"The year before most of us had been playing for Thistle Reserves against Glasgow Police and Glasgow Transport, said Thistle right back John Hansen. The year before Celtic had been playing Feyenoord in the European Cup Final!
In 1971, Celtic won the Scottish League and thre Scottish Cup, achieving their sixth consecutive league title to match a Scottish record. The club also won the 1971 Scottish Cup final against Rangers and reached the semi-finals of the European Cup, but the year was overshadowed by the Ibros Disaster.
Celtic have better memories of the other "Jaw Dropper", when in 1957, Glasgow Rangers were reigning League Champions, while Celtic had been playing in their worst spell in history! They were League Cup holders but had only won three other trophies since 1938 and were not fancied to triumph! BUT with the help of Billy McPhail's hat trick, the Celts recorded the biggest winning margin in any British Cup Final and inflicted a club-record defeat on their Glasgow rivals...7-1!
After the match, Celtic midfielder Bobby Collins reported the shambles in the centre of the Rangers defence by saying "I don't know if John Valentine had no faith in George Niven or Niven had no faith in Valentine, but they had no faith in themselves, something you can sense very quickly on a football field, and inevitably, the game became a rout!" The Sunday Mail recorded that "Rangers were lucky not to lose ten", while The Post claimed it was football's October Revolution.
Thirty One years later, a "shredded" Celtic trailed Graeme Souness's Rangers 5-1 at Ibrox in a League game with 30 minutes left. The Ibrox crowd screamed for more, but Souness's side took its foot off the gas and "Hampden In The Sun" would not be avenged.....Some have never forgiven them!!
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