1980-05-10: Celtic 1-0 Rangers, Scottish Cup

Match Pictures | Matches: 1979 – 1980 | 1979-80 Pictures

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Trivia

• Both Roddy MacDonald and Tom McAdam were suspended. Jim Casey was injured in training.
• Game has been dubbed the “Hampden Riot 1980”!
• Said to be Scottish football’s worst riot for 70 years as Celtic and Rangers hooligans fight each other (and the police) on the actual pitch.
• 210 arrested (160 inside the stadium) 100 people injured including 4 policemen.
• Only the introduction of mounted police brings back order and clears the field of fans.
• Game was sponsored by Youngers Tartan Special.
• After this game alcohol was barred from matches in Scotland and to date still not reinstated.
• Mike Conroy is the unsung Celtic hero in unusual centre half position after Tom McAdam and Roddy MacDonald were suspended and Dom Sullivan and Jim Casey out injured.
• Danny McGrain is sponsors man of the match.
• Danny McGrain took a shot that was well off target, but George McCluskey redirected the ball past Peter McCloy and into the goal which won the match.
• First Scottish cup medals for Sneddon, Conroy, MacLeod, Provan, McGarvey, McCluskey and sub Vic Davidson.
• Bobby Lennox plays his last ever game for Celtic after 17 years. This was his 26th winners medal.
• Celtic received £23,000 from the sponsors for winning the cup but had £2000 deducted for having two players booked on the day.

“This is like a scene now out of Apocalypse Now… We’ve got the equivalent of Passchendaele and that says nothing for Scottish football. At the end of the day, let’s not kid ourselves. These supporters hate each other.”
Archie MacPherson (match commentator)

The infamous final which ended up being a watershed moment for football in Scotland. Celtic won the game and the fans entered the pitch to celebrate a victory, with Rangers fans then storming on for a fight. Fights galore, with the police trying to keep fans apart. As the match was live, the scenes were nothing less than a disaster for the game publicly.

Remarkably, there were only a dozen police officers inside the ground when trouble kicked off! The police anticipated trouble outside the stadium and had the majority of the force outside the ground. Mounted police were required to clear the pitch of rioting fans.

Although Celtic fans should not have came onto the park it was pointed out that thousands of Aberdeen fans had ran on the field at Easter Road, dancing joyously, only seven days previously after they had won the league title.

The BBC and ITV news bulletins concentrated on the riot and showed little of the game in their summaries which were shown UK wide.

It was a shame that this game will not be remembered for the entertaining match that it was on a glorious summers day.

Review of the Game
Rangers were clear favourites with Celtic missing first choice centre backs Roddy MacDonald and Tom McAdam. Jim Casey was earmarked as a replacement and was injured in training so midfield man Mike Conroy was drafted into the centre half role alongside Roy Aitken, a position in which Conroy had never played. As it was Conroy had a tremendous game against the Rangers’ striker Derek Johnstone who was always a danger at cross balls.

Both sides fielded wingers, Provan and Doyle for Celtic and Cooper and MacDonald for Rangers which made for a very open game. Celtic edged the first half with MacLeod and McGarvey, twice, going close. In the second half Rangers pressed the Celtic defence and Johnstone had the miss of his life when he watched a cross from McLean slowly drift past him with the empty goal gaping. Right on 90 minutes Latchford saved Celtic with an instinctive save on his line from a Cooper header.

Celtic looked slightly stronger in in extra time and took the game to Rangers. They scored when George McCluskey cleverly diverted a long range Danny McGrain shot past Peter McCloy. As Rangers pushed forward Celtic caught them on the break and Burns missed a snip with only McCloy to beat and was left holding his hands in despair at his miss. McCluskey should have had two penalties after late tackles by Forsyth and Jackson in separate incidents but the referee played on and he also came close again with a fine run and shot.

Celtic pushed on Bobby Lennox in extra time and his experience was invaluable to his younger team mates as the game came to a close.

Rangers pressed again at the end and Latchford and Conroy became tangled at the death after they both went for a high Tommy McLean cross but Latchford eventually held the ball well. The referee blew for time up with Latchford still holding the ball waving to the jubilant Celtic fans behind him in the Mount Florida end.

The game was over but the real drama was about to begin.

After the final whistle young Celtic fans ran on the park to salute the Celtic players. For a short time everything was okay but then Rangers fans ran on the field to antagonise the Celtic fans already on the field. That was sufficient provocations for older Celtic and Rangers fans to come running down on to the pitch from the terraces and within minutes a full on riot was ensuing. It is worth recalling that Rangers fans had showed displays of public disorder after previous Hampden cup final Old Firm defeats in 1965 and 1969 which were still fresh in the memory.

At full time the police had focused their resources outside the ground as the Drybrough Cup Final between the sides the previous August had saw disorder outside in the street surrounding the stadium. The police clearly had not anticipated that the supporters would take to the field inside the stadium. They were therefore severely under resourced and the officers inside the ground had no control as hundreds of fans battled with bottles and cans on the field.

Eventually the mounted police were called to the scene and only they managed to clear the field of the fighting fans who left a debris of cans, bottles and injured bodies.

There were numerous inquiries afterwards but it is worth pointing out that seven days previously happy Aberdeen fans had ran on to the Easter Road pitch after Aberdeen had won the premier league. There was no criticism of them but Celtic supporters were heavily chastised for doing the same thing.

Evening Times 12th May 1980

Stories
Lubolu (from KStreet forum)
I was about seventeen at the time and that game was the first one that me and my mates had brought a big carry-out to. Turned out it was the last game as well. Remember standing near the back of the Celtic end on a sweltering hot day and that the game itself was pretty pony if not the result. Seem to remember that we had a few injuries before that game and Davie Provan playing a more midfield role that day than his usual wing role. Mick Conroy was drafted into an emergency centre half position and the boy had a great game.

When the final whistle went our end went predictably ballistic and I remember the hun hordes scrambling for the exits. Some of the Celtic players had come up to our end to join the celebrations and a few young boys ran on to the track more in excitement than anything else. At this stage I would say there was no more than 5 or 6000 huns left in the stadium. These celebrations seemed to surprisingly antagonise the hun stragglers and before you knew it the Battle of Hampden had begun. It seemed funny at first first to see the different charges by each support but it quickly dawned on us that this was becoming serious as all hell broke out. I remember some lunatic behind us launched a half full Buckie bottle that skimmed off my shoulder and the impression that we should get out of there quick. Trying to negotiate a safe passage home that night was tricky as the huns were out for blood but we managed to get there in one piece.

The press reaction and the sanctions handed down to both clubs were sadly predictable in the ‘ both sides are as bad as each other’ kind of way we see to this day.

Letthepeoplesing (from JungleBhoys & KStreet forum)
I was at the game too and think it was my first Old Firm game but not first Cup Final.

These were the days when drink was allowed and my da happily swigged from a bottle of whisky throughout the match.

I have a clear recollection of the game. At the final whistle Danny McGrain led the players towards the fans at the Celtic end near the corner of the North Stand. Young Celtic fans made their way onto the track as Danny and the players justifiably milked the celebrations.

Me and my best mate asked my da if it was ok if we ran onto the pitch and he nodded his approval. We were about half way up in the centre of the Celtic End and by the time we got to the front and tried to climb over the fence a polis was kicking the fence from the track side to stop the Celtic support from getting on the pitch.

We tried a few times but couldn’t get over the fence due to the polisman’s efforts.

The Rangers fans definitely came on the pitch in an aggressive act after young Celtic fans went on the pitch to celebrate with the players. Older Celtic fans (youths) then came on the pitch and the bottles from both sides rained down.

I remember when the Celtic players lifted the trophy the riot was still going on on the pitch and me my da and my best mate hardly even noticed Danny lifting the trophy as we were so busy watching the riot!

The match itself was a very close and nervy contest which could have went either way before George McCluskey’s deflection from a Danny McGrain shot (!!) into the Rangers End in extra time. I remember the cloud of smoke from the dilapidated Celtic End with the rotting terracing when the goal went in.

There’s a cracking picture of McCluskey’s leap into the air as the ball went in the net with the Celtic end in the background worth digging out.

Tom English looks back at the 1980 Scottish Cup final riot between Rangers and Celtic fans and asks: Who was to blame?

Thirty years ago this week Old Firm fans clashed on the pitch at Hampden in Scottish football’s worst riot for 70 years.

Remarkably, there were only a dozen police officers inside the ground when trouble kicked off. How did it happen and who was to blame?

IF CHIEF Inspector Iain McKie could have heard the commentary on that May day at Hampden 30 years ago he might well have left his position on the pitch, left the rampaging Old Firm supporters, left the cans and the bottles and the bricks, left the worst outbreak of hooliganism in Scotland in 70 years, and marched straight up to where Archie Macpherson was sitting, microphone in hand, and throttled him live on air.

Archie was in his tower, talking to the nation. He was looking down at the scenes that would soon be replayed all across the world and was talking about Apocalypse Now, talking about Passchendaele and how the mindless thuggery in the minutes that followed the 1980 Scottish Cup was the footballing equivalent of war. “They’re spilling right on to the pitch,” Archie was saying. “And where are the police? For heaven’s sake, where are the police!”

McKie thinks back now and says, in fairness to Archie, he called it right. Where, indeed, were the police? He can tell you where he was. Oh yes, even 30 years on, he has no problem recalling his precise location. He was standing in the thinnest blue line in the middle of Hampden. He took a look to his right and there were less than a handful of officers with him, he took a look to the left and it was the same story. He counted a dozen, tops. “If I said there were any more than that, I’d be lying.”

Coming towards him to the front were the Celtic hordes and to the rear, the Rangers masses. He drew his baton and picked a target. “There was only one way to get out of that nightmare and that was to arrest somebody.” In that regard, he was spoiled for choice.

While McKie was fighting the tide at Hampden, his wife was fixing a tile on the roof of the family home. Their young son dashed from the house and told his mother that dad was in a fight on the telly, but Mrs McKie didn’t budge from her ladder. It was the Old Firm he was policing. Always trouble between those two. Nothing new there.

Only there was. This was a national disgrace at play. Officers on horse-back and mountains of missiles piled high on the pitch. Casualties in the penalty area and drunks running rampant on the sacred turf. As the night went on, the BBC studios at Queen Margaret Drive received a steady flow of calls from European and southern hemisphere networks looking for their pictures of the riot. Within hours, Scotland’s humiliation went global.

The scandal was discussed in the House of Commons and the House of Lords, in the Church of Scotland and the Catholic church. The blame game began. The police were at fault, said Celtic. No, said the force, it was the Celtic fans that started it. Yes, said Rangers, this was all because of their bitter rivals.

“Appalling,” announced Desmond White, the Celtic chairman, in reply. White was “shocked to the core” at the reaction from Ibrox and went on the attack. Bad policing and sectarianism were the root causes of what had happened, he said.

“Although I only checked on the details later, I can tell you that Celtic’s Cup final side featured six Catholic players and five Protestants, who include our captain, Danny McGrain.”

The inference was plain. No bigotry could be found inside the doors of Parkhead. Could the other lot say the same?

In the brilliant STV series, The Football Years, there was a section on the 1980 final. Stuart Cosgrove was interviewed. He spoke about the emergence of Alex Ferguson’s Aberdeen that season – they’d only just won the league championship – and the effect it had on the Old Firm. After 14 years of dominance, Rangers and Celtic were looking like tired old relics now, said Cosgrove. “But you had the fear that the monster wasn’t quite dead.”

Alan Sneddon, Celtic defender: “Aye, Aberdeen won the league that season. Beat us by a few points. Rangers were well off the pace.”

Frank McGarvey, Celtic striker: “But Rangers were favourites in the Cup final. We had injuries, remember? Tom McAdam, Roddy MacDonald, Jim Casey.”

Peter McCloy, Rangers goalkeeper: “It was a hot day. It was a dust-bowl out there.”

John McDonald, Rangers striker: “The game? Can’t remember much about it to be honest. Went to extra-time. Danny McGrain took a shot from a mile out and sclaffed it.”

Frank McGarvey: “Danny always sclaffed it. It was a typical Danny shot.”

Peter McCloy: “It was gonna hit the corner flag if he was lucky. Then it takes a deflection off George McCluskey and it’s in. George is offside, I think. But what can you do about it? Late winner. That’s it. Over.”

Dougie Donnelly: “It was the first time I’d fronted the BBC’s Cup final coverage. There was me, Bertie Auld and Jock Wallace. I can’t remember who was doing it for STV, but they had it live as well and although we always had higher viewing figures than they had, there was always competition between us to see who could interview the winning captain first. As soon as the final whistle went I sprinted down to the pitch looking for Danny.”

Iain McKie: “I’d watched it from the tunnel. Can’t remember who I was with, but there wasn’t many of us. They say there was 400-500 officers on duty that day. Well, I can tell you that the vast majority of them were outside the stadium by the time the match was over. There was nothing unusual about that. It was standard procedure. Most of the trouble at Old Firm matches took place outside the ground; fighting, urinating in gardens, all sorts.

“The local residents at Hampden were fed-up with the disorder after these games, so that’s where most of the force was. It seemed sensible at the time. After all, the fences were up inside the ground. With the fences in place there didn’t seem any chance that the supporters would try and get on to the pitch, so the vast, vast majority of our presence was in the streets around Hampden and on the route back into the city.”

Alan Sneddon: “We went to our supporters to celebrate the victory. What did everyone expect us to do? Rangers would have done the same.”

Some Celtic fans, in their delirium, scaled the perimeter fencing and joined the players on the pitch. At the same time, down the other end, a young supporter, clad in green, ran to the Rangers goal, produced a ball and fired a shot into their net. It was a slight too far. Over the fencing came a posse of Rangers supporters. Archie Macpherson shifted in his seat and a memorable piece of commentary was about to unfold.

Dougie Donnelly: “I’d got hold of Danny, but as I was interviewing him live I could see out of the corner of my eye the two sets of fans running at each other.”

Iain McKie: “It was then when we realised that our manpower was drastically short. Once the boys started scaling the fences it just became a general battle. Bricks and bottles flying. I don’t know where they got the bricks, but some went over my head and I was thinking to myself, ‘What am I doing here? And where the hell is the cavalry?'”

Donald MacLeod: “I was the photographer for The Scotsman. I was 24 years old and I’d never seen anything like this. But who had? I was stood near the dugouts when it all kicked-off and it was like an invasion of angry Bay City Rollers fans. They all seemed to have long hair and their scarves tied around their wrists.

“People were getting stuck in. Lots of punches, but mostly kicks. And there were cans flying everywhere. Not so many bottles, but loads of cans. The swoosh of a beer can going over your head and this trail of what you could only hope was lager coming out of it. Every time I think about that match, I hear noise. It starts off as a low roar – and then you hear the horses. I can still hear the hooves going across the pitch.”

Archie Macpherson, in commentary: “This is like a scene now out of Apocalypse Now… We’ve got the equivalent of Passchendaele and that says nothing for Scottish football. At the end of the day, let’s not kid ourselves. These supporters hate each other.”

Iain McKie: “I was in the middle of it, wrestling a guy with a scarf.”

Donald MacLeod: “When you’ve got cameras in your hand, you don’t tend to see it as real. You’re looking at it through a viewfinder and it’s just something to be photographed. You become aware of not wanting to drop something. If you drop it, it’s gone. It’s at the Barras the next morning. I had the equivalent nowadays of £15-£20,000 worth of cameras. In my mind’s eye, I see a picture of a young fan trying to dodge a policeman with horses behind them. I think of Eric Craig as well. He was the Record’s photographer and got very badly hurt. I think somebody hit him over the head with a bottle. The medical people took him into one of the goals to treat him.”

A dozen mounted police took to the field, among them a 22-year-old WPC called Elaine Mudie who was riding a white horse called Ballantrae. Nearly everybody remembers the white horse. Nearly everybody commented on the iconic image in the aftermath.

Lord Kilmany, in the House of Lords: “My Lords, while many people admired very much the courage of the mounted policewoman, riding a white horse, who joined in the police charge at Hampden Park in very disagreeable circumstances, may I ask if this is not really the most suitable way to deploy female labour, however courageous?”

Lord Paget, in reply: “My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that, speaking from long and personal experience, once you put ’em on a horse, the female sex are far more deadly than the male?”

Dougie Donnelly: “You know, I don’t remember seeing many grown men. It was young lads, teenagers. The horses appeared and I thought, ‘My God, somebody is going to get trampled underfoot here. Somebody’s going to get killed’.”

Frank McGarvey: “I didn’t see it. We were just ushered into the changing room and we stayed there until it was over. Was I shocked to see the pictures later on the telly? Not really. Glasgow was a powderkeg waiting to explode back then. Different now, thank God. I lived in Glasgow all my life. Nothing in Glasgow takes me by surprise. The amount of hatred between these fans? It was always ready to ignite.”

Iain McKie: “There was a lot of criticism of the chief constable (Patrick Hamill] and since I was in charge of the press office at Strathclyde, I had to deal with it. I stayed up for two days answering press queries while the chief constable, in my opinion, went to ground. He said to me at Hampden, ‘I think we’ll need to say something about this, Iain’. Those were his parting words to me.”

Plenty was said. A verbal war broke out between Celtic and Rangers as both flailed pathetically for the moral high ground. The police got it in the neck along with the SFA. A giant magnifying glass was trained on Glasgow football and it produced as ugly a sight as any in the game dating back to a previous Old Firm riot in 1909.

The upshot was the implementation of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill and the banning of alcohol from all grounds in the country.

“You look at it now and it’s surreal, isn’t it?” says McKie, who spent 30 years in the force before his retirement.

“It’s insane that something like that could have happened in Glasgow. I remember in the few days afterwards, I was desperately trying to get some senior people to say something and couldn’t. So I said something myself. I said, ‘This will never happen again!’ I went out on a bit of a limb, because you could never say never when it came to the Old Firm in those days. But it’s not like that any more. And thank goodness for that.”

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