April 15th 1970 – European Cup
Celtic: Evan Williams, David Hay, Bobby Murdoch, Billy McNeill, Tommy Gemmell, Frank Brogan, Jimmy Johnstone, George Connelly, John Hughes, Bertie Auld, Bobby Lennox
Scorers: Hughes 47, Murdoch 53 Manager: Jock Stein
Leeds: Gary Sprake (David Harvey 49), Paul Madeley, Jack Charlton, Norman Hunter, Terry Cooper, Johnny Giles, Billy Bremner, Peter Lorimer (Mick Bates 71), Allan Clarke, Mick Jones, Eddie Gray
Scorer: Bremner 14 Manager: Don Revie
Referee: Michel Kitabjian (France)
Why you should watch this match: The earliest football battle of Britain.
Respected voices of football at the time considered this one of the best matches ever played in Britain. One reason was relative parity between the top level of Scottish football and the top level of English football. Celtic and Rangers weren't seen as stepping stones to the English Premiership, or rest homes for slumming second-rate talents. Furthermore, the chances of English and Scottish teams meeting in European competition were far slimmer, although not without precedent. Leeds had played Kilmarnock in the 1966-67 Fairs Cup semi-final and Hibernian, Rangers and Dundee the following year en route to their first European trophy. In all four ties they'd forced away draws and won their matches at Elland Road. This, though, was the first British match-up in the European Cup.
In 1970 Leeds were not quite the team we look back on today; so often the nearly men. They'd won the Fairs Cup in 1968 and followed that by winning the English title in 1969. An already strong, largely home-cultivated squad was upgraded by adding Allan Clarke who'd scored 12 goals for a relegated Leicester City team. Surrounded by superior players, his total rose to 26 and earned a call-up to England's World Cup squad. Leeds experienced a great season to the end of March, losing only two games in all competitions, but success produced a crippling fixture list. Two days after a hard fought F.A. Cup semi-final replay Don Revie gambled by resting his first choices against Southampton and two days after that away to Derby County. Leeds lost both games, and on the night the first team lost the home leg of their Celtic tie 0-1 they also learned Everton had beaten West Bromwich Albion to confirm that Leeds wouldn't retain their title. Two days before the second leg against Celtic Leeds endured 120 gruelling minutes against Chelsea in the F.A. Cup final. Revie made no changes to that team, which knew whatever the outcome they had two further matches in six days, followed by a cup final replay.
Celtic came into the game having already confirmed their fifth consecutive league title, but on the back of a surprise 3-1 defeat to Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup final. All the 1967 European Cup winners still featured in their squad, and the Celtic youth team was beginning to produce a golden crop of players. Danny McGrain and Kenny Dalglish made first team appearances in 1970, while David Hay and first leg goalscorer George Connelly featured in this match. The fixture was transferred from Parkhead to Hampden to meet demand for tickets to what was being billed as the clash of the century, surprisingly given the restrained prose that masqueraded as hyperbole in 1970.
Leeds made a single attack from kick-off before being swamped by Celtic's passing game. A succession of corners ensured the match looked a continuation of the humbling Celtic handed out at Elland Road. It was astonishing, therefore, that Leeds took the lead. Norman Hunter played a short ball across the midfield to Billy Bremner, and Bremner ran a few steps before letting fly through the gap in front of him from 25 yards. It was an almighty strike from an ultra-competitive player surely loosed in frustration at the one-sided match to that point.
Celtic now fuelled by the injustice of being behind redoubled their efforts. Placing two defenders on Jimmy Johnstone merely took Hunter and Terry Cooper out of the game as Johnstone waltzed past them time and again. After a poor F.A. Cup final the inconsistent Sprake was an increasing liability, missing a shot from Bobby Murdoch as both both ball and Sprake's head crashed off the post, and rescued via goal line clearances from Cooper then an incredible outstretched leg from Paul Madeley denying Bobby Lennox a goal. An increasing bad spirit pervaded. Bremner's solution to the Johnstone problem was chopoing him down, resulting in Bertie Auld's retaliatory assault on Mick Jones. The half ended with yet another Celtic corner and Hunter and Sprake crashing heads in clearing it.
Having been patently superior through the first half, it only took three minutes of the second for Celtic to draw level on the night and take overall command. Bertie Auld sent the ball across from a short corner, and John Hughes evaded Jack Charlton and placed a well directed header beyond Sprake's reach. Hughes, substituting for injured top scorer Willie Wallace, had been motivated by Jock Stein beforehand telling him he'd play in the final if he had a decent game and Celtic qualified. He ensured both, but ironically also strengthened Leeds by clattering into Sprake, resulting in his replacement by a fourth Yorkshire based Scot in David Harvey.
Celtic just picked up where they'd left off before the substitution, Murdoch feeding Johnstone who carried the ball into the Leeds area turned around Norman Hunter as if he were a lamp post, before returning the ball to Murdoch for goal two. Harvey's first touch of the ball was picking it out of the net.
In his autobiography Jack Charlton points the finger at 'one or two of our Scottish players' for poor performances, then names Peter Lorimer and Eddie Gray, perhaps conveniently forgetting how Hughes cut across him for the equalising goal. The sometimes shimmering Lorimer was substandard on the night, and replaced midway through the second half when it became obvious his game wouldn't pick up. It was a half of tension and what might have been as Leeds converted Bremner into a supplemental forward and raised their game. For all the pressure, all the effort, Celtic remained in control. A decisive tackle here and a cultured pass there saw them through, with Madeley stopping another shot on the line just before the final whistle.
Stein kept his promise to Hughes, playing him alongside Wallace in a final where heart wasn't enough, and Feyenoord became the first Dutch club to win the European Cup. In the course of winning a record nine successive Scottish championships Celtic reached two further European Cup semi-finals, losing to Internazionale on penalties in 1972, and in 1974 a bitter match to an Atlético Madrid team well versed in gamesmanship and reviled in Glasgow to this day. There was an unhappy reunion between Leeds and French referee Michel Kitabjian at the 1975 European Cup final. His eccentric decisions cost what looks a certain penalty and a certain goal, and Leeds lost 2-0.
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