| Match Pictures | Matches: 1952 – 1953 | 1952-53 Pictures |
Trivia
- Mike Haughney came in at right back and Alex Rollo was preferred at left half, Bertie Peacock moving to inside left. Jimmy Mallan dropped out as did Jimmy Duncan.
- The weather had changed from the cold frosty grip that had been around for much of December and was balmy and 'spring-like' for the game.
- Although everyone was on edge and doing their best not to see a repeat of the previous New Year's Day game, which had led to ugly scenes and fighting and which led indirectly to the Eire Flag Controversy, there were still a few incidents. On 2nd January a fan was sent to prison for 30 days for brandishing a revolver at the game. He had been arrested on the east terracing at Ibrox……… Five other fans were arrested and received fines. In general the crowd behaved extremely well.
Review
Celtic had somewhat of an injury crisis with both regular full backs out and likely to be so for a while, along with Joe Baillie and Jimmy Walsh who were slightly further along the road to recovery. On paper the team wasn't that bad. Mike Haughney was reliable and had played fairly often at right back, and Alex Rollo was developing into a good player. Evans and Stein, the other two half backs had been solid all season and the forward line was good. Celtic were in third position in the league, above Rangers but the bears had a few games in hand and in a position to reach the top of the league if they won all their games in hand.
The game itself was fairly dull with little sustained attacking from either side and the two strong half back lines pretty much cancelled each other out. Evans Stein and Rollo for Celtic mopped up pretty much every inside forward play and only Hubbard and Waddell for Rangers presented any danger. Likewise, McColl, Woodburn and Cox carried out a similar function for Rangers.
It was a Waddell cross that proved to be the danger in the end, and Hunter failed to make up his mind whether to come for it or stay and found himself in no-man's land and Simpson headed the ball past him. Celtic should have been given a penalty when Collins was held in the Rangers area by Cox in the first half – of course it wasn't given. Fernie was cited as having an excellent game. But generally the forward play, as noted above, was poor.
George Hunter described the goal as "….the daftest goal I've ever let through." He asked to be dropped and indeed was after the game against Clyde on the 14th January.
Teams
Rangers:
Niven; Young, Little; McColl, Woodburn, Cox; Waddell, Grierson, Simpson, Prentice, Hubbard.
Scorers: Simpson (53)
Celtic:
Hunter; Haughney, Meechan; Evans, Stein, Rollo; Collins, Fernie, McIlroy, Peacock, Tully.
Scorers:
Referee: H Phillipps (Motherwell)
Attendance: 73,000
Articles
- Match Report (see end of page below)
