Match Pictures | Matches: 1973 – 1974 | 1973-74 Pictures
Trivia
- Attendance is a poor 27,974. This was due to bad weather in the Glasgow area with snow and freezing temperatures. Also there was a transport problems with an ongoing power strike and fuel shortage. Very few Dundee fans managed to make it from Dundee.
- The immediate ban on generators saw the game hastily rescheduled for a 1.30pm from the 3:00 pm on the ticket to avoid using floodlights to cut down on electricity use during the state of emergency.
- Pitch was half frozen and half flooded and game was only surprisingly given the go ahead by referee Bobby Davidson (who Celtic had regularly fallen foul of his bizarre decisions) on morning of game. Both sides wanted the game called off.
- Game played with experimental offside rule with a line drawn across the 18 yard box right across the pitch.
- FIFA president Sir Stanley Rous attended to judge merits off offside experiment.
- Celtic lose 4th succesive League Cup final.
- Ex Celt Tommy Gemmell lifts cup as Dundee captain.
- On the previous night at Celtic Park in the Reserve League Celtic defeated Aberdeen 4-1. The Celtic team was Williams, J. Davidson, Quinn, McNamara, McDonald, Connelly, Johnstone, Ritchie, Deans, Lennox, Lynch. Subs Welsh and O’Hara. The Celtic scorers were Lennox 2, Lynch and Deans.
- As the country slid further and further into depression with power cuts, strikes and rampant inflation the government of Edward Heath instituted the Three Day Week. A ban on generators saw the end of any floodlit football.
Review
Dundee were deserv
Jock Stein had controversially left Jimmy Johnstone and George Connelly on the bench to show faith with the side who had hammered Rangers 3-1 in the semi final. Several Celtic players were off form and only Harry Hood looked dangerous in attack
Although there were near things at both ends it took Wallace’s low shot on the turn to lift the cup.
The low crowd and bad weather gave this final a very unusual atmosphere as Celtic fans sheltered in the cover of the North enclosure.
With hindsight had this game been postponed,as it should have been,it could have been played in the spring on a better pitch and a bigger crowd to enjoy it. However this should not detract in any way from Dundee who were worthy winners on the day.
Lisbon Lion Tommy Gemmell lifted the cup for the Dens Park men and would comment in later years that he felt uncomfortable lifting the trophy with so many Celtic fans he know so well sitting around the presentation area.
Teams
Celtic:
Hunter, McGrain, Brogan, McCluskey, McNeill, Murray, Hood (Johnstone), Hay (Connelly), Wilson, Callaghan, Dalglish
Goals:
Dundee:
Allan, R Wilson, Gemmell, Ford, Stewart, Philip, Duncan, Robinson, Wallace, J Scott, Lambie. Subs: Johnston, I Scott.
Goals: Wallace (76)
Referee: R H Davidson (Airdrie)
Attendance: 27,974
Articles
- Match Report (see below)
Pictures
Articles
One Miserable Afternoon in December – The 1973 Scottish League Cup Final
Source: http://beyondthelastman.com/2015/01/13/one-miserable-afternoon-in-december-the-1973-scottish-league-cup-final/#comment-29527
Jan 13 2015
8 Comments
By Craig M (of BTLM site)
In the autumn of his career, the captain of the underdogs climbs the steps to lift the trophy having played a significant role in the defeat of the very club with whom he had been a much-decorated legend earlier in his playing days.
While such a compelling narrative is typically the hallmark of a classic Cup Final, appearances can sometimes be very deceptive: this is, good God, the Scottish League Cup Final of 1973 we’re talking about here. This particular occasion was nothing less than a 90 minute compendium of misery; an unholy coming together of all the worst elements the Scottish Football Experience had to offer.
1973 Scottish League Cup Final programmeAn unfancied Dundee led by ex-Lisbon Lion Tommy Gemmell defeating mighty Celtic 1-0 was almost superfluous detail. This was a terrible game at the climax of a moribund tournament, played in appalling weather at a derelict stadium during a national fuel crisis in front of a paltry and apathetic crowd. It’s no surprise the attendance for this game was by some distance the smallest Hampden had ever seen for a major Final.
The reason these two teams wearily trudged to Hampden Park on that foul December day in 1973 depends upon which perspective you prefer: to decide that season’s League Cup competition and win the first major silverware of the season, or just to get that infernal tournament out the way for another year. By 1973 the League Cup was a bloated dog’s dinner of a competition stumbling blindly towards utter irrelevance. With group stages, knock-out matches, one-off games, replays and random supplementary rounds; the format was a perplexingly complex and long-winded attempt to brazenly extract as much gate money from gullible punters as possible .
Dundee v Celtic Scottish League Cup Final 1973. Even the most faithful of fans had their loyalty tested to breaking point if their team advanced far into the competition. Take Celtic. By the time the final whistle blew at Hampden the Parkhead side had ground their way through 13 League Cup fixtures in just three months, including three Old Firm derbies. This was a ludicrous number when the European Cup could be won in nine games and the Glasgow club needed just six to win the Scottish Cup that same season.
A sensible streamlining of the competition would take another decade to arrive, so the blazers at the Scottish League preferred a minor sop towards experimentation in an attempt to inject some vim into their ailing tournament. For League Cup games only a law that extended the offside line to 18 yards was introduced. To be fair this change did add another dimension to the competition: fans had moaned about the competition being boring, now they complained it was boring and confusing.
Dundee v Celtic Scottish League Cup Final 1973But now that Celtic had navigated their way past all of those meaningless games and stood just 90 minutes from silverware, this would surely inspire their supporters to turn out in force at Hampden? Not a chance. Overfamiliarity, apathy and a faint degree of suspicion dictated the terms of Celtic fans’ awkward relationship with Scotland’s second national cup competition. This 1973 game would be Celtic’s tenth successive League Cup Final appearance and if winning five of those first six had been intoxicating, the three successive defeats in recent years – and especially the sobering 4-1 humiliation by Partick Thistle in 1971 – had been a stringent coffee enema to the system. With bigger fish to fry in League and European Cup, the League Cup was being seen by the Celtic-minded as a banana skin waiting to be trodden on and make them look foolish.
Another grim backdrop to this game was the national fuel crisis gripping the nation during that winter of 1973. To minimise electricity use the government had banned the external generators that football clubs utilised to power floodlights. These were troubled and strife-ridden times, but the strong voices in the media calling for the Final to be delayed until later in the season would be ignored.
The compromise was an earlier 1.30pm kick-off to ensure that the game could be completed before darkness set in, an optimistic notion considering Glasgow is a city where natural light barely breaks through the leaden pall at all during the winter months. The unusual dim and eery half-light the game was played in is captured well in the televised footage (included at the end of this article).
And then there was Hampden Park. On a sunny day in May with flags fluttering against the gentle blue sky of a pleasant Scottish spring afternoon, you might just about be able to see past the many problems that blighted Scotland’s grim and decaying national stadium. But for the rest of the year a visit there offered all the welcoming charm of a visit to a gigantic outdoor toilet.
After gingerly inspecting the pitch the respective managers Jock Stein and Davie White radiated little in the way of goodwill either. The Hampden turf managed to combine the worst of all worlds: bone-hard underneath from outdoor temperatures that had barely risen above freezing point all week, and a cloying, muddy layer on top from the continuous sleet that fell all day. Both declared it unplayable while expressing their concern for spectator safety on the slippy and snowbound terraces.
Dundee v Celtic, Scottish League Cup Final 1973The safety aspect at least wasn’t problematic with the stadium only a quarter full. Fewer than 28,000 brave souls turned out that day to sullenly stand huddled together in pockets on the exposed terraces of the cavernous stadium. Curious neutrals who might have been tempted to attend the game – had they suffered a temporary breakdown of their critical faculties – had the alternative of a full League programme taking place simultaneously around the country. Or better still, staying at home.
And so to the game itself, for what it was worth. With Celtic firm 2/1 on favourites with the bookmakers, Dundee’s Tommy Gemmell suggested beforehand that it would be ‘Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs stuff if Dundee were to win’. Surprisingly it was the Tayside club that adapted better to the conditions and managed to put together some decent one-touch football. By contrast Celtic unsuccessfully tried to take advantage of the experimental offside rule change by missing out midfield with long balls to Dalglish, Wilson and Hood.
John Duncan shot over the bar in the fifth minute and ten minutes later Danny McGrain cleared a Gordon Wallace effort off the line with keeper Ally Hunter stranded. Dundee should have had a first-half penalty when the ball struck Brogan’s arm. It was early in the second-half before Celtic had their first real chance when Dalglish shot straight into the arms of Dundee keeper Thomson Allan. With the afternoon darkening and standing water amassing on the pitch further reducing the game to a farce, the horrible prospect of another half an hour of this debacle was thankfully averted. Gordon Wallace beat the Celtic defence to a free kick, brought down the ball with his back to goal, turned and swept a shot past Ally Hunter. Sub Jimmy Johnstone came close to an equaliser late on but Dundee held out for a deserved win.
Dundee v Celtic Scottish League Cup Final 1973To this day the 1973 League Cup Final represents something of a nadir in Scottish football history. As if the potent combination of administrative incompetence, footballing apathy, infrastructure neglect and the vagaries of the Scottish weather weren’t enough; unusual and never to be repeated external factors added another dimension of dreadfulness to this utter non-event.
It had been a universally recognised notion that in football a Cup Final represented something special, something distinct; something that set it apart from other games and made it into an occasion of note. The Scottish League Cup Final of 1973 single-handedly came close to demolishing this accepted wisdom for good.