| Match Pictures | Matches: 1974 – 1975 | 1974-1975 Pictures |
Trivia
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Scottish Cup Final
- 23rd Scottish Cup title win for Celtic.
- Celtic had lost the league this year, but did win the League Cup too. So two trophies.
- Jimmy Johnstone was in at Celtic Park trying to recover from the injury he picked up against St Johnstone to be fit for the Cup Final.
- The Reserves played in the week with Deans, McCluskey, Hood and Callaghan all turning out with a view to a place in the Final. Deans was sent off.
- Vic Davidson was given a free transfer along with David Thomson, Jim Murphy, Mike Leonard, John Mulholland and Gerry McAleer
- A bright sunny afternoon and the crumbling relic of Hampden are the stage for Billy McNeill's last game for Celtic. Given an outstanding ovation by the Celtic support and was carried on the shoulders of all his team-mates. An emotional day for the club and thankfully capped with another trophy victory as befitting such a great player who announced hios retirement only minutes before the team came out..
- This was McNeill's 23rd winners medal as Celtic captain and his 7th Scottish cup winners medal.
- First Scottish cup medals for Latchford, Lynch, Glavin, Wilson and unused sub MacDonald.
- Paul Wilson bravely played after the death of his Mother only four days preceding the final.
- Outside of football this was the week that Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese as the Americans evacuated so signalling the end of the war in Vietnam.
Review
Celtic eventually won well after a scare when Airdrie equalised. Jock Stein sprang a few surprises by leaving out regular first team men Brogan, Connelly, Johnstone and Deans and laying his trust in younger, less experienced players such as Lynch, Glavin, McCluskey and Latchford.
Wilson scored twice, unusually for him with two headers. Wilson then declined the opportunity of a cup final hat trick late on when Celtic were awarded a penalty after Jonquin felled Lennox in the area. Pat McCluskey, Celtic's regular penalty taker, scored from the spot.
On the day Dalglish and McGrain were magnificent and at the end McNeill deservedly took the adulation of the huge Celtic support in the 75,000 crowd on a fine Hampden sunny day.
Teams
Airdrie:
McWilliams, Jonquin, Cowan, Whiteford, Black, Menzies, McCann, Walker, McCulloch (March), Lapsley (Reynolds), Wilson.
Goals: McCann (42)
Celtic:
Latchford, McGrain, Lynch, Murray, McNeill, McCluskey, Hood, Glavin, Dalglish, Lennox, Wilson. Subs:Callaghan, MacDonald
Goals: Wilson 2 (14, 43), McCluskey (pen 53)
Referee: Ian Foote (Glasgow)
Attendance: 75,457
Articles
- Match Report (see end of page below)
Pictures
Quotes
"Since the situation changed with that defeat by Rangers at the New Year, it has not been easy for the team. After all these years it was difficult to adjust to not winning the League. But the Cup is different. We beat quality sides like Hibernian and Dundee to get this far. We will win."
Jock Stein before the game.
"MY mother passed away the week before the Scottish Cup Final in 1975. I skipped training for a couple of days and then attended her funeral. Big Jock and a few of the players came along and I was very touched they made the effort for me.
"But I still went back in to training on the Friday. I said to Jock: ''I would like to play tomorrow.'' I had played well that season and felt I could contribute. Often, it is the best thing to keep yourself occupied after a bereavement like that. Anyway, I was duly selected and managed to score two goals in a 3-1 victory over Airdrie.
"I joined the lads to have a celebration drink that night for just five minutes and then made my excuses and left them to it.
"It was after that game that Billy McNeill decided to call it a day and hung his boots up. There were a few guys waiting to step into his shoes and Roddy McDonald took over from him in defence.
"The week after that final, I scored two goals against Rangers at Hampden in, I think I am right in saying, the final of the Glasgow Cup."
Paul Wilson
Articles
Glasgow Herald 5th May 1975
When Billy McNeill chose to perfect moment to retire from Celtic
Remaining Time -0:00
Andrew Smith
Published: 12:40 Tuesday 23 April 2019
https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/when-billy-mcneill-chose-to-perfect-moment-to-retire-from-celtic-1-4913403
There are ultimate ways to end the most glittering of careers. As Billy McNeill was carried aloft by team-mates across the Hampden turf in May 1975, after turning in a typically dominant defensive display to captain his Celtic team to a Scottish Cup final victory over Airdrie that earned him the 23 winners’ medal of an 18-year senior career, it was considered he had bowed out in the most perfect fashion.
READ MORE – How Celtic legend Billy McNeill got his ‘Cesar’ nickname
Captain Billy McNeill lifts the Scottish Cup in 1975 after his last match for Celtic. Picture: SNS
Captain Billy McNeill lifts the Scottish Cup in 1975 after his last match for Celtic. Picture: SNS
Two months earlier, McNeill had turned 35. The dunts and pains accumulated in consistently putting his body on the line for almost two decades as he became the greatest warrior for a Scottish team that charged the continental citadel to claim a first European Cup for a non-Latin side in 1967, had begun to catch up with him.
In that 1974-75 season, as Jock Stein’s Celtic came apart in their bid to claim a 10th straight league crown, McNeill had started to feel the affects.
“I should be rested,” he told the Scotsman’s John Raffery during that campaign. “I’m getting little strains I never used to get and the aches take longer to clear up. I need resting but we’ve nobody ready to step in.” No-one indeed, with Celtic minus McNeill – and Stein forced to take time out of the game following a near fatal car-crash – ending up trophyless for the first season in a decade as Rangers helped themselves to a treble the following year.
McNeill later said that he felt he had it in him to play on one or two more seasons with the right management of his body. But this towering figure was never a man who could have been satisfied, or find a satisfactory role, if his stature was in any way diminished.
As he was in being chaired off during the celebrations of his final senior outing, McNeill had to be a stand-out, rising above all others, in triumph. That is how we remember him as a player, and how he engaged, and won, in his joust with footballing mortality.