
• Ex Celt Pat Crerand captained United on the day.

Review

The fans were queuing from 2pm at the turnstiles in anticipation after Jock Stein informed the public that the game would start at 3pm regardless.

There was a breathtaking opening 15 minutes when four goals were scored to the joy of the huge crowd. Celtic impressed their fans with their intelligent running up front and the pace of their forwards.

Some of Nobby Stiles' tackling was fierce to say the least and this did not endear him to the Parkhead crowd.

Celtic did not have a failure in their side and gave notice of the fine football that was to come for thr rest of the season.

Teams

Celtic: Simpson Gemmell O'Neill Murdoch McNeill Clark Johnstone McBride Chalmers Auld Lennox
Scorers: Lennox 7 Murdoch 10 McBride 15 Foulkes OG 61

Man Utd:
Gregg Brennan Dunne Crerand Foulkes Stiles Best Sadler (Cantwell) Charlton Law Connelly
Scorer: Sadler 12

Referee: W Anderson

Attendance: 60,000

Articles

• Match Report (see end of page below)
  

Pictures

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Articles

Celtic 4-1 Manchester United

United's team included some of England's Word Cup winners from just a few months previously, such as Nobby Stiles, and that was enough to get any Scotsman's blood boiling.

Added to that the genius of George Best, Denis Law's brilliance and the return 'home' of Pat Crerand and it's no wonder that, just like this evening, Celtic weren't given a hope in hell.

But it was Jock Stein's side who gave their English opponents a football lesson at the start of a season which was to lead to Lisbon and the European Cup.

A 4-1 victory, thanks to goals from Joe McBride, Bobby Murdoch, a Bill Foulkes own goal and, would you believe it, one from Lennox, could easily have been more convincing such was Celtic's dominance of the match.

Bobby Lennox:

"We played really well that night. The crowd were really up for the game and they roared us on. It was a Manchester United side full of stars and had Sir Matt Busby as their manager.

"I always thought that win helped to kick-start what would end up being a wonderful season.

"That was a fantastic United team but we over-ran them from the word go. It might only have been a friendly but people still talk about that game.

"We got ourselves up for the match because it was such a test to play against the likes of Denis [Law].