A BHOY’S OWN ADVENTURE!
CELTIC’S success in reaching the European Cup final in 1967 hastened a mass exodus of fans who plotted their own colourful and circuitous routes to Lisbon. Here, journalist JIM CASSIDY, just a young lad at the time, tells of his journey...
THE flash maroon Rover 2000 screeched to a halt beside our old Ford Consul. The driver, hair nearly as red as the traffic lights, opened his window and shouted out: ‘Are you going to the game, Tommy?’
My father fumbled with his window: ‘Good God, Jimmy, I thought you were playing tonight?’
‘I am Tommy, but I went for a wee sleep and Agnes just woke me. I’ll get hell fae Jock.’
At that, the lights turned green and Jimmy Johnstone, arguably one of Scotland’s greatest-ever footballers, used the Rover’s immense power to fly down the London Road to face French champions Nantes in the second round of the European Cup.
Little did this speeding, sleepy redhead know on that dark December night in 1966 that, in 170 days, he would enlighten the European stage and write his name into football history.
Even more incredibly, little did I know that I would journey 1,750 miles to watch him and Celtic be crowned Kings of Europe.
To me, Saltcoats and the rugged charms of Yorkshire were our family’s exotic holiday destinations. But soon I was to travel crushed in the back seat of a Cortina, taste tequila, be thrown out of a questionable establishment inhabited by a bevy of sultry beauties, enjoy Rioja, be flashed at by a bare-breasted Brigitte Bardot-style beauty and witness one of the greatest nights in Scotland’s sporting history. My father Tommy was Johnstone’s PE teacher and, with the help of friends and Celtic players Sammy Wilson and John Higgins, he eventually got Jimmy on to the Celtic staff. His first attempt to persuade then Celtic manager Jimmy McGrory was met with a rebuff that this tiny, skeletal figure was too small and slight to ever make it in football.
My father told Mr McGrory there was little they could do about his height, but he could work on his physique. Jimmy became a regular around our home, my mum given special instructions to provide fruit for every visit, and they worked in the gas-lit gym with weights and medicine balls along with balancing exercises and intricate ball games.
On the next visit, McGrory relented and made one of Scottish football’s greatest decisions, giving Jimmy a role as ball boy. That ball boy went on to become one of the most exciting players in Europe and, by 1967, was winging his way into football immortality.
When Celtic reached the semis, Jimmy asked my father: ‘Tommy, are you all going to Lisbon if we reach the final?’
‘No way! I can’t go,’ he replied. The school term is still on. Tom (my elder brother) is thinking of going. Sadly, Jim’s got exams.’
There are moments in all our lives that live with us forever. Decisions taken in nanoseconds; mere impulses that turn into realities.
I jumped in with a lie of epic proportions. ‘My exams are all finished by then; the last one is on May 14th.’ The deed was done. ‘There you are, Tommy, let the wee man go,’ said Jimmy. ‘We’ll see.’ We’ll see. And we saw, and we did.
Throughout Scotland, people who had never ventured further than Rothesay were poring over maps, borrowing money, talking to travel agents and plotting their European invasion.
In the Uddingston HQ, the Lisbon Legion’s Travelling Concert party was taking shape. Ranks and titles were being allocated, tasks allotted, plans made. Ferry bookings, currencies, insurance, the list seemed endless.
Commander in Chief: my brother Tom in his mid-twenties, a solid citizen. A non-smoker who did not drink in excess. He would organise route maps, budgets, sailings from Dover.
The Mechanic: Tom McGuire, our cousin, who made up in the smoking and drinking stakes what Tom lacked. A real charmer and a magician with engines.
The Entertainer: Terry Tochell, a smiling, happy-go-lucky lad who found being happy his true vocation in life.
The Brains: William McBride, the sort who could get himself thrown out of Mensa for being overly gifted. No problems with exams for him.
Then Me. I was an altar boy who thought he would one day be the Pope; a footballer who one day thought he would be Bobby Murdoch; a singer who thought one day he would join The Beatles and a dreamer who would one day ask the girl in my Italian class out on a date.
Accommodation came in the form of an ex-Army tent that, according to my uncle Johnny, was Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery’s very own personal tent.
‘If that tent could talk,’ said Johnny turning misty-eyed. The Commander had the collective budget exchanged into francs, pesetas and escudos, each one in a separate envelope. Money was set aside for the outward journey and the return. The Dover ferry tickets had been booked, car insurance checked.
Weekly meetings were held with The Entertainer joking, Brains brushing up on his French and Spanish, and Me deciding we needed an artistic statement.
Green tape was purchased and I went to work turning our snow white Ford into a Celtic Chariot. AND SO IT came to pass, in the morning of the 20th at 5.30am, we pulled out the choke, fired up the engine and were off!
The welcome carpet was laid out for us in London down the Edgeware Road and in Kilburn where some relatives stayed. A quick journey to a local club where around 30 exiled Scots gathered to wish us well. In truth, they were loving it. A Scottish team in the final of the European Cup.
The next day began with early showers, a massive breakfast and the winding road down to Dover through the early morning mist.
Looking back at the white cliffs as we edged out of the harbour, I remember thinking it would have been nice if some locals had painted some green stripes down them to wish us well. As the ferry edged out of the harbour to be greeted by the Channel swell, I lay on a wooden-bench-cum-lifeboat with Uddingston on my mind.
The first stop for refuelling was Abbeville, 120 miles north of Paris, on the River Somme. Le Patron of a small restaurant explained the concept of the Menu Du Jour and we all made our choice. For the Commander, the Entertainer and Me, steaks with the most incredible pommes frites washed down with wine; I was allowed a glass of house wine. Sophisticated? Moi? Near the end of the meal when the Commander remarked that the steaks were great, Brains popped up with: ‘You know you just ate a horse.’
Then the Entertainer piped up. ‘The second last race at Hamilton last Fair Friday, I backed a horse with a French name. It got beat in a photo finish. It cost me five pound. Eating it, or one of its family, makes me feel better.’
We then started our own version of Le Mans, 24 hours dashing through mile after mile of stunning straight roads guarded on both sides by trees. It is said they were planted at the side of the roads on the orders of Napoleon to give his troops shade as they marched to battle.
An overnight in a beautifully manicured campsite, with a Marx Brothers-style comedy half-hour putting up Montgomery’s tent then into the sleeping bags to sleep soundly. WE SKIRTED round Bordeaux and crossed the border at Irun. Twelve miles later, we reached the stunning La Concha Bay that sweeps around San Sebastian. For us, the Basque capital was a launch pad to the Pyrenees or, as the locals were quick to point out to us, The Basque Mountains.
We followed the River Urumea up, up and up it seemed towards Paradise. Round every corner, drivers in their trucks that had been rescued from the Second World War seemed keen to get us all to our celestial resting places sooner rather than later.
The last of the winter snow still lay on the tops of the limestone mountains. We saw strange-looking birds that we were told later were vultures.
An overnight stop in the Basque Mountains’ campsite. Dusk was falling as we made camp with one eye looking out for those vultures. We selected a beautifully remote spot far from the crowd. Then a drop of rain became a shower and eventually a storm. Montgomery’s tent sounded like being inside a kettledrum.
The Commander, in true officer style, had decided to sleep in the back of the car as he was to do most of the driving the next day. By 5am, we realised why the spot had been so quiet. It had been the dried-out river bed. We dried as best we could and hit the road.
In Valladolid, the Mechanic noted problems with the sound of the engine. We needed oil for the gearbox. We found a garage, but the senors were going for a siesta. Back in three hours, they said!
We had been told that the seminary for young Scottish priests would welcome us, but the Mechanic and the Entertainer felt there might be a religious service organised with serious prayers on the menu, so we ended up in an open-air swimming pool with cool lagers. One shandy for me.
The Spanish mechanics worked on the car for several hours and the bill ate into the kitty. But we were back on the road, travelling into the night to make up time. In the backseat, the unholy trinity tried for sleep, but the torches of the guards in the border town of Fuentes de Onoro woke us.
With every passing mile the landscape was one of abject poverty. More and more, horses and donkeys seemed the transport of choice, cars in the rugged north of Portugal seemed at a premium. The towns of Guarda and Belmonte went flashing by. We stopped in Fundao. The outskirts of the town looked as though they could have been a backdrop for the filming of The Magnificent Seven.
Fundao’s flags of green and white were flying and a road sign pointed to the Celtic Lusitanian Castro, a fortified village to you and me. Was this a sign from the gods?
We stopped on the outskirts of Lisbon just after midnight and the police were impressively helpful when we showed them where we were bound. We followed the blue lights and 20 minutes later, we arrived at what was to be our home for the next three nights.
The campsite was amazing and the security boys had obviously served with Montgomery because they helped us get the tent up in jig time. Those sleeping bags never felt as warm and snug as we settled into our new home in the outskirts of Estoril.
It was a stunning day, warm and bright with Celtic fans in every square. But we had one other vital piece of the jigsaw… tickets for the game.
Tom, the Commander, in his spare time away from the Scottish
Daily Express, worked with Jack McGinn, the man who had in 1965 the vision to start the Celtic View newspaper. The quiet and unassuming Jack, who would go on to be the Celtic chairman, had given Tom some advice on how to approach the Portuguese football authorities and, through a series of calls, a gentleman’s agreement was reached that five tickets would by left under the name of Cassidy.
A gentleman’s agreement? The basis behind this had been discussed throughout the journey. The Portuguese were known for their honesty and certainly would not have given our tickets away, especially to any Italians.
That magical language, pidgin English, came to the fore and after much tension the gent at the counter returned with an envelope.
Inside five orange and brown tickets, each worth 100 escudos and a million more dreams.
‘Taca Dos Clubes Campeoes Europeus.’ Sector 3 Row X and numbered 15 through to 20.
The Estadio National was a strange setting with three main stands and what seemed a small, temporary stand on the east side. The seats are stone. For those with cash to spare, there are cushions to be purchased. Not for us.
After an early scare, Celtic came into the game, with Jimmy Johnstone racing past the Inter defence like his car on the London Road. Minutes later, a stunning header from Jimmy saved by Sarti in goal for Inter.
A rash tackle by Jim Craig in the seventh minute. Penalty for Inter. And I was given a verbal yellow card by the Commander for foul and abusive language. Have all these miles been in vain? Have the crush, the nausea on the high seas and travel sickness in the mountains been for nothing?
Half-time and, as we head for the toilets, a reminder about the harsh realities of life when I meet Joe McCormick, a friend from high school, who had flown in earlier in the day.
‘That geography exam was a stinker, wasn’t it? I really am not looking forward to the history exam on Friday,’ he said.
I muttered and stuttered. I had more important issues than exams. By the start of the second half, the Portuguese were right behind the Scots, with my alter ego Bobby Murdoch impeccable and imperious and Tommy Gemmell probing and overlapping on the wing.
When Tommy’s rocket shot was stopped going into orbit by Sarti’s net, the game was won. The Italians, who had walked on to the pitch as gods stared at the grass, their bottle gone. With seven minutes to play, a Murdoch shot was diverted into the net by Steve Chalmers.
Celtic steamrolled them into submission and the gathering of the clans around the ground’s moat signalled the countdown to the end of the game. Then the invasion. I was physically restrained from trying the long jump over the moat. We stood and watched as Billy McNeill emerged in the evening throng like a colossus, our very own El Cid, a national hero holding perhaps the most famous trophy in the world aloft.
Were there tears? Not for this famous five. As dusk gave way to nightfall, this was time for celebration and a club, Los Americanos. Sitting at the bar an array of the most beautiful young ladies all asking if we would like to join them for a drink.
The Entertainer and the Mechanic put on their best Uddingston smiles and strolled towards the bar with that lovely Glasgow swagger. What’s a boy to do? I was right behind them, only yards from the ladies when a monster of a man grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and, legs dangling, took me back to the door and threw me on to the streets. ‘Child,’ the giant shouted. The Mechanic considered arguing for a few moments, but thought better of it. The Commander with his sensible head decided he would take Brains and me back to the campsite, while the Likely Lads had found a civilised place to toast the Celtic.
Next morning, Montgomery’s tent was packed away and the Likely Lads, nursing sore heads, joined Brains in the back and we set off home. The Portuguese sports paper A Bola’s front page said simply: ‘Thank you Scotland’, singled out Jimmy as the star in a team of ‘supermen’ and raved about the fans they described as ‘The Green symphony’.
In the north of Portugal, we stopped for dinner where the patron decided he was now a Celtic fan and insisted we all try tequila, with the salt and lemon explained. The Likely Lads had a few and Brains replaced me in the front seat as the Likely Lads snored for Britain.
Just outside Le Touquet, we ran out of petrol, only 45 miles south of Calais. Dusk in a beautiful poppy field of France in the early hours of a Sunday morning.
No traffic, then the sound of an approaching car. We waved down the sleek, beautiful saloon, the two lads in full dinner suits and in the back two mademoiselles scoffing champagne. They waved at our plight then the blonde mademoiselle, with more than a passing resemblance to Bardot, pulled down the top of her ballgown to reveal all. As the others pushed the thirsty Cortina, I stood there astounded as the car disappeared down the tree-lined avenue.
The next vehicle had a group from Port Glasgow with more practical thoughts. The guy ropes were taken from Montgomery’s tent and we were towed into Le Touquet where a gendarme insisted a local garage open up to provide a tank full of essence.
In Dover, the grim-faced officer asked: ‘Anything to declare?’
‘Yes’, I said: ‘Celtic, Champions of Europe.’
I recently returned to the Estadio National while on holiday and sat and thought of The Entertainer and The Mechanic, sadly now dead. I thought of my father whose funeral cortege was carried into the church by his family and by Jimmy Johnstone.
And I thought of Jimmy himself, tragically taken away by the cruellest of diseases. I thanked the heavens above for them all and wondered what would’ve happened if Agnes hadn’t wakened Jimmy from that afternoon nap.
M Jim Cassidy has asked that the fee for this article be donated to the charities Alzheimer Scotland and Motor Neurone Disease Scotland in memory of his father Tommy and Jimmy Johnstone.