1972-05-06: Celtic 6-1 Hibernian, Scottish Cup

Match Pictures | Matches: 1971 – 1972 | 1971-72 Pictures

Trivia

• The record 20th century Scottish Cup final score line.
• Celtic also scored 6 goals in League Cup finals against Hibs, 6-2 in 1969 and 6-3 in 1974, where Dixie Deans also scored a hat-trick.
• Dixie Deans became in the history books the first (and to time of writing the only) player to have scored hat-tricks in both a Scottish Cup and League Cup Final.
• The final tally of arrests during and after the Scottish Cup Final was announced as 223. Baillie Stewart Stevenson, Glasgow’s senior magistrate revealed that 150 had been for “miscellaneous offences,” mostly urinating. Sixty four supporters were arrested inside the ground and charged with breach of the peace.
• Jock Stein:
  • “Let’s take stock of the season, we won the League championship and the Scottish Cup and we were in the final of the League Cup and were not beaten in any of the European Cup matches. I think we did all right.”
• Jim Craig’s last game for Celtic after a marvellous career.
• Lisbon Lion Bertie Auld was a Hibs’ substitute on the day.
• Kenny Dalglish and Dixie Deans win their first Scottish Cup medals.
• Celtic had now created a Scottish record of scoring 19 goals in one Scottish cup campaign.
• Two jets flew in over 250 Celtic fans from Canada into Prestwick airport on the day before the match. They paid $370 for a four day trip to Scotland.
• Celtic were offered the chance to play Santos, Pele et al, in New York as part of their post season trip to Bermuda. However no dates could be arranged and the players went off on their Bermudan break.
• On the Thursday prior to this game Celtic lost 3-1 to Hearts at Tynecastle in the Reserve League Cup Final 1st leg. The Celtic team was Connaghan, J. Davidson, Quinn, McNamara, Watt, McCluskey, McLaughlin, Wilson, Hancock, White, O’Hara Sub Mitchell. The Celtic scorer was White.

Review

Celtic tore a strong Hibs side aside with a devastating display of attacking football on a pleasant May afternoon. It was an entertaining game but the contest was over after Celtic’s third goal when Hibs disintegrated. Celtic went for the throat in the second half and could have had more than six.

Before the game there was disappointment when both David Hay and Harry Hood were declared unfit because of injury.

Dixie Deans was star man with a brilliant hat trick and did a famous ‘roly poly’ cart wheel on the Hampden turf after his third goal. This was his first cup final he was appearing in and was only days after the tragedy of his penalty miss against Inter Milan in the European cup semi final.

Every Celtic player was on form but there were truly outstanding performances from Bobby Murdoch and Jimmy Johnstone. McNeill scored in his third Scottish cup final – a magnificent record for a centre half.

This was Jim Craig’s last game and he went out on a high with his Celtic team mates giving him a send off to remember.

The attendance of 106,000 eclipsed the glamourous Wembley final between Leeds and Arsenal by 6,000.

The winning Celtic team was minus the talents of McGrain, Hay, Hood, Lennox, Davidson and Quinn which gives an example of the strength in depth Celtic had at that time. It was to be a pity that the Celts did not win the penalty shoot out as a European Cup final against a Johan Cruff inspired Ajax would have been quite a prospect and with Celtic in this kind of form they could easily have won it again as in 1967.

Teams;

Celtic:
Williams; Craig, Brogan, Murdoch, McNeill, Connelly, Johnstone, Deans, Macari, Dalglish, Callaghan. Substitute: Lennox
Goals: McNeill (2), Deans 3 (23 ,54, 74), Macari 2 (83, 87)

Hibernian:
Herriot, Brownlie, Schaedler, Stanton, Black, Blackley, Edwards, Hazel, Gordon, O’Rourke, Duncan (Auld)
Goals: Gordon (12)

Referee: A McKenzie (Larbert)
Attendance: 106,102

Articles

• Match Report (see below)

Pictures

• Match Pictures

Articles

The Scotsman, Monday, May 8, 1972

What’s to be done about this Celtic?

John Rafferty, reporting.

CELTIC 6. HIBERNIAN 1

On Hampden’s field Hibs’ hopes lay shredded and Celtic enthused over winning the Scottish Cup as if that were something new to them. Jock Stein grinned expansively and, with fitting decorum, acknowledged the acclaim of the supporters. We wondered what was to be done about this Celtic for it is becoming ridiculous that they should win seven successive league championships then score six goals in the Scottish Cup final and against what was, beforehand declared to be the most formidable challengers that could be produced.

At Celtic Park yesterday Jock Stein had little to say about the match except that it spoke for itself. He told me: “That’s the past, “come and see the future.” We went out to the field where two teams were playing.

They were from Celtic’s 14 to 16-year-olds and if I were to tell of the astonishing speed and skill and team-sense and attacking flair these lads showed then it would send waves of despair through Scottish club football.

The evidence is that the Scottish League are premature in designing a trophy to mark Celtic winning seven successive League championships. They should wait until the run is over.

If there could be any com­plaint about a pleasing Cup final on Saturday it would be that the score-line, suggests that it was an uninteresting one-sided game. It was never that, not even in the final minutes, when Hibs were on their knees, for even then that great competitor, Pat Stanton, was charging into Celtic’s defence seeking a goal to ease his hurt pride.

LINK WITH 6-1

Hibs had gone to Hampden with such hope and confidence, with such backing and encouragement, that to lose would have been bad enough. To lose by the biggest score ever in the history of the 98-year-old competition was shattering and maybe incomprehensible to them. The 6-1 final score had been matched in 1888 when Renton, the world champions then, beat Cambuslang.

There is a link in the scores in that after that final Kelly and McCallum the Renton half backs left and joined a new club being formed in Glasgow— Celtic! James Kelly became captain of the first Celtic team. He was the father of the late Sir Robert.

The simple explanation of Hibs’ defeat is that Bobby Murdoch established himself as boss of the mid-field. He ruled that area with the haughty majesty of a ring master, bringing order to it and sending out his acts to delight the audience.

WORLD CLASS

His was football of world class. Its quality was not just in interception and positioning and in accurate imaginative passes to inspire attacks, but in the less flamboyant settling passes. He could step into trouble and sweep the ball back to the goalkeeper or to a distant part of the field to allow the defence to get organised again. He always did the right thing. In such form there would be a place for him in any team in the world. Yet he is not in the Scotland pool of 22 players for the Home Internationals.

He was well supported by the running of the willing Tommy Callaghan but not so well by Kenny Dalglish who was out of touch completely and found usefulness only in filling space where Hibs hoped to find it. They had banked on establishing some sort of control in the mid-field.

Hibs had looked for so much from Alex Edwards but got very little. I had wondered about him before the match but had not expected that he could so vanish from the play that Pat Stanton would be shouldered with an intolerable burden. Jimmy O’Rourke had his troubles with the speedy Celts and Stanton was left doing the work of three and in a position which is not his best.

Things began to go wrong for Hibs when the rain came on Friday night and made the turf right. The ball sat down and that suited Jimmy Johnstone. There were ominous signs for them them even before the first goal was scored after 120 seconds. Johnstone beat a few men and Celtic strung together a few passes and clearly they were in the mood.

Johnstone gave Hibs’ defence a terrible time. His briefing was to go wherever he could find space. Thus, since he played in no specific position he was hard to mark. Once he got jinking there was only one way to stop him and when Hibs’ defenders resorted to that they lost two goals from free kicks.

The first was a bad one to lose for when Billy McNeill took up position for the free kick he was loosely marked with much space in front of him and into that the ball was put. He was unimpeded when he shot the goal. There after Gordon had to do much running going up with McNeill for the set pieces in front of goal.

It was one of McNeill’s best games. He had impressive control in the air and the expected heading duel between him and Alan Gordon did not materialise. Gordon won the ball but twice yet each header of his produced a half chance. Long before the end Gordon and young Hazell had been played out of the game by McNeill and George Connelly and only Arthur Duncan, on the left, was a threat. Eventually he was injured and had to be substituted. Connelly was a magnificent partner for McNeill.

The four Hibs backs had much to contend with in the switching imps, Lou Macari and Dixie Deans, and the jinking Johnstone and the probing of Murdoch and the running of Callaghan but they coped commendably well. Schaedler was the better full back for Brownlie, under pressure lost composure. Black was safe but Blackley was more than that in skill and competitiveness.

Blackley was Hibs’ most effective player and had he been able to stick to his own job then Celtic would not have found goal-scoring so easy. But when the midfield was lost he went charging forward trying to get into the game. This was forced on him for nobody else looked like shaking Celtic’s defence.In the later stages when Hibs were trying to save face by pushing on they were at the mercy of the long passes of Murdoch springing Macari and Deans.

This Dixie Deans just can­not keep out of the limelight. He enjoyed the circumstances on Saturday for to score three goals in a Scottish Cup final must be the ultimate in foot­ball happiness. The second, in which he beat Brownlie twice and Herriot twice, was one we longed to see in action replay. Twice Macari came within an inch or two of matching the three goals and that would have been the ultimate in wonder.

Stein said yesterday. “Let’s take stock of the season, we won the League championship and the Scottish Cup and we were in the final of the League Cup and were not beaten in any of the European Cup matches. I think we did all right.”

The Scotsman, Monday, May 8, 1972 (Page one).

Celtic manager hits out at TV coverage of cup finals.

By John Rafferty

The presentation of the Scottish Cup Final by the Scottish Football Association and its treatment by tele­vision were strongly criti­cised yesterday by the Celtic manager, Mr Jock Stein.

He said: “The Scottish Cup Final is a national occasion but both downgraded it.”

He was shocked when the teams were sent on the field, just as in any ordinary game, and the referee followed them later. He added: “That was rubbed in afterwards; when we had to watch the ceremonial at Wembley at the English Cup Final and to see that the Queen was there.”
NOT MENTIONED

Mr Stein said: “With this attitude, : if Kilmarnock had beaten us in the semi-final then the Hibs v. Kilmarnock final would have been just another game, and how many would have been at it.” I think that the Scottish Cup Final must be treated as the big event of the year no matter who are the finalists and that it must be staged in such a way as to show its importance.”

He was far from satisfied by the pre-match treatment of the final by television. “For the past week we have been bom­barded by the English Cup Final on radio and television. On Friday night there were interviews on television with the managers of the English finalists and interviews again on Saturday morning. Neither of the Scottish channels came near us.

“On Friday night we had the players at Troon and were watching English television. There were programmes about the English final but not a mention of ours. Naturally the players wore not happy and I dare say many of the public were feeling the same. Yet the television people came after the match looking for favours after doing nothing beforehand to stimulate interest.”

There will be few to disagree with Mr Stein and there will be those who add that the Scottish final was spectacular event with great goals while the English final was dull and not nearly matching its publicity.

Mr Stein was speaking in no churlish mood. He was happy beyond words over Celtic’s sub­stantial victory but he has always equated Celtic with Scottish football and has never undersold them.

Glasgow Herald Monday May 8 1972

CELTIC INVITED TO PLAY SANTOSCeltic, with the Scottish League championship and the Scottish Cup firmly secured, have been invited to play prestige games, prob­ably against Santos (Brazil), in Toronto and New York within the next few weeks, writes Jim Parkinson.They have been asked to consider the offer and tie it in with their holiday arrangements to Bermuda, where they meet two local teams later this month.It is unlikely that the Parkhead officials will de­part from their original schedule. The players have had another busy season and are due a well-earned rest.Jock Stein, however, is already looking ahead to next season and giving careful study to proposed pre-season games.

POSSIBILITIES He would like to have more competition from South America, and all the possibilities will be explored within the next few weeks.The most interesting proposition of all may arise tonight if Leeds United add the English league title to Saturday’s F. A. Cup win. Leeds are too concerned at the moment to talk of such a proposal. But after their match against Wolverhampton Wanderers tonight, and if the result is favourable, discussions are likely to take place.

No matter Celtic’s match arrangements, Jim Craig has played his last match. He is emigrating to South Africa to further his dental career and business and Celtic have generously released him to play for Hellenic, a Cape Town club, temporarily managed by George Eastham (Stoke City).

HONOURS

Craig has won all the honours with Celtic, and his departure leaves only four of the 1967 European Cup-winning side at Parkhead – Billy McNeill, Bobby Murdoch, Jimmy Johnstone, and Bobby Lennox. The 29-year-old Scottish International full back leaves for South Africa on May 16. He was thrilled to have made his farewell appearance in a brilliant Celtic team at Hampden, and having contributed to handsomely to the last two goals.There is no lack of replacements for Craig’s position at Parkhead. In addition to David Hay there are a group of young contenders for his place.

Arthur Duncan, Hibernian’s outside left who was taken to hospital in the second half at Hampden, was again detained last night. The former Partick Thistle player, who has a head injury and concussion, will have another examination this morning when it is hoped he may be allowed home.

Scottish Cup final 1972: Unlucky Hibs beaten 6-1

The Scotsman

Published on 21/05/2013 00:00

The goalie in the second-greatest Hibernian team never to win the Scottish Cup is not keeping too well and the other day had to go into hospital.

As he prepared for various tests at Wishaw General including an ECG scan, one of the nurses noticed a familiar name on the admissions board and couldn’t resist asking: “You’re not the vet, are you?” The patient laughed and said: “No, I’m the original Jim Herriot.”

Now 73, Herriot is revered by Hibs fans as the first name in the roll-call for Turnbull’s Tornadoes and remembered by everyone else as the goalkeeper who blackened his eyes with goal-line mud to combat glare – and from earlier in his career it was some televised heroics for Birmingham City which inspired All Creatures Great and Small author Alf Wight to adopt his name as a nom de plume.

“It’s funny how I still get asked about that,” says Herriot. “I mean, the TV series was a long time ago now. I met Alf once. He told me it was after I’d played quite well in a cup-tie against Manchester United that he decided to borrow my name. I gave him one of my Scotland shirts and he gave me a signed first edition. I’m not much of a reader although I quite enjoyed the TV show. Pets? I’ve never been one for animals and Ann was the same.”

This is Herriot’s wife who died three years ago. “She was my biggest fan; I miss her an awful lot,” he adds, and breaks into another chuckle. “When I was at Dunfermline, playing against Rangers, I had to come off with concussion. She was out front at East End as I was being carted into an ambulance. I was in my usual green jersey and a Rangers fan who was passing said something derogatory. Ann bashed him on the head with her brolly.

“Then there was the England-Scotland game at Wembley [1969], the first evening Home International between the countries, and unfortunately we lost 4-1. Afterwards Ann and I were with Jock Stein and his wife; they’d been guests at our wedding. Big Jock was blaming me for one of England’s goals and Ann wasn’t standing for it, no matter the man’s reputation. She gave Big Jock what for.”

Ann wore Jim’s medal round her neck, the badge from Hibs’ December 1972 League Cup triumph, the year’s third Hampden final between the greens. Hibs took the Drybrough Cup as well but in the May, in front of a crowd of 106,101, a Dixie Deans-inspired Celtic ran out 6-1 winners for an 18th Scottish Cup. Stein vs Eddie Turnbull was the classic dugout confrontation of the age and Herriot, who lives in Larkhall, Lanarkshire, played for them both.

“Jock was a great manager and Eddie was a great coach. Jock knew how to motivate and psyche you up, whereas Eddie’s man-management was virtually non-existent.” Herriot had a few fall-outs with the boss, wartime veteran of the Arctic Convoys, and was once reprimanded: “Don’t you dare f****n’ swear at me!” He adds: “But Eddie wasn’t the least bit daunted by the Old Firm and always thought we could beat them with our flair. In training, if the guys made three or four square passes in a row, he’d stop the session.”

Herriot recalls the Tornadoes by nickname: Onion (John Brownlie), Shades (Erich Schaedler), Niddrie (Pat Stanton), Cilla (Jim Black), Sloop (John Blackley), Mickey (Alex Edwards), Biffo (Jimmy O’Rourke), Tosh (Alan Gordon), Nijinsky (Arthur Duncan – “or the Roadrunner; there was a guy in the Easter Road enclosure who aye shouted ‘Beep, beep!’ whenever we sent Arthur away from our kick-off”). Pung (John Hazel) deputised for the injured Alex Cropley in the Scottish Cup final, but Sodjer was back for the League Cup. And Herriot? “At Dunfermline I was Kookie after the detective in 77 Sunset Strip [a hotrod-driving hipster with a heavy personal grooming regime] because I was aye combing my hair like him. At Hibs I got another name. Alex Edwards said: ‘You walk just like Robert Mitchum – dead suave.’ So I became Big Bob.” Edwards is one of the old team-mates who regularly checks on his well-being. “I aye know it’s him on the phone. He’ll go: ‘Is that the world’s worst goalie?’ I’ll tell him: ‘And you’re the crankiest wee bugger there’s ever been’.”

But here’s a funny thing. Instead of picking the ball out of the Hibs net six times 43 years ago, Big Bob could have been Celtic’s ’keeper, replacing Ronnie Simpson. “Big Jock had saved my career at Dunfermline. We had five goalies and I was heading out the door but he decided to keep me and Eddie Connaghan. Then he tried to sign me for Celtic when I was at Birmingham, only they wanted a bigger fee than Stoke paid Leicester for Gordon Banks, and he eventually cooled on the idea. I was amazed when he went for Evan Williams, who at that point was in Wolves’ reserves.”

Williams smiles at his rival’s recollection when I track him down in Dumbarton. “I wouldn’t doubt Jim’s version of events. Yes, I did wonder why Wolves had bothered buying me [from Third Lanark] but when I was out on loan to Aston Villa, Sean Fallon told me not to sign for anyone else because Celtic would be coming.” Was he intimidated by having to fill Simpson’s gloves? “No, because I’d had to follow Jocky Robertson at Thirds, while at Wolves all I heard was the name Bert Williams.”

To show Stein what he was missing, Herriot always wanted to put on a show against Celtic. “Sometimes that was my downfall. I did have some good games against them but other times I tried too hard and made a fool of myself.” In May ’72, he was undone by an old trick. “Billy McNeill scored from a header from a corner. Jock knew from Dunfermline that I liked to come for crosses so he had Bobby Lennox block me off. Exactly the same thing happened when Billy scored in the ’65 final [Celtic 3, Pars 2] and if I remember right it was that bugger Lennox again.” Alan Gordon equalised but Celtic regained the lead before the interval. Herriot again: “In the second half Eddie had us really attack them, leaving just three at the back. We had as many chances as them, possibly more, but they were so clinical. I know this might sound daft, given it finished 6-1, but we were quite unlucky.”

Williams would not disagree. “Hibs had a great team back then. Even before that final, after I’d played my first ten games for Celtic and we’d won them all, we went to Easter Road and they beat us with two Joe McBride goals. That brought us down to earth. I can name their entire ’72 side. [He does]. Not bad, given I’m 70 this summer. It tells you the quality they had, at a time in the Scottish game when every team had some rare players. I’m not being patronising, but even at 4-1 Hibs were still in that final. I was pretty pleased with my saves from wee Jimmy O’Rourke and that bag of tricks Alex ?Edwards. Even at 5-1 they kept coming at us.”

Celtic had a great team, too: five Lisbon Lions plus Kenny Dalglish, Lou Macari, George Connelly, Tom Callaghan and Hibee nemesis Deans (18 goals in 13 games against them). “We were lucky back then,” continues Williams. “Well, not lucky, but we had Jinky who could beat the opposition on his own and Dixie who on that day couldn’t stop scoring.” For one of his goals Deans seemed to have been fired from a circus cannon to connect with a wayward Johnstone shot with his head. His next trick was impossible but – rounding Herriot twice and dumping three international defenders on their backsides – he pulled it off. The somersault celebration was less Olga Korbut, more Harry H. Corbett.

At Hibs’ post-final dinner, Turnbull took the blame for the defeat through his gung-ho tactics and vowed the Tornadoes would be back; they were. At Celtic there was no real celebration, as was customary. Williams again: “The club won so much at that time and Jock didn’t want us getting blasé. I won four league championships but never once got to hold the trophy and my four medals were given to me in a oner. Maybe that’s why, until recently, every one I won was kept in a Safeway bag. Sorry to Hibs fans for that!”

What’s in a name? Evan Williams was christened Samuel. Dixie Deans is really John. The Hibs goalie in ’72 has been called many things, and seen “Jim Herriot” grow into a highly successful literary brand. He hopes Hibs will win on Sunday, writing their own famous story, and his old opposite number agrees they’ve got a chance.

Celtic: Williams, Craig, McNeill, Connelly, Brogan, Johnstone, Dalglish, Murdoch, Callaghan, Macari, Deans.

Hibernian: Herriot, Brownlie, Black, Blackley, Schaedler, Edwards, Stanton, Hazel, Duncan, O’Rourke, Gordon.

Referee: A Mackenzie.?Attendance: 106,102

Articles

Evening Times 8th May 1972

Glasgow Herald 8th May 1972