O’Neill, Hugh – The Celtic Wiki

Personal

Fullname: Hugh O’Neill
aka: Teddy O’Neill
Born: 12 September 1915
Died: 24 September 1964 (Rosyth)
Birthplace: Leith, City of Edinburgh
Signed: 11 Sep 1936 (trial); Signed 12 Oct 1937 for one year and again on 8 June 1938 to 30 April 1939.
Invitation to return. By letter of 16 Sept 1939 (See below) invited to return to play under wartime restrictions.
Left: 21 Aug 1940 (free)
Position: Centre-half
Debut: Celtic 0-1 Queen’s Park, League, 3 Jan 1939
Internationals: none

Biog

Leith born defender Hugh O’Neill (Teddy) signed for Celtic in October 1937 from Blairhall Juniors after an earlier unsuccessful trial with the Hoops in 1936. He had a trial in 1936 previously having come from Holytown United Juveniles.

The centre-half made his competitive debut in a 1-0 league defeat to Queen’s Park at Parkhead on 1st January 1939, and then played just a handful of games in the remainder of that 1938-39 season.

The next season, 1939/40, was a disaster. The new West Regional League was set up as wartime began, and Celtic sank in this truncated league to finish a humiliating 13th out of 16 teams in the league.

His only goal was in a league match v Partick Thistle in March 1940 in a 1-1 draw, which actually was his first match for 3 months and only his third for the first team that season.

Thereafter he was retained for the remainder of the season, but Celtic’s form was most often poor with some humiliating defeats including losing the following games in successive weeks: 2-0 to Motherwell (away), 5-0 to Hamilton (away) and then 2-1 to Rangers at home.

However, despite the gloom from those results, O’Neill was given praise by ex-Celt Peter O’Rourke, who had won the FA Cup as manager of Bradford City back in 1911, saying after the defeat by Rangers:

“I liked best [Hugh] O’Neill a back I had never seen before, and Divers. I see football hope for them. For the others —-!”

He would make a total of 17 league appearances, often as a stand in left-back for John Morrison, before being released by the club in August 1940 empty-handed. Jimmy McStay had just taken over as manager in February 1940 from Willie Maley (who had a 50 year reign), and things were hoped to be changing for the better, but in a very difficult environment and with a bungling Celtic board, it was an impossible task.

His last game was at Palmerston in Apr 1940 which ended Queen of the South’s hopes of winning the league.

The record of the games Hugh O’Neill played in shows him as being a bright prospect but sadly he was playing at an impossible time and like many more his career and potential was blighted by the war. Despite Peter O’Rourke’s kind words on Hugh O’Neill, the ‘football hope‘ never seemed to arise.

He played for Dunfermline Athletic after Celtic let him go, and later took an active role in the Fife Junior League.

At one point he joined Arthurlie before Dunfermline but when the SJFA refused to reinstate former professional players to the amateur ranks regardless of wartime, the Barrhead club retained him but stopped any wages. He was suing them for back wages in 1942.

He was Kelty Rangers representative on the SJFA by March 1951.

He passed away in 1964.