| Match Pictures | Matches: 1963 – 1964 | Pictures: 1963-64 Pictures |
Trivia
- The draw had been made back in December. The other ties were Manchester Utd v Sporting Lisbon, Hamburg or Barcelona v Olympic Lyon, MTK Budapest v Fenerbahce. On paper Celtic were pretty evenly matched with Slovan.
- The Slovan stars were centre half Popluhar, and goalkeeper Schroiff, both of whom were Czech internationals. They were generally a physically big team. They arrived on the Monday night by charter flight to Renfrew Airport.
- Slovan players stayed up late the night before the agme to watch Cassius Clay beat Sonny Liston in Miami for the world heavyweight boxing title.
- They were given a bus tour of West of Scotland ‘beauty spots’ before the match.
- Future Celtic manager Jozef Venglos was dropped for this game in favour of Horvath.
- Legendary Celt Chic Geatons watched from the stand.
- Celtic played their strongest side having rested Jimmy Johnstone from the Saturday snow-affected game against Airdrie and Clark, Murdoch and Hughes were back fit again.
- The full Scotland side face the Scottish League at Ibrox on the Monday night with no Celtic players picked in view of this tie on the Wednesday night.
- Outside of the immediate, Dunfermiline announced that Jock Stein would quit as their manager at the end of the season.
Review
Slovan returned to Czechoslovakia from Renfrew airport confident of overturning Celtic’s slender lead from this game.
The Czechs defended resolutely led by their class captain Popluhar and and Celtic were left to rue missed chances. Divers and Murdoch failed to make an impact and Hughes faded particularly in the second half. This left Chalmers starved up front for support.
Hughes struck the bar in the opening minute and in the second half Murdoch had an incredible miss with an open goal.
In 70 minutes Filo fouled Chalmers in the area and Murdoch smashed home the resultant penalty for Celtic to win on the night.
Teams
Celtic:
Fallon; Young, Gemmell; Clark, McNeill, Kennedy; Johnstone, Murdoch, Chalmers, Divers, Hughes.
Scorer: Murdoch (pen 70)
Slovan Bratislava:
Schroif; Urban, Filo; Horvath, Popluhar, Peter Molnar; Cvetler, Obert, Hrdlicka, Paul Molnar, Jokl.
Scorers:
Referee: V Troichal (Belgium)
Attendance: 53,000
Articles
- Match Report (see end of page below)
Pictures
Articles
Evening Times 27th February 1964
