1930-11-08: Celtic 2-1 Heart of Midlothian, League Division 1

Match Pictures | Matches: 1930 1931 | 1930 Pictures

Trivia

  • John Thomson was beaten on three ocassions but the Hearts' forwards hit the woodwork. Scarff in 8 minutes, and Napier in 47 minutes, got the goals for Celtic. Outside-left Willie Murray pulled one back for Hearts in 20 minutes, but the player who got the highest praise was Tom O'Neill the left-back of the Edinburgh side.
  • The top six teams in Scotland all won on Saturday with most interest in the meeting of league leaders Celtic and Hearts at Parkhead.
  • In England Arsenal beat their nearest rivals Aston Villa 3-2 at Highbury and Sheffield Wednesday took advantage of this by winning at Leeds and jumping over Villa to take second place.
  • A police constable on points duty at the junction of Waterloo Place and Princes Street in Edinburgh had a narrow escape when he was carried on the bonnet of a car for some distance after the driver of the car had failed to respond to the officers signal to turn right and had carried straight on instead. Fortunately, Charles Sutor the constable was unhurt and after making the car stop he arrested the driver who was found to be drunk. Sheriff Neish fined hotel proprietor, Cecil James Russell Simpson, of Gifford £10 for being drunk in charge of a motor vehicle.

Review

Teams

CELTIC:
Thomson, Cook, McGonagle, Wilson, McStay, Geatons, R. Thomson, A. Thomson, McGrory, Scarff, Napier.
Scorers:
Scarff, Napier.

HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN:
Harkness, Anderson, O’Neill, Reid, J. Johnston, Bennie, R. Johnstone, White, Battles, Massie, Murray.
Scorers:
Murray.

Referee: W. Bell (Motherwell)l
Attendance: 24,000

Articles

  • Match Report (see end of page below)

Pictures

Articles

The Scotsman

CELTIC HARD PRESSED BY HEARTS

Celtic had to play hard to defeat the Heart of Midlothian at Parkhead by 2 goals to 1. It was a stubborn fight all through, and kept the 24,000 spec­tators keyed up to the end.

Both sides were at full strength, unless for the fact that Herd stood down for J. A. Johnston.

Celtic had a strong breeze behind them in the first half, and opened the scoring in eight minutes through Scarff.

The Hearts played up well, and had reached an equality on play before Murray equalised after other twelve minutes had passed.

For the greater part of the game till the interval the Hearts were the superior side, Battles and Massie striking the crossbar with Thomson beaten.

A hard thrust by the Celtic after the resumption saw Napier score inside two minutes, and after that Celtic were on top, only fine saving by Harkness keeping down the score.

Near the end the Hearts revived and were pressing continuously for the last five minutes but could not equalise, though on play they should not have been beaten.

The Celtic were not at their best, the right wing failing to co-operate, while McGrory and Napier missed many openings in the second half when the home team were well on top.

The Hearts' team play was superior in the first half, when they kept the ball down and played Celtic at their own game. They changed in the second half and swung the hall about, and this proved useless against the good positional play of the Celtic defenders.

A reversion in the closing stages to a close attack nearly saved the game.

O'Neill gave a dashing display at left back, while Harkness showed he was not inferior to Thomson as a goal­keeper.

Celtic v Hearts Nov 1930