THE thirst for knowledge of all things Celtic by local Hoops supporters continues with a query from Brian Moran, of Monifieth.
“I have many books on Celtic but I can’t find anything about the bizarre time they came back from a European game and played a league match the following afternoon,” said Brian, a retired NHS worker.
“All my family are Celtic fans and my dad, also Brian, and several of my uncles often brought up this incident.
“Do you have any details of this?”
What they may be referring to happened in 1966, the year prior to the Parkhead side winning the European Cup.
Celtic, 3-0 up from the home leg, met Russian side Dynamo Kiev in the away leg of a European Cup-Winners’ Cup tie in Tbilisi on Wednesday, January 28.
The tie was switched to Tbilisi as Kiev’s home ground was unplayable.
After a 1-1 draw had secured progress to the semi-finals, the Celtic party stayed overnight and flew out from Tbilisi airport on the Thursday morning.
Whether they were scheduled to stop in Stockholm or were forced there by adverse weather isn’t clear but they found themselves snowbound in Stockholm that Thursday night and couldn’t fly out until Friday morning.
It was mid-evening on Friday when the Celtic team touched down at Prestwick Airport.
Jock Stein immediately whisked the players away to Parkhead for a training session.
It proved all too much, though, and Celtic lost 3-2 to Hearts the following afternoon at Tynecastle.
An aside from that game in Edinburgh is that a Hearts player called Willie Wallace (right) did most of the damage to Celtic.
Jock Stein is reputed to have said: “I want him!”, and soon after Wallace joined Joe McBride as the dream team strikeforce Celtic had been looking for.
Fate took a turn and, as history shows, McBride suffered a bad knee injury and Wallace was paired very successfully with Steve Chalmers.
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