Canadian Tournament Champions
Celtic lifted the CNE Cup of Champions on June 1st 1968 after a fine victory over AC Milan.
The match was a one off challenge game played in the Canadian city of Toronto. It had been organised to showcase the very best of European ‘soccer’ and to boost the sport’s popularity across Canada.
Celtic, as recent champions of Europe, were seen as a massive attraction and AC Milan were also establishing themselves as being among the continents’ elite. The match was staged at the Canadian National Exhibition Stadium before a crowd of 31,121 – a then record attendance for a ‘soccer’ game in that country. Approximately 20,000 of the supporters were said to be Celtic followers – exiled Scots and Irish who had travelled from across north America.
Celtic and Milan, who were the reigning European Cup Winners Cup champions, had clashed a week before in New York at the Roosevelt Stadium where Bobby Lennox had netted in a hard fought 1-1 draw.
The match in Toronto was to prove a huge success. Celtic were without the injured Tommy Gemmell and Jimmy Johnstone, who had been left back in Scotland due to his fear of flying. However, both they and Milan fielded near full strength sides from the kick-off it was obvious this was a match both sides were desperate to win. The game swung from end to end at a frantic pace and neither set of players were holding back in their challenges.
Despite the first 45 minutes somehow ending goalless the crowd were enthralled with the competitive and highly skilled spectacle served to them. Their enthusiasm helped add to the cup tie atmosphere and they were rewarded with a goal on 49 minutes.
A ball into the box was snapped up by Bobby Lennox in typically lethal fashion and the before the hesitant Milan keeper could react, Lennox had slotted the ball past him and into the goal.
If that got the crowd onto their feet then Celtic’s second had them jumping. Ronnie Simpson in the Celtic goal threw the ball out wide to Joyhn Hughes. The burly wideman collected the ball and began a rampaging run towards the Milan goal. The Italian defenders were simply brushed aside by the surging Scotsman whose pace and power left the opposition players sprawled like skittles.
After a storming 60-yard run Hughes cleverly cut the ball across the face of goal and into the path of Charlie Gallacher who gratefully and clinically provided the perfect finish.
It had been a magnificent performance from Jock Stein’s side and one that outlined the fact that the group of players then assembled at Parkhead were more than a match for any team in the world Celtic lifted the huge trophy – donated by local side Toronto FC – and the reaction from the crowd in the stadium and the local media suggested that the Hoops and Milan had struck a significant blow for football’s popularity in Canada.
Celtic: Simpson, Brogan, O’Neill, Murdoch, McNeill, Clark, Wallace, Lennox, Chalmers, Gallagher, Hughes.
