SOCK AND AWE
The night Celts downed the cream of England with a twist in their kit
IT was billed the Battle of Britain but within 40 seconds Celtic had knocked the socks off Leeds at Elland Road in the first leg of European Cup semi-final played 50 years ago tonight.
And they even did it in socks they had to borrow from their hosts after Don Revie’s team had indulged in a spot of pre-match gamesmanship that didn’t make the slightest bit of difference.
The English champions made a song and dance about Celtic’s white socks clashing with their own and demanded that, as the away team, the Scots side had to change.
With Jock Stein’s men having travelled south with only their white socks in the kit hamper, Leeds kindly offered to loan them some blue ones.
That was rejected out of hand but a second offer of red socks was accepted, with Stein memorably commenting: “We’ll wear the red stockings.
“Under their floodlights they’ll show up more orange than red and our supporters will think that we’re wearing the colours of the Irish tricolour. That’ll please them.”
Davie Hay, who played right-back on the night, was more forthright in his assessment in his autobiography.
He wrote: “The off-the-field shenanigans went on right up until the kick-off. We were informed they had complained about our white socks to the referee. They were the same colour as Leeds’ of course but no one made any mention of it until just before the start.
“As our kit men hadn’t packed alternatives we had to borrow d.mccarthy@dailyrecord.co.uk orange socks from our opponents. If that too was designed to faze us in any way, shape or form, it was another error on their part.
“We could have played in our civvies that night and still won.”
As Stein said, there were plenty of Celtic fans to please in the 45,000 crowd. Their official allocation was around 6000 but an estimated 13,000 travelled to Yorkshire and within 40 seconds they were celebrating the only goal of the game, scored by George Connelly with the aid of a deflection that carried the ball beyond Gary Sprake into the bottom corner.
Record columnist and Lisbon Lion Jim Craig was on the bench that night and believes the scoreline should have been more emphatic.
He said: “It was George’s first major appearance. Before that he was more famous for doing the keepy-uppy around the Parkhead pitch when he was a youngster.
“But he was a superb player and within a minute he had strode on to a loose ball just inside the box and had slotted it away.
“Getting the goal so early gave us a huge boost and we thought we’d scored a second just after half-time but it was disallowed for a very dubious offside decision.
“But we got the result and completed the job in the second leg.
“My abiding memory of the two
legs was the arrogance of the English media before a ball was kicked. In their minds it was no contest – Leeds would go through to the European Cup Final with the minimum of fuss.
“That was very much the backdrop to it. But it came from their media, not from Revie or the Leeds players.
“Don was a pal of Jock’s and there was a real mutual respect there.”
Stein agreed. In the aftermath of the tie he said: “They have laughed at our football long enough down here. I’m not talking about Leeds United or Don Revie, they have respect for us. “I’m talking about the critics and commentators who have rarely given credit to Scottish football. Maybe tonight’s result will stop them laughing.”
If it didn’t, the second leg would have. In front of 136,000 at
Hampden, Celtic won 2-1 to clinch a 3-1 aggregate victory.
Jimmy Johnstone ran riot in both legs and had the English media comparing him to George Best.
In Scotland the feeling was, ‘Aye, compared to George Best, Jinky is better.’
But the wee man himself was unfazed by the commotion. After the Elland Road clash he told Ken Gallacher of the Daily Record: “They can put all the valuations they like on me. They can compare me with any player they like. I don’t care!
“I know people are saying I must be worth a quarter of a million pounds but as far as I’m concerned I’m a Celtic player and I always will be a Celtic player.”
“It was my best game at European Cup or international standard.
“But the whole team played so well. We wanted to do it so much.”
But Craig believes there was a downside to victory and it was to come home to roost when Celtic faced Feyenoord in the final.
He said: “Unfortunately, that game ruined our chances in the final. Although nobody said it at the time, the unspoken feeling was that we had done the hard work by beating Leeds and that Feyenoord in the final would not be as tough a proposition as the champions of England.
“Obviously it didn’t work out like that and we lost the final.
“But the Leeds tie was memorable. The hype was enormous but can you imagine what it would be like nowadays if the champions of Scotland and England met in the semi-final of the European Cup?
“The only thing that would beat it would be a Celtic v Rangers final!”