Each month the Cutter will induct a team into its newly furnished Hall of Fame. Although no pictorial evidence exists you’ll have to take our word for it when we say there’s oak panelling and everything in there. It’s proper plush.
The teams in question will not be honoured for their brilliance (although each side is blessed with enough talent to knock collective socks off) nor even their achievements (although the accumulative silverware from these teams would make the sun squint) but rather every inductee possessed a certain something; a swagger; a style: an indeterminable quality that took them into the realms of the iconic. In short, this elite group of XIs were cool as f***.
Our inaugural inductees are the Lisbon Lions, the first British side to lift the European Cup and did so with players all born within a 30 mile radius of Celtic Park.
In 1992 the then Celtic captain Paul McStay asked Jimmy ‘Jinky’ Johnstone whether the Lisbon Lions would have beaten the current side. “It would be a draw”, Jinky replied.
McStay suggested the legendary winger was merely being diplomatic.
“Well you’ve got to remember that we’re all in our fifties now” came the wry response from the greatest Bhoy of them all.
It is easy to imagine the twinkle in his eyes as he said it, the same twinkle that shone with delight every time he received the ball and sent a full-back scampering and calling for cover.
Johnstone’s wizardry not only perfectly epitomised the joy and inventiveness that coursed through that sublime Celtic team but also its mischief. Famously all but one of its fifteen man squad was born within ten miles of a ground they later lit up on a weekly basis and this not only fostered an indomitable team spirit but also brought to the fore shared attributes ingrained in them from the area. Namely that electric Glaswegian combination of grit and devilment.
You don’t get through an entire campaign, losing just two games along the way, and winning every bit of silverware available on skill alone, no matter how extravagant the talent on show. And the Celtic side of the late 60s had plenty of steel with the silk notably from Bobby Murdoch, the gruff non-nonsense mainstay of the side, who later moulded a young Graeme Souness at Middlesborough into his own image.
The devilment came later, as a fantastic season came to a momentous conclusion. Having become the first British team to reach a European Cup final Celtic were written off before a ball was even kicked as they lined up against Helenio Herrera’s formidable Inter. The arch-strategist is credited with inventing the Cattanacio style of defending (literally translated as ‘padlock’) and every trait of supposedly-negative Italian football – the brutality, the sterile tempo, nicking a goal then closing up shop – derives from him. Herrara additionally enjoyed the luxury of spending some of president Angelo Morrati’s oil billions to build an intimidating outfit that were soon christened ‘Grande Inter’.
It was a huge ask for eleven pasty-faced Glasgow boys and a manager from neighbouring Lanarkshire so Celtic boss Jock Stein – who the man regarded as the best British coach of all time (Ferguson) regards as the best British coach of all time – used his wiles to gain every pre-match advantage possible.
Knowing the Italians were thought of as anti-football he whipped up a storm of positivity around his own side – “We will attack like we’ve never attacked before” – making his team represent all that was good about the game. He also made a point of allowing the team hotel as an open house for journalists and supporters alike. Inter meanwhile played the part of villains perfectly, locking themselves away behind closed doors prior to the game. Possibly using a padlock, who knows.
His ploy worked a treat. On Thursday May 25th 1967 in what Hugh McIlvanney lyrically called the ‘tree-fringed amphitheatre of the national stadium’ there was barely a neutral present as the locals cheered on the lads in green and white whilst, thanks to a avalanche of glowing press, so too did the watching millions.
As kick off approached Stein pulled off his final act of mischief, purposely sitting in the dug-out that Herrera had ear-marked for himself. His players creased up laughing as he refused to budge.
The psychological war was won and the nerves evaporated. Now there was only the small matter of blitzing a seemingly impregnable force with style, cunning and attacking glee. Despite conceding early Celtic duly did so but as previously mentioned they are not inducted today into the Cutter’s Cool Team Hall of Fame for lifting the biggest club trophy of them all. Bayern won it three years running in the 70s and they will never see our wood-paneled finery. Celtic are honoured and bowed to because they had that certain something, an indefinable magic that is inextricably tied in with why we fell in love with football from the moment we learned to walk and talk.
Yes they had Lennox, and Jinky, and Gemmell. Yes they looked stylish as understated kings in their sweat-stained hoops. And yes it probably helps that in the semi-final they encountered Dukla Prague (a Dukla Prague away kit!)
But most of all they were Lions who grew up together as Glaswegian cubs and went on to conquer the continent. How cool is that?