| Match Pictures | Matches: 1969 – 1970 | Road to Milan | 1969-70 Pictures |
European Cup semi-final first leg
(agg: Celtic 3-1 Leeds, after second leg)
Trivia
- European Cup 1969-1970, Road to Milan
- All ticket game.
- Celtic won what was dubbed the “Battle of Britain” over the two legs against overwhelming favourites Leeds.
- Celtic had already played Leeds in a friendly before the season started, 1-1 was the final score.
- Celtic won the second leg 2-1, to win 3-1 in aggregate and make a lot of people eat their words. (2nd leg match)
- Celtic had an astonishing 12 corners to Leeds’ 1.
- Celtic had 16 shots on goal to Leeds’ 6.
- Celtic turned out in orange socks, borrowed from Leeds, at bequest of referee who did not want both teams in white socks.
- 10,000 Celtic fans travel south, many without tickets. Yorkshire police praise their good behaviour and good humour.
- Celtic fans packed Central station to the rafters to welcome the team back off the train from Leeds on Thursday April 2nd.
Review
Pre-match
(following is by Tom Brogan, taken from http://stateofthegame.co.uk)
September 20th, 2006 by Tom Brogan
Before the draw for the semi-final was made, Celtic had already decided to move their home leg from Celtic Park to Hampden in order to accommodate the large number of fans eager to see the game.
Jock Stein spoke about his hopes for the draw,”Sure, I’d like to miss Leeds, for I feel an all-British final would be a terrific morale boost to our country.”
But he was not to get his wish, as the draw in Rome paired Celtic with Leeds United, with the first leg at United’s Elland Road ground.
Leeds had started their first European Cup campaign in style, disposing of Lyn Oslo 10-0 at home and 6-0 in Norway. In the second round they knocked out Ferencvaros of Hungary, the team they had beaten in the 1968 Fairs Cup Final, winning 3-0 both home and away.
In the quarter-finals they came up against Standard Liege, who had disposed of Real Madrid. They triumphed in Belgium thanks to a Peter Lorimer goal. The job was finished with an eightieth minute Johnny Giles penalty at Elland Road.
The 1969/70 season began for Leeds and Celtic with a friendly at Celtic Park. 65,000 turned out to see a thrill-a-minute 1-1 draw. Jock Stein said afterwards “I’m as happy as if we had won 3-0.”
Just hours after the draw was made Leeds’ Secretary Keith Archer announced that Celtic would be allocated only 6,000 tickets for the first leg match. This was met with dismay from Celtic fans.
Celtic Supporters’ Association Secretary Hugh Delaney said, “I don’t think the allocation is at all fair to our fans. Leeds will be able to get many more tickets for the match at Hampden.”
20,000 fans were expected to want to travel down from Glasgow, so to be allocated less than a third of that number was a blow for the supporters.
“We have to consider our own fans,” said Archer. “For these big games we can attract 48,000 fans and they are OUR fans. They have to come first so we simply couldn’t give away any more of our tickets to Celtic.” He continued, “I know that Celtic could probably fill half the ground down here, but there’s nothing else we can do.”
Jock Stein began to get his head around what the draw had thrown up in a conversation with Ken Gallacher of the Daily Record.
“It would have been a wonderful final for British football if it had happened,” Stein said, “but it hasn’t and we have to carry on. It was because I was thinking that way, thinking about an all-British final that I hadn’t looked at the semi-final possibility. I honestly felt that we were destined to meet in Milan.”
“But now I have adjusted to the fact that we are drawn together in the semi-final and I can assure you that I can scarcely wait for the games to begin.”
He went on to outline just how much regard he had for Leeds United.
“We know Leeds and we respect them too, but we are not frightened of them. I think these will be great, great games.”
Down south the Leeds manager Don Revie didn’t appear to be too enamoured with the way the draw had went.
“It’s the draw that we didn’t want to face right now. We have a tremendous respect for Celtic and for Jock Stein and we would have been happier to meet in the final.
The 47-year-old Stein, and Revie, five years younger, were good friends. They had attended the 1969 British Open at Royal Lytham and St Anne’s together, enjoying Tony Jacklin’s victory in a rare British win.
Leeds were no strangers to Scottish football either, having beaten Hibs, Kilmarnock, Rangers and Dundee in the Fairs Cup in recent years.
They also had a few Scots in their ranks, including Scotland captain Billy Bremner.
“I feel that it is in our favour to meet Celtic in the two games of the semi-final rather than in a one match final,” Bremner said, “Our consistency can count for a lot in a two-leg tie. Celtic would have been more dangerous in the final.”
Bremner was a boyhood Celtic fan, as was winger Eddie Gray. In Gray’s autobiography “Marching on Together My Life with Leeds United” he recalls that not everyone in the Leeds camp had such respect for the Glasgow side.
“When the draw was made,” Gray writes, “I remember saying [to my team-mates] “I wouldn’t get too carried away if I were you. This is going to be a more difficult hurdle for us than you might think.”
At the same time as the European Cup draw, UEFA also made the draw for the qualifying groups of the European Championships. Scotland came out of the hat along with Belgium, Portugal and Denmark. With typical Scottish optimism, SFA Secretary Willie Allan said, “It could have been worse.”
The Scottish press were bubbling with excitement about “The Battle of Britain” and billed this, “the greatest European tie of this or any other season.”
Maurice Lindley, Leeds United’s Assistant Manager travelled up to Glasgow to see Celtic in action against Ayr United on the Saturday. After the 3-0 Celtic win he said, “I saw enough to realise that this match with Celtic will be the toughest we have ever had to play in almost 10 years of European competition.”
Tickets went on sale for both legs of the tie that weekend. Leeds had doubled the price of semi-final tickets compared to those for the quarter-final match against Standard Liege. That didn’t stop the large number of Celtic fans who travelled down to Elland Road to pick up tickets for the first leg match.
Eventually Leeds restricted ticket sales to season tickets and token holders only.
On the Sunday 25,000 Celtic fans queued at Parkhead for the 60,000 tickets that were on sale, many of them sleeping outside the ground overnight. A coach load of Leeds United fans were among the first 500 to snap up tickets. That first group of 500 supporters could purchase up to 4 tickets each. From then on fans were restricted to two tickets each.
Every ticket available for sale sold out, with thousands of stand tickets being held over for sale at an undisclosed home game.
“Those 60,000 tickets were just the start,” Jock Stein said. “Now we will be giving out thousands of tickets to the various supporters’ clubs throughout the country and the Association.”
The following night, Billy Bremner was named Player of the Year by the English Sportswriters’ Association. Hours later Leeds played their FA Cup semi-final replay with Manchester United at Villa Park. The two sides battled out a pulsating 0-0 draw after extra time. A draw was exactly the result Celtic wanted. This meant that Leeds and their rivals from across the Pennines would have to replay again two nights later.
The fixtures were now beginning to pile up for Leeds. After the second FA Cup replay on Wednesday they would have Southampton to play on the Saturday, Derby County on Easter Monday, then Celtic on the 1st of April.
In midweek 33,000 watched Celtic slump to a 2-1 league defeat to Aberdeen. This meant that they would have to wait until the weekend to play Hearts at Tynecastle in order that they get the point they needed to win the title.
Jock Stein went down to Bolton to see Leeds break the deadlock in their FA Cup epic with Manchester United by winning 1-0 thanks to a Billy Bremner goal in the 9th minute. This would set them up for a final with Chelsea on 11th April.
There was good news for the Celtic support who couldn’t make it down to Yorkshire for the first leg. STV announced that a specially lengthened Scotsport, lasting 45 minutes, would feature highlights of the game as the main item.
On Saturday the 28th of March 1970 Celtic drew 0-0 with Hearts to clinch their 5th league title in a row. Billy McNeill, Bertie Auld and Jimmy Johnstone were rested. In England, Leeds, fielding six reserve players, lost 3-1 to Southampton, as they began to see their title challenge slip away.
In preparation for the big game Celtic went down to Troon, running on the beach on Sunday and putting on a practice match in the grounds of their hotel, to the great delight of the crowds of holidaymakers. They would take the Leeds train from Kilmarnock on the Tuesday, staying in Harrogate before the game.
In the Easter Monday match with Derby County, Don Revie fielded an entire team of reserves. They lost the match 4-1, practically ending their hopes of back-to-back titles.
The English League was now threatening an enquiry. Revie claimed, however, that there was nothing he could do. He told Ken Gallacher of the Daily Record, “The first team players who played for me against Southampton on Saturday, have been ruled out by the club doctor. Five of these players, Jack Charlton, Eddie Gray, Peter Lorimer, Allan Clarke and Paul Madley were too tired, both mentally and physically to play in this game.”
He went on to say that the advice of the club doctor was paramount to him. “The doctor examined the players and told me that they must have rest. Taking part in so many games recently had tired their bodies and their minds.”
Another seven players, including Billy Bremner and striker Mick Jones were at Elland Road having treatment for injuries.
Leeds claimed that they had asked Derby to postpone the match, only for Derby’s directors to refuse. However Alan Hardaker, Secretary of the Football League, stated later that he had presented Leeds with a variety of convenient dates to rearrange the fixtures, but that Leeds had rejected them all.
Despite being allocated only 6,000 tickets, 10,000 Celtic fans were travelling down to Leeds by any means available to them.
British Rail ran a Football Special departing Glasgow at 12.31 on the afternoon of the match, arriving at Leeds 5 hours later. The price for a return ticket was 60/-.
A local travel agent had chartered a plane for 100 fans, flying down in the afternoon and returning to Glasgow after the game.
Of the Celtic fans arrival The Yorkshire Post wrote, “Nothing had happened quite like it in Yorkshire since the Roman legions left York.”
The entire Celtic support arriving from all parts of Britain was estimated at 13,000.
20 players were in the Celtic travelling party. In addition to those players who had a chance of playing, Lisbon Lions Ronnie Simpson, John Clark and Stevie Chalmers would also travel.
John Clark was the first of the Lions to lose his place in the team, as Jim Brogan broke through to claim a place in defence. Evan Williams was now Celtic’s first choice in the goal Simpson had kept so well for a number of years. Chalmers was still a first team player, but had suffered a leg break in the League Cup final the previous October. He would make a comeback in the reserves against Motherwell, a few days later.
On the train down to Leeds, Celtic had a special carriage all to themselves.
The popular Scottish comedian Lex McLean had managed to get a seat in that carriage as well. Lex was as famous a Rangers supporter as there was in that day. Among the many songs he wrote celebrating Celtic’s deadliest rivals was “Every Other Saturday”, a song that is still sung at Ibrox to this day.
Despite his love for Rangers, he was travelling down to watch the match and entertained the squad with his bawdy humour. Tommy Gemmell wrote in his autobiography Lion Heart, “McLean made the journey from Glasgow to Leeds feel like 5 minutes. He was non stop, unbelievable.”
Jock Stein later repaid the compliment by appearing on McLean’s TV show, “Lex”, playing the straight man in a sketch.
Don Revie was at the railway station to welcome the Celtic team as it arrived.
Revie told a press conference before the match, “We must win this first leg game. A draw will be no use to us at Hampden. We must get either a 1-0 or a 2-0 victory at Elland Road.”
Tony Queen, a Glasgow bookmaker, gave odds for the first leg game as Leeds 4-6, Celtic 4-1 and the draw 5-2.
There was a conundrum for Celtic before the kick-off. As both teams normally wore white stockings the away team would have to change. Though Celtic claimed they thought Leeds had agreed to do so. This meant that Celtic did not have an adequate replacement with them, but never fear Leeds stepped in to offer them an alternative. They could wear blue or red.
“We’ll wear the red stockings,” said Jock Stein, sensing a little bit of gamesmanship from Leeds. “Under their floodlights, they”ll show up more orange than red and our supporters will think that we’re wearing the colours of the Irish tricolour. That’ll please them.”
The Match
(following is by Tom Brogan, taken from http://stateofthegame.co.uk/)
Celtic’s team cost £44,000 to assemble, while the cost of the Leeds side was £300,000, with striker Allan Clarke, then Britain’s most expensive player, costing £165,000.
Despite all the problems Leeds had with their players’ fitness the only first team regular missing was defender Norman Hunter.
The book ‘Rhapsody in Green – Great Celtic Moments’ by Tom Campbell and Pat Woods, quotes Stein discussing the anticipated clash between Jimmy Johnstone and Leeds left-back Terry Cooper with a friend. Stein said, “They say this Cooper is a great attacking full back, but he’s never had this tricky wee dwarf running at him for 90 minutes.”
Leeds had not lost a goal in Europe all season. This record was to fall inside 40 seconds. A high ball bouncing through the middle was misjudged by Madeley and fell to George Connelly who hit a shot that deflected off a Leeds defender and crept in at Gary Sprake’s left hand post.
Curiously this was the first away goal Celtic had scored in Europe throughout the campaign.
50 seconds into the second half Jimmy Johnstone swung over a cross and George Connelly again fired a low shot past Sprake. The goal would not stand, with the referee awarding a free kick outside the box. The decision was presumably for offside against Johnstone, though the crowd were baffled, as Terry Cooper appeared to play him onside.
This let off seemed to spur Leeds into action as they came at Celtic with Billy Bremner their driving force.
But their failure to combat Celtic in midfield, with Bobby Murdoch commanding, led them to resort to a long ball tactic. This bore no fruit as Billy McNeill and the rest of the defence continually out-jumped Jones, Clarke and Charlton.
In 68 minutes Billy Bremner went up for a high ball in the penalty box. As he came down he landed on his head, and he was taken off with concussion.
Mick Jones missed a great chance when Jim Brogan made an uncharacteristic error by slicing a clearance. The ball fell to the England international who, with the goal at his mercy, miss-hit his shot and watched as the ball spun harmlessly past the post.
It was Celtic’s night as Jimmy Johnstone ran and weaved all evening, taking the pressure off his defence at crucial moments.
After the game Jock Stein said, “They have laughed at our football long enough down here. I’m not talking about Leeds United or Don Revie, they have respect for us. I’m talking about the critics and commentators who have rarely given credit to Scottish football. Maybe tonight’s result will stop them laughing.”
Despite the result Stein remained cautious adding, “Remember this is only half time, we have another 90 minutes to play at Hampden.”
Don Revie commented “Celtic played very well. They are a great side. It makes it very hard for us at Hampden, but nothing is impossible in football.”
Liverpool boss Bill Shankly, who was at the game, was impressed by Celtic’s performance. He said, “Every manager in England should have been here tonight for an object lesson on how the game should be played.”
Even though he was still suffering from concussion Billy Bremner was the first Leeds player in the Celtic dressing room to congratulate them.
To rub salt into Leeds’ wounds they discovered that Everton had secured the victory they needed that night to take the English First Division title.
Although some publicans in Leeds feared trouble and closed their doors, there were only a handful of arrests mainly for supporters being drunk and disorderly. The most unusual perhaps was a 39-year-old Celtic fan from Methil in Fife. He approached a police officer on a horse, shouting and waving his arms, before making several attempts to jump on the back of the police horse. He was arrested and later fined £10 for being drunk and disorderly.
Celtic were flooded by letters from those publicans and hotel proprietors who had dared to remain open, as well as members of the public in Leeds commending the fans.
The Scottish press went overboard the next day. Hugh Taylor wrote in the Daily Record, “It was a victory that should have been accompanied by the pipes of the Scots Guard, a roll of drums and a commentary by Olivier.”
On that Thursday afternoon 5,000 fans packed Glasgow Central train station to see Celtic return.
The station’s switchboard had been bombarded all day, with fans asking when the team’s train was arriving. British Rail had set up a special path, ringed by metal barriers to control the crowds.
As Celtic’s train pulled into the platform they burst into song. A tremendous roar erupted when Jock Stein emerged.
Jock Stein said, “This is a tremendous reception. Once again the Celtic fans have proved how great they are.”
A bewildered George Connelly said, “This homecoming is really something.”
Amazingly Leeds played in a league match that night, their 8th game in 16 days. The two-all draw with West Ham had a horrific outcome as defender Paul Reaney broke his leg. Not only did this put an end to his domestic season, Reaney, then the holder of a solitary England cap, had to pull out of Alf Ramsey’s 28-man squad for the Mexico World Cup.
Jimmy Johnstone was being hailed as a genius by the media on both sides of the border, all keen to suggest he was at least the equal of George Best. He spoke to Ken Gallacher of the Daily Record. “They can put all the valuations they like on me,” he said. “They can compare me with any player they like. I don’t care! I know people are saying I must be worth a quarter of a million pounds, but as far as I am concerned I am a Celtic player and I always will be a Celtic player.”
“It was my best game at European Cup or international standard. But the whole team played so well. We wanted to do it so much.”
Teams
Leeds United:
Sprake, Reaney, Cooper, Bremner, (Bates 68), Charlton, Madley, Lorimer, Clarke, Jones, Giles, Gray.
Celtic:
Williams, Hay, Gemmell, Murdoch, McNeill, Brogan, Johnstone, Connelly (Hughes 80), Wallace, Lennox, Auld . Substitute: Fallon, Craig, Hood , Callaghan
Celtic scorer: Connelly 40 secs
Referee: Gerhard Schulenburg (West Germany)
Att: 45,505
Articles
Match Report (see below)
Pictures
KStreet
Interview
“ . . . to be fair”, said Billy Bremner, the old spitfire himself, “the best team won.” These are heroic words coming from the hyper-competitive former Leeds and Scotland captain, who stayed with the Yorkshire club for 19 years while they gathered fame, silverware and a reputation for virulent tackling. “We were”, the flame-haired warrior said, “Wimbledon with skill.”
They were also hot favourites south of Hadrian’s wall when Celtic, the 1967 European champions, went to Elland Road for the first leg of that semi-final. Leeds, under Don Revie, were chasing a mighty treble: the European Cup, the League and the FA Cup. Nobody appeared to notice that the date was April 1.
But they noticed when Celtic won. Within 30 days the Leeds treble had dwindled to nothing. “It was unfortunate for us,” Bremner said. “The gaffer, God rest his soul, was such a perfectionist.
With hindsight, he might have been better off picking and choosing his trophies. But we always had to be going on all fronts … be the best … create records.” And so Revie’s dearest wish to win the European Cup, as Jock Stein’s Celtic had done was never fulfilled.
But while the fans may have viewed Celtic as push-overs, Revie and his team never made such a mistake. “Oh, we knew how good they were,” Bremner, born in Stirling and bred a Celtic fanatic, said. In fact, they were so good that Revie decided to try a few tricks. When Celtic arrived at Elland Road, they wer white. Revie offered them orange or blue. “If our gaffer did that on purpose it rebounded on him because I know how I’d feel if I’d been a Celtic player,” Bremner said. “Maybe that’s what got them so pumped up.”
The pumping became evident within 40 seconds, when George Connelly scored the only goal of the game, for Celtic. “But the crucial setback had happened before the match,” Bremner said.
“Norman Hunter didn’t make it. Injured. It was a real blow to us because Jimmy Johnstone had a field day for Celtic. Normally anybody who went past Terry Cooper had to confront Norman and he was a fearsome proposition. He’d remind them they were in a game.”
Evening Times 1st April 1970
Evening Times 2nd April 1970
The Times 2nd April 1970
