| Match Pictures | Matches: 1954 – 1955 | 1954-55 pictures |
Trivia
- A cold snap and snow had hit Scotland – the worst weather since 1906 – with drifts up to 10ft deep and food being air-lifted to cut-off villages. Most of the football programme for the weekend of the 15th January was called off. Celtic had been due to play Aberdeen at home. The referee J A Mowat initially declared the pitch playable the night before though it had been frozen solid. It was called off on the morning of the game after continuous snow overnight.
- Bonnar returned and was back in goal; Collins was fit and returned at outside right and Tully was out with a groin strain with the left back Fallon re-instated as centre forward. The Palmerston Park pitch had had two inches of snow removed from it and looked in remarkably good condition. Celtic had only won three times in their previous fifteen visits to Palmerston Park and hopes were high in the Dumfries camp.
- With Rangers game at Ibrox called off Celtic stole a march over them and moved to second in the table. The Evening Times even at this early stage was calling it a race between four for the League Championship – Aberdeen in the driving seat and Celtic, Rangers and Hearts challenging.
Review
This was a game of offsides with the Celtic forwards being penalised 11 times during the game with three goals disallowed for offside and a further goal disallowed for an unfair challenge on the goalkeeper. A fairly uneventful first half finished 0-0.
In the second half Collins started with a good shot but the trail of offside flags continued with Mochan and Fernie both being pulled up. Fernie's first goal arrived in a somewhat bizarre way. Fallon received the ball and was a foot or so offside. With the linesman dersperately flagging the referee let play continue. Fernie crossed for Walsh who was brought down. From the resultant free kick Peacock chipped in for Fernie to score.
Celtic won comfortably in the end despite the officials and the applications of the laws and it was a credit largely to their superior fitness that they kept battling to the end with the pitch heavy and starting to cut up. Bonnar was under-employed (though a shot from Oakes pounded back off the post with Bonnar well beaten), Meechan if anything was the better full back than the dependable Haughney and Stein was solid. Evans was purposeful and effective. Peacock too had a good game and was responsible for the cheeky free kick which led to the first goal. Fernie, who was getting to be more of a team player and less the individualist, had a good game scoring both goals. In fact he 'scored' five goals but had the first three chalked off for offside and walked the other two in. Collins too kept the QotS defense busy. Walsh, Mochan and Fallon had passable games.
Teams
Queen of the South:
Henderson; Sharpe, Binning; Rothera, Smith, Greenock; Black, McGill, Patterson, Brown, Oakes.
Scorers:
Celtic:
Bonnar; Haughney, Meechan; Evans, Stein, Peacock; Collins, Walsh, Fallon, Fernie, Mochan.
Scorers: Fernie 2 (76, 79)
Referee: R Morris (Falkirk)
Attendance: 12,500
Articles
- Match Report (see end of page below)
Pictures
Articles
Glasgow Herald 24/1/55
