| Match Pictures | Matches: 1969 – 1970 | 1969-70 Pictures |
Trivia
- Snow fell in Scotland and all hands were needed on the plastic covering and straw mats at Celtic Park for the game to go ahead. The pitch under the covers, however, was in perfect playable condition.
- Kilmarnock came into the game after a tough Fairs Cup tie against Romanian side Dinamo Bacau.
- Celtic played in the all green shirt and white shorts and white socks.
- Kilmarnock player Frank Beattie tragically broke his leg during this game. A compound fracture, he was out of the game for nearly two years.
- Both teams sent in reports of the referee's conduct of the game and this came just after the Lang Report to the government on football which called for less criticism of match officials.
Review
If the previous league game will be remembered for the skill of Jimmy Johnstone then this game will be remembered for the tragic injury to Frank Beattie.
This was a hard fought game up until the point that Beattie and Jinky clashed in a tackle in the 17th minute. Said to have been an ill-tempered game the referee, Mr J H McKee of Kirkintilloch failed to impose discipline early in the game and hard tackles flew in.
Kilmarnock scored first when they streaked away after a contested penalty in their area and Morrison scored.
Teams
Celtic:-
Fallon, Gemmell (Craig), Hay, Murdoch, McNeill, Brogan, Johnstone, Hood, Wallace, Auld, Hughes.
Scorers: Gemmell (28 pen), Hughes 2 (31, 66)
Kilmarnock:
McLaulin King Dickson GilmourMcGrory Beattie (Strachan) McLean Morrison Mathie Waddell Cook
Scorers: Morrison (24)
Referee: J H McKee (Kirkintilloch)
Attendance: 35,000
Articles
- Match Report (See Below)
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Match Report
Fan's view
(by Tattiemuncher of the KDS forum, link)
Gentlemen, apologies for the length of this post. Please indulge me because….
This weekend represents a special anniversary for this Celtic supporter. On 20 December 2009, it will be forty years to the day since I was taken to my first Celtic game.
Dad had taken my brother and me to quite a few reserve games before then. I remember a 7-1 thumping of Dundee United and being shocked at my father shouting at John Fallon as he fumbled a late United consolation into the net “Fallon, yer a balloon”. (That counted as abuse in the sixties!).
The most memorable reserve match, though, had to be Celtic 12 Partick Thistle 0. When would that have been? 1968, 1969? Six of the goals were scored by Joe McBride, the veteran in a team which, I later discovered, included Dalglish, Hay, McGrain and Macari. Yes, I saw the Quality Street Kids when they were exactly that! A funny post-script to this: I met Joe McBride at Celtic Park before the Copenhagen game a couple of seasons ago and asked him about it. He remembered the match, but assured me that the final score was 13-2! Maybe we left early.
Anyway, there’re only so many reserve matches two Celtic-daft schoolboys can take. We wanted to see the “Big Team”. Dad always resisted but then, out of the blue, five days before Christmas, he caved in. It wasn’t our first visit to Celtic Park but, at last, we were going to our first proper match.
To be honest, I don’t remember much about it. What I do remember is that we wore our school blazers and caps to the game! Dad wasn’t too keen on colours, but our uniforms were green and we thought they might pass as club blazers!
We lived in the East End and so Paradise was within walking distance. We’d go down Millerston Street past the old General Wolfe pub (and our little bit of imperial history from dad: to this day I can tell you Wolfe took Quebec from the French on the Plains of Abraham, dying from his wounds in the process); beside the pub stood Terry’s Tattoo Parlour, and then a few yards further along the Gallowgate stood a row of white-washed cottages, including the one with the nameplate J W Kelly.
Anyway, to the game. The record tells me 35,000 were inside Celtic Park on the 20 December 1969. The three of us took our places in the old stand. My brother and I found spaces in among the other kids sitting in the schoolboy benches which ran along the front of the stand and above the standing enclosure. Dad sat a few rows behind.
Celtic v Kilmarnock, 20 December 1969.
Celtic: Fallon, Hay, Gemmell (Craig), Murdoch, McNeill, Brogan, Johnstone, Hood, Wallace, Auld, Hughes.
It’s odd to think now – as it was then – that Kilmarnock were the last team to win the title before we embarked on our 9-in-row. Only four years earlier, they had been champions; 18 months earlier they’d been in the semi-final of the Fair Cities Cup. They were a power in the land.
Unfortunately, I only have one vivid memory of the match, which is this: after about 20 minutes of play, with Celtic attacking the “Rangers end”, the Kilmarnock captain Frank Beattie mis-timed a tackle on Jimmy Johnstone. Jinky was in full flight on the main stand side. The entire stadium knew immediately something serious had happened. The game was held up for an age and it seemed neither player would continue. The trainers came on to attend to both players, as did the first-aid crews, indeed Jock Stein himself came on. Eventually, Johnstone recovered but Beattie had broken his leg and was to be out of the game for nearly two years and never really recovered.
That night, I watched the highlights in black and white on Sportsreel and was really shocked that such a long interruption was edited down to about 30 seconds: “But mum, it went on for ages…honest”.
Sadly, Frank Beattie — a true Kilmarnock great – died in November this year. Those of you who read his obituaries will recall that this incident was mentioned in all of them.
Anyway, I have no memories of the game apart from that. Sorry!
The final score:
Celtic 3 (Gemmell 28 pen), Hughes 2 (31 66), Kilmarnock 1 (Morrison 24)
I can’t say this was the beginning of my love affair with Celtic. My father’s sons were never, ever going to be anything other than Celts. Supporting Celtic was like the colour of your eyes: you don’t choose, the DNA does.
But it was the first of countless hundreds of games. And what will the next forty years bring for our great club?
Thank you for indulging me. If you found the patience to read this, then I hope you enjoyed these memories.
God bless Celtic!