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Trivia
- Celtic & World War One
- Monday, November 1st, edition of the Glasgow Herald gives an unusually long report of the game. It seems to be loaded with cryptic messages and metaphors and has few redeaming<sic> features.
- The same newspaper edition gives grim news of fatalities for the week of 234 officers and 5,388 men.
- The top letter published in Monday's Herald is from P. J. Dollan who makes a scathing attack on the landlords who attempted to forcibly evict a 60 year old woman and her young son in Govan. LINK
- An article in The Scotsman, entitled 'Irish Support in Glasgow' reports of how a meeting of the Springburn branch of the 'United Irish League' were read a letter from T. P. O'Connor urging them to support Lord Derby's recruitment drive.
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Review
Teams
RANGERS:
Lock, Manderson, Muir, Bowie, Logan, Hendry, Duncan, Cunningham, Reid, Cairns, Paterson
Scorers: Paterson, Reid, Duncan
CELTIC:
Shaw, McNair, Dodds, Young, Johnstone ,McMaster, McAtee, Gallacher, McColl, McMenemy, Browning
Referee: M. Humphries (Greenock)
Attendance:45,000
Articles
- Match Report (see end of page below)
Pictures
Articles
The Glasgow Herald, Monday 1st November 1915
CHAMPIONS IN NAME ONLY
Rangers touched rock bottom form in the Glasgow Cup final, and their successful opponents followed suit in the League match against St Mirren. It was not to be expected that the hitherto all-conquering elevens would make an early and complete recovery when paired against each other, or that their meeting would be so productive of good football as many past encounters. As it happened one team made a partial recovery; the other was, if possible, more ineffective than when suffering its first defeat. The Ibrox attack was at least recognisable, which is more than could be said of the Celtic eleven as a whole. Duncan has never done so well against Celtic, Paterson rarely better, and with Reid more sprightly than normal the failure of Cunningham and Cairns mattered little. Against three successes the Celtic could place but one, and he – Gallagher – the smallest and greatest of the lot, though no more successful when it came to scoring than his mediocre comrades. In fact, Gallagher’s misfortunes at goal epitomise the fortunes of the game. He might have had three goals, and had none. When he did find the net the referee discovered another Celtic player offside, and asked to convert a penalty kick, he merely struck the post. As often happens one side found goalscoring as impossible as the other found it easy, and in this lay such a wide margin as 3 – 0.
A MATTER OF TACTICS
The redeaming feature of a comparatively poor game was that the better team won, and on the same showing would win nine times out of ten, though the winning margin might never again be so decisive or so much a matter of fortune and misfortune. The Ibrox forwards played what one might term sensible football. At a time when the daily manual labour takes the place of daily training the sensible player is he who seeks to achieve the maximum result with a minimum of exertion, in other words he allows the ball to do the bulk of the travelling. That is where Celtic erred and Rangers excelled. Though manifestly out of condition the Parkhead forwards adhered to their tortuous methods; tiring to themselves, tiresome to their followers; while the home forwards, fitter and fresher to begin with, were immeasurably so at the finish, because they swung the ball across and along, and always preferred the straight path, leaving the zigzag course to their opponents. It might be said in short, that there was no comparison between the two forward lines, which exhibited tactics as wide apart as the poles. It was the modern version of the hare and the tortoise story with a different ending. The fleet home forwards did not rest by the wayside once they took a slight lead. On the contrary they redoubled their efforts, and added two more goals in the last ten minutes.
The Scotsman, Monday 1st November 1915
The Rangers were vastly superior to the Celtic in the game at Ibrox Park, Glasgow, which was watched by 45,000 people. Paterson scored the only goal of the first half, which was fairly evenly contested, but in the second half the Rangers were very rampant, and the goals by Reid and Duncan did not fully represent the chances that fell to them. For Celtic, Gallagher missed a penalty. Celtic played below form, while the Rangers at half-back and forward were better than usual. The absence of Gordon and Pursell did not weaken the winners in the slightest.