| Match Pictures | Matches: 1972 – 1973 | 1972-73 Pictures |
Trivia
- Celtic returned from Jersey on the Wednesday morning. Macari and Connelly had been sent home early – Connelly with and injury from the friendly and Macari with 'flu.
- Stein refused to announce a team before the day and there were a number of walking wounded. Coinnelly and Macari as above, Murdoch and McNeill just back from injuries and Callaghan carrying an injury. Deans was also out with a muscle strain.
- Hibs win League cup for the first time – their first trophy in 20 years.
- In a 6 minute spell Stanton wins the final, scores the first and brilliantly sets up the second.
- Hibs won the midfield and on form Callaghan was not fully fit to start.
- Celtic badly miss the injured Dixie Deans
- Jinky off form and McNeill had hands full with the excellent Alan Gordon.
- Dalglish's goal sets up a rousing finish but Celts cannot pierce the Hi-bees defence.
- A great final despite the Celtic disappointment.
Review
Hibs deservedly won the League Cup with an excellent second half performance.
Stanton opened the scoring in 60 minutes after a brilliantly worked free kick left him free in the area and he gave Williams no chance with the shot. Stanton created O'Rourke's goal with a fine run and cross and O'Rourke scored with a spectacular flying header. Shortly after Gordon missed a snip after more great work by Stanton.
Dalglish scored with a fine shot after running clear on goal in 77 minutes and set up a storming finish but Celtic could not muster an equalizer despite being roared on by their large support.
Celtic badly missed Murdoch's guile in midfield and Deans' power in attack.
Hibs' captain Pat Stanton was man of the match and the Easter Road men had other fine performances from Brownlie, Blackley, O'Rourke and Gordon.
Hibs returned to well deserved wild celebrations in Edinburgh where an open decked bus took them along Princes Street.
Teams
Hibernian:
Herriot, Brownlie, Schaedler, Stanton, Black, Blackley, Edwards, O'Rourke, Gordon, Cropley, Duncan. Sub:- Hamilton
Goals:- Stanton (60), O'Rourke (66).
Celtic:
Williams, McGrain, Brogan, McCluskey, McNeill, Hay, Johnstone (Callaghan), Connelly, Dalglish, Hood, Macari.
Goal:- Dalglish (77).
Referee: A. MacKenzie (Larbert)
Attendance: 71,696.
Articles
- Match Report (see below)
Pictures
Articles
Glasgow Herald Monday11 December 1972
Hibs’ cup victory may be sign of shifting balance of power
By IAN ARCHER
The facts are clear and concise. Hibernian, on a dreary afternoon at Hampden Park, won their first major trophy for 20 years – and they won it well.
So Eddie Turnbull brought home to Easter Road 17 months ago, to replace the club's fading honour with a piece of silverware that everyone could touch, is the man of the hour.
So, too, is Pat Stanton, the Hibs captain, who in the vital period of the league cup final bestrode the pitch as heroically and as imaginatively as any man who has ever played on this great stage before him.
It was Stanton who broke the tactical stalemate that was planned in the dressing rooms of both these finalists, to prove once again that football is about players and the things that players do.
CATALOGUE
In a period between the sixtieth and the eightieth minute Stanton scored a goal, made the cross for the second, set up the easiest chance of the match — which Gordon missed — and then hit the post with another shot. That short catalogue was enough to ensure that Celtic, for the third year running, lost the last and most important match of this competition.
If those, the bones of Saturday’s affair, are plain, the conclusions are temptingly dramatic. The whole balance of power inside the Scottish game may just possibly be swinging across country from the coarse face of Glasgow to the finer aspect of Edinburgh, a capital in name only as far as football is concerned.
In my preview of the final I said that Hibs were worthy contenders, not yet ready to assume the mantle of champions. That was a prediction made in good faith, based on the available evidence. I was totally wrong.
This Hibs team has grown steadily in stature until they have reached the stage when Celtic’s image and abilities cease to frighten them. Turnbull has taught them many technical skills, and, most importantly, given them enormous self-confidence.
In this sense, that heavy, hurting and humiliating defeat in last season's Scottish Cup final did not matter. It had been erased from their minds by a string of good results during this latest campaign. Hibs knew how to beat Celtic and were able to force the match to suit their own ends.
Quite simply, Hibs dictated the tactics of deadlock and when the game loosened up in the second half, had the better players in the vital positions, notably midfield, where Stanton was joined by Edwards and Cropley.
They still have a lot more to prove before they overtake Celtic in achievement or estimation, but no one can now be certain that they will not accomplish this end. A victory like this is heavy wine indeed. We may just be on the edge of a new era and the capabilities of this team make that an exciting prospect.
But it is impossible, to regard this defeat as a kind of epitaph for Celtic. They are not dead by any means and their normal reply to one of these reverses is to spring back with a whole string of results that remind us where power ultimately resides. Hibs and Ujpest Dosza were two better teams and both times they were beaten, but Scottish football contains many others who have little right to share the same park with them and these matches decide the championship.
Certainly they were beaten on the drawing board. Stein’s decision to use Johnstone on the left against Brownlie did not work, for the little winger could not fully pre-occupy the finest of all Scottish full backs. Celtic must have hoped to contain Hibs here and strike down the weaker side, but that plan misfired.
In midfield — that crucial area — they were overworked, with Hay doing a fair negative role, but they were unable to come forward in good enough numbers or with sufficient inspiration to back up Macari and Hood. The high cards were always held by their opponents.
The first half was best forgotten, apart from one fine Williams save from a Stanton header that gave a clue of the storm that was later to break around them. The tactics of fear had dominated both sides, and those who came to see a sackful of goals knew that they were to be disappointed in this rainy, floodlit arena. December is an awful month.
TACTICAL SWITCH
But Turnbull switched Duncan and Edwards at half-time and suddenly Hibs found space where before there had been only a cluster of defenders, ready to throw every limb forward in an attempt to kill all attacks at birth. They began to play and when it mattered Celtic could not match them.
After 60 minutes McNeill was adjudged to have fouled Gordon as they fought for a header, despite protests from the defender that the Hibs's player had backed on to him.
Edwards lobbed the ball forward and Stanton, after seeming to miss the chance by turning past two Celtic defenders, hit his shot past Williams, Once again a certain frailty — seen before in Budapest— was evident.
Six minutes later Hibs scored the kind of goal that reminds you of the enormous artistic possibilities of this game. Edwards placed Stanton free and the captain noticed O’Rourke running for the near post. He ignored the more obvious cross to Gordon, dropped the ball short, and O'Rourke headed in full flight past Williams. It had grace, style, movement, and, thought in its choreography, all the qualities of the arts.
Dalglish, running free through the Hibs half, scored far Celtic to make sure that he took some personal glory from the contest and that, too, was suitable on an afternoon when he had burst his lungs for Celtic. But it could not produce a fairy-tale finish, because the shape of the game had been forged another way.
LAP OF HONOUR
Hibs did their lap of honour and that was a joyful experience for 20,000 of their fans who had noisily made their presence felt throughout the match. This was, in the end, a happy day for Scottish football beset on all sides by troubles, but which seems able to forget them once its top teams set foot on the right side of the touchline.
Celtic — Williams; McGrain and Borgan; McCluskey, McNeill, and Hay; Johnstone and Connelly; Dalglish, Hood and Macari. Substitute—Callaghan.
Hibernian — Herriot; Brownlie and Schaedler; Stanton, Black, and Blackley; Edwards and O'Rourke; Gordon, Cropley and Duncan. Substitute — Hamilton.
Referee — A. MacKenzie (Larbert).
Attendance 71,696
