| Chapter One Seeds of Glory: The American
Dream Tour
TIME has not dulled the memory, even with the passage of more than a quarter of a
century. The date was 7th May, 1966, the place, Fir Park, Motherwell and the
occasion, the clinching of Celtic’s first Scottish League Championship in twelve long
years. In truth, the flag had been effectively won the previous Wednesday evening by dint
of a 2-1 home win over Dunfermline Athletic, which meant that only a 4-0 defeat, or worse
, by Motherwell could have taken the title to Ibrox on goal average (the
curious forerunner of today’s goal difference). In the event,
Bobby Lennox’s last-minute conversion of Jim Craig’s cut-back from the bye-line
ensured that the final margin of Celtic’s victory was a comfortable two points.
Celtic fans had flocked confidently to Motherwell in their thousands to
celebrate a famous triumph and the persistent recollection is of a row of ecstatic
supporters, totally oblivious to peril, acclaiming their heroes from the roof of the Fir
Park enclosure as the team took a bow in the centre circle. Such was the determination of
this section of the ‘faithful’ to witness the affirmation of Celtic’s
re-emergence as the power in Scottish football, they were prepared
to risk life and limb just to be there.
The following week, a party of Celtic players and officials set off on a
tour of Bermuda, U.S.A. and Canada.
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The party returned
home to enjoy a summer full of sporting interest: On 14th June, Walter
McGowan of Burnbank defeated Italian, Salvatore Burruni, to capture the World Flyweight
Boxing Championship; the graceful Spaniard Manuel Santana, won the penultimate amateur
Wimbeldon Men’s Singles title, beating Danny Ralston of the United States in the
final;and Jack Nicklaus shot his way to the first of his three British Open victories at
Muirfield in July, while a certain soccer tournament was taking place in England, the less
said about which the better. For the record, some of the top discs of this period in the
Golden Age of Pop were ‘Pretty Flamingo’, by Manfred Mann, the Rolling
Stones’ ‘Paint It Black’, ‘Strangers In The Night’, from Frank
Sinatra and the inevitable Beatles chart-topper, in this case ‘Paperback
Writer’.
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Celtic,
for their part, were primed & ready for their 'Wonder Year'.
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