Piling on the Agony – 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 Scoring all the While | OneFootball

It is one of Celtic’s greatest days as they hammer Rangers 7-1 to retain the Scottish League Cup at Hampden. The crowd is given as 82,293, slightly lower than expected because of a flu epidemic in central Scotland, and they see a marvellous day for Celtic.

The hero of the hour is undeniably Billy McPhail who scores a hat-trick in the second half. Neil Mochan scores two and Sammy Wilson and Willie Fernie one each, Fernie’s coming from a last minute penalty after most of the Rangers crowd had departed.

The game will be much celebrated in song and and in literature in the future. It is one of the few days in the 1950s when the prodigious talents of Bertie Peacock, Bobby Collins, Willie Fernie and Charlie Tully all work well together and produced a memorable Celtic performance. BBC manages to upset Celtic supporters by not showing the highlights – something that is put down to a conspiracy, but in fact was caused by a technician forgetting to remove a lens cap!

Billy McPhail and Bobby Collins with the League Cup after skelping Rangers 7-1

19 October 1957, Celtic 7 Rangers 1 – ‘Just one word for Celtic – Magnificent!’

If Celtic were slow starters to the Scottish League Cup, they made up for it very soon. Having won the tournament once, they promptly won it again and did so in what is now regarded as the second most famous Celtic game of them all (after Lisbon) … but, yes … I’m coming to it!

The path to the final was impressive.

Airdrie, East Fife and Hibs were no pushovers, but Celtic won 5 games out of 6 (losing to Hibs at Easter Road) with Billy McPhail showing his value once again and a young man called Bertie Auld making his mark as well.

Bertie Peacock was now the captain, having replaced Bobby Evans whose play seemed to improve now that he was divested of the captaincy, and the team was playing with enthusiasm and panache, passing well to each other and scoring some fine goals.

There was, of course, no lack of talent in that side, and if anyone was in any doubt about that, the two quarter final games against Third Lanark would convince anyone. The aggregate score was 9-0 with Billy McPhail, Bobby Collins and new arrival Sammy Wilson, a hitherto disappointing player with St Mirren who had looked as if his career was over, among the goals.

Then on 28 September at Ibrox, Celtic beat Clyde 4-2 in the semi-final. Bobby Collins was at his most irrepressible scoring a goal himself and laying on one each for Fernie, McPhail and Wilson.

The previous year’s League Cup final was played with the possibility of nuclear war hovering in the background – see HERE.

This year the menace was different in the shape of a flu epidemic.

Clyde had been forced to play the semi-final with a weakened side, and some games had even been postponed. It was curious, for it was not really the time of year for the flu germ. Some folk thought it was to do with the Russians launching their sputnik into space. It was all a Communist plot to damage the air and therefore the health of western society, as Mr McCarthy in the USA might have said!

A more realistic assessment might have suggested that the flu epidemic may well have had its origins in the foul atmosphere and industrial pollution that hung permanently over Glasgow.

In 1957, the authorities were surprisingly slow to grasp the link between fresh air and good health.

The flu germ may well have played a part in reducing the crowd for the final to 82,000. It was the first Celtic v Rangers League Cup final and the first in a national competition since 1928. But those who were there on 19 October 1957 will never forget what they saw!

The smart money was indeed on Celtic – they had beaten Rangers in the League at Ibrox a month before – but the sheer extent of the 7-1 victory was simply astonishing.

It was astonishing but it was by no means undeserved. Indeed it could have been a lot more!

Every one of the seven goals (fortunately all available on You Tube) was well worked as Celtic simply showed the world what they could do with Fernie, Evans and Peacock constantly supplying the forward line. Billy McPhail scored a hat-trick, Neil Mochan two, Sammy Wilson one and Willie Fernie scored a penalty awarded by referee Jack Mowat whose sense of justice exceeded his compassion.

Celtic simply ran riot, and poor John Valentine, the centre half of Rangers never played again.

This game is a “John F Kennedy assassination” kind of game where everyone recalls where he was when he heard the result, in my case, too young to be allowed to go to the game, coming home from the Saturday matinee to meet my father, ashen faced, trembling and incoherent (he wasn’t normally any of these three!) talking deliriously about 7-1.

It is also a game that has its own culture. Songs and books have been written about this game.

Evans and Tully had come to blows at training a day or two before and had had to be talked to by the charming Bertie Peacock. The silver tongued Bertie clearly had a way with words!

The BBC’s failure to show highlights was probably just a genuine mistake by some fool in London leaving a lens cap on a camera rather than any conspiracy involving handshakes, flutes and the rolling up of trouser legs, and then there was poor Billy Simpson, Rangers centre forward who can claim to have scored Rangers’ only goal in a League Cup final between 1951 and 1960! Poor Geordie Niven (not a bad goalkeeper incidentally) but whose name rhymed with Seven. So what’s the time? Seven past Niven!

But there was a sad side to it as well.

Almost immediately Celtic dismantled that fine side, and seven and a half years had to pass before another trophy was won. Something biblical about that, was there not? The supporters bragging about “Seven” all the time in fact masked the inadequacies of the side from 1958 until 1964, and there was almost something pathetic about it all.

But no-one thought about that as the Celtic heartlands celebrated that night of 19 October 1957. As in the Coronation Cup triumph of 1953, there was dancing in the streets of the Gorbals that night! And those at death’s door with flu on Saturday morning were up and about on Sunday, and back to work smiling on Monday.

David Potter

Danny McGrain, David Potter & Willie Fernie – what a combination!

Celtic in the Eighties by David Potter. Out now, order your copy at Celticstarbooks.com

Celtic in the Eighties and Willie Fernie – Putting on the Style both by David Potter. Photo The Celtic Star

Danny McGrain has signed the remaining batch of Celtic in the Eighties so hurry to get your signed book!

Ordering is simple, just place your order for Celtic in the Eighties at celticstarbooks.com/shop and we’ll do the rest, ensuring your copy is signed by Danny PLUS a complimentary Willie Fernie book dispatched by the next working day, whilst stocks last,.

Celtic 3-0 St Mirren, Scottish Premier League, Celtic Park, 15 May 1982.Celtic captain Danny McGrain collects the championship trophy as Roy Aitken looks on. Photo The Celtic Wiki

Danny McGrain signing copies of Celtic in the Eighties by David Potter. Photo: Celtic Star Books

Please note that stocks are now running very low indeed and the book will NOT be reprinted. Click on the image below to order. Please note that postage will only be charged on ONE book.

Celtic in the Eighties by David Potter. Out now on Celtic Star Books. Click on image above to order.

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