| Match Pictures | Matches: 1972 – 1973 |
Trivia
- Testimonial for the legendary Jack Charlton
- George Connelly removed with bad gash to knee. Leeds use 4 subs as they have a ECWC final against AC Milan coming up.
- Big Jack took lap of honour at the end in a carnival atmosphere – ‘ I cried_for the first time since Munich’.
- Sean Connery watched from the stand with Michael Parkinson.
- 4000 Celtic fans travel south for the game.
- Leeds played in all yellow to allow Celtic to wear the hoops.
- Stevie Murray makes his debut and refuses to swap jerseys to keep his first ever Celtic top.
- ‘Celtic were out of this world. They made it a great game for Jack. We’re delighted it was such a success’. – EARL OF HAREWOOD, President of Leeds.
- ‘None of the Leeds officials or fans would bet with me before the game. After watching Celtic tonight I don’t blame them – the boys were tremendous’. – SEAN CONNERY.
- ‘What a game. This was real football. I wish Celtic played down here – the fans in England would love them’. – JIMMY TARBUCK.
- McGrain, Connelly, Hay and Dalglish are named in the Scotland squad for the games against Switzerland and Brazil.
Report
This was a magnificent game of football between two great sides. Johnstone, Dalglish and Murray were all impressive and Jinky rounded off the night in 86 minutes when he sprinted from the half way line to beat Sprake with an excellent shot.
Celtic and Leeds fans sang for each other’s side at the end in tribute.
Not everything was sweetness and light, however, and in later years, Charlton revealed some bitterness in his biography. “The leaving of Leeds closed the book on one of the most exciting phases of my life.
“Twenty-three years earlier, I’d made the train journey from Ashington with not much more than the clothes on my back, Now I was going home with a tidy bank balance and almost every honour the game had to offer. “To that extent, I’d good reason to thank the club. And yet when I walked out of the gates at Elland Road for the last time, I felt just a little bit let down by the club officials. It had to do with my testimonial game against Celtic.
They took £40,000 at the turnstiles on the night, which was a nice sum for a man who had never earned more than £175 a week. But then I saw the deductions – £12,000! What really bugged me was that they included a match fee of something like £8,000 to Celtic – and Celtic owed us a game for a match at Parkhead the previous year. Now, the Leeds directors could have insisted on a reciprocal arrangement and requested the Scots to scrap their fee for my game. But they didn’t. Instead, they kept it for themselves, an asset to be cashed in at their time of choosing. I mean, it wasn’t as if Leeds United was a poor club.
Anecdote:
“Money could not buy Jimmy [Johnstone]’s talent,” said Jim Craig. “He destroyed Terry Cooper, who was England’s left-back at the time, when we met Leeds United in the semi-final of the European Cup in 1970. A few years later, we went to Elland Road for a testimonial for Jack Charlton and Jimmy turned it on again. My father-in-law, James Farrell, got a tap on his shoulder during the game. It was [chatshow legend] Michael Parkinson, who asked `do you see this every weekend?’ `Of course’, was the reply. `God, you are so lucky,’ said Parky.”
Jim Craig
Teams
Leeds Utd:
Sprake Reaney Madeley Bremner Charlton (McQueen) Hunter (Bates) Lorimer Clarke Jones (Jordan) Giles (Yorath) E Gray (Cherry)
Goals:- Clarke 2 (28, 56), Bremner (71)
Celtic:
Hunter, Hay, McGrain, Murdoch, McNeill, Connelly (McCluskey 45), Johnstone, Murray, Dalglish, Callaghan, Lennox
Subs:- Connaghan Hood Deans
Goals:- Dalglish (18), Lennox (49), Johnstone 2 (68, 85)
Referee: Gordon Hill (Leicester)
Attendance: 34.963
Articles
- Match Report (see end of page below)
