Match Pictures | Matches: 1947 – 1948 | 1947-48 Pictures
Trivia
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Relegation D-Day for Celtic
- Subject to the situation in other matches, this was a vital match for Celtic to win to ensure the first team didn’t get relegated in the league.
- Patsy Gallacher’s two sons faced each other in this game; Willie Gallacher at inside-left for Celtic and Tommy Gallacher at right half for Dundee.
- This was Bobby Hogg’s last game for Celtic and he put in a request for release the next season. He was at the end of his career.
- In the end Celtic won to safeguard the top league position, and Airdrie with Queen’s Park were relegated.
- This was one of the first games that Bobby Evans played at half back. Evans was persuaded by coach Jimmy Hogan to consider the position his own and that this would be his best position – as indeed it would prove to be – rather than the makeshift forward he had been used to playing.
- Hibs won the top tier league, with local rivals Leith Athletic bottom of the second tier.
Review
| “One with my left, one with my right and one with my head” the perfect hat-trick to win the match and guarantee safety from relegation” Jock Weir on his hat-trick v Dundee to save Celtic from relegation |
Celtic is a club to celebrate with a culture that exudes success and progress stemming from the pride of the communities that built the club.
However, not all has been plain sailing, and it may come as a surprise to many to realise that at one point the club was perilously close to relegation. It was in season 1947/48, a time that was to rank amongst Celtic’s darkest days, and having been a dominant side in Scotland for much of the league’s first 30 years of professionalism, the club was now staring humiliation in the face. Hibs had clearly supplanted Celtic amongst the top two in the country as Celtic were a fading force.
Ironically, it wasn’t a bad time for Scottish Football with attendances up and enthusiasm at a high following the more austere years during the war, although society was still adjusting in the face of reconstruction. Celtic though were still stuck in the past in the doldrums, sadly stuck in the war years rather then the golden periods much earlier a generation or two beforehand.
The pivotal game in the season was against Dundee away from home in April 1948, and to say that morale was likely to be low is a bit of an understatement. The club had just suffered three heavy defeats to Hibs (2-4) and Third Lanark twice (1-5, 1-3) conceding 12 goals, leaving Celtic with the mathematical possibility of being relegated.
The position going into this game was as follows:
| Position | Team | Played | Points _________ |
| 12 | Celtic | 29 | 23 |
| 13 | Morton | 27 | 23 |
| 14 | Queen of the South | 29 | 23 |
| 15 | Airdrie | 27 | 20 |
| 16 | Queen’s Park | 29 | 17 |
As a measure of desperation, Celtic brought back veteran Bobby Hogg to play, even though he had hardly played all season and was at the end of his career as a footballer.
The unlikely saviour was Jock Weir who had been bought for just £7,000 back in Feb 1948. He’d opened the scoring with a goal after 14mins, but Dundee had then scored to make it level going into half-time. Then after the break, Dundee had gone two-one up to sink the hearts of the Celtic support. Then late on Jock Weir popped up with an equaliser, and with only minutes to go Weir miraculously grabbed a winner in the final two minutes to seal a hat-trick for himself. It was to be a relieving victory for the club to safeguard Celtic’s situation.
The Celtic fans celebrated as if the first team had just won the league. It shouldn’t hide the fact that Celtic were poor, but humiliation was averted.
Incredibly, Jock Weir hadn’t really impressed as a goal scorer before this match, so what a time for him to repay back his transfer fee. Notably, for this game he was moved positions to ‘outside-right’ from his usual forward position. Outside-right had been his favoured position at Blackburn Rovers but Celtic had persisted in playing him as a centre-forward due to a complete lack of goals from most else throughout the season.
In truth, there was still a safety catch before Celtic would have been relegated (Celtic had an advantage in the final run-in above others) but it was still all too close for comfort. Airdrie and Queen’s Park (itself a former giant of the game) had to face the ignominy of relegation from “Division A”. Celtic finished with a paltry 25pts from 30 games, whilst Hibernian won the league with 48pts.
Too often too many seem to discuss Celtic and Rangers as having held the monopoly perennially over Scottish football and this case clearly illustrates that that is patently a load of nonsense. The rise of Celtic many years later was due to the hard work and the devotion of those involved (in particular Jock Stein and Sean Fallon), and the relative demise of the Edinburgh sides in later years, who had both pushed Rangers in these post-war years for dominance of the Scottish game, was all of their own making.
One benefit is that this created a shock to the system within Celtic that led to some short-lived reform, piecemeal that it was in the end. A new respected trainer Jimmy Hogan was brought in, and Charlie Tully and Bobby Collins were bought to shore up the squad. It didn’t take the club back to the top quickly but it did help push the first team back up the table a few notches, as some credibility was needed to be recovered.
It was to be a long time before Celtic were to really regain pride back under Jock Stein as manager, although there were some great times during the 1950’s as well which should always be remembered (e.g. league & cup double of 1953/54).
Teams
Dundee:
Brown, Follon, Irvine, Gallacher, Gray, Boyd, Gunn, Pattillo, Stewart, Ewen, Mackay
Dundee scorers: Ewen (44), Mackay (60)
Celtic:
Miller, Hogg, Mallan, Evans, Corbett, McAuley, Weir, McPhail, Lavery, Gallacher, Paton
Celtic scorers: Weir (14, 67, 88)
Ref:Mr Scott of Paisley
Att: 31,000
Articles
- Match Report (see below)
Pictures
Articles
