“Charlie Gallagher? What a Player!” – A debut during a desperately poor season for Celtic

The replay kicked off at 4.30pm (Hampden still had no floodlights) on Wednesday 6 April, and this time Celtic just collapsed in the second half after seeming to have done the hard bit by coming off at half-time having faced the wind and the strong spring sun at 1-1. In retrospect (always easy!) it might have been better if Celtic had given a game to Charlie Gallagher that night, for left winger Alec Byrne was injured as indeed was Bertie Auld. Celtic
put John Divers on to the left wing and brought in at inside left Mike Jackson, a naturally right sided player.

The irony was that this was no great Rangers side. They were virtually out of the League race and were about to undergo a spectacular thrashing from Eintracht Frankfurt in the semi-final European Cup, yet they were clearly so much better than Celtic. Celtic’s season had now collapsed and the management belatedly, perhaps, decided that more changes were needed, and that the impressive young Charlie Gallagher should be given a run in the team.

It was thus when Celtic were once again on their knees that Gallagher played his second game for the club. Indeed, he would play in the four remaining, little-at-stake games of the season before low crowds with those fans who were there not slow to vent their annoyance and frustration at what was going on. Only 5,000 for example appeared at Parkhead on 12 Tuesday April to see Celtic go down 2-4 to Partick Thistle. The defeat was actually even worse than it seemed, for Thistle were 4-0 up at one point, and only a handful of spectators were left to see Celtic’s two late goals.

They did not even have the strength to stay and boo, and poor Charlie Gallagher on the left wing had the indignity of not having his name mentioned at all in the next day’s newspapers, which were in any case full of Rangers’ game in Germany against Eintracht Frankfurt.

Nevertheless, Charlie was given another run against Dundee at Dens Park on the Saturday. It was a desolate experience with once again Celtic marginalised in the newspapers, for Hearts hogged the attention with their winning of the League that day in a 4-4 draw against St Mirren at Love Street. At Dens Park, Dundee won 2-0 with a goal from a talented youngster called Alan Gilzean and another from Hugh Robertson before half time with the minuscule Celtic support either drifting away to enjoy the local hostelries or just sitting on the terracing drinking beer and even a few of them horrifying the war veterans with a chorus of “Deutschland Uber Alles” in honour of Eintracht Frankfurt’s 6-1 hammering of Rangers on Wednesday night – “Aye, and it should have been 26”, said a toothless, unshaven, smelly individual beside me.

But this was not Celtic in any way, shape or form. Young Gallagher did now and again earn a round of applause for a good run or a telling pass, and because of his youth was generally exempt from the barracking that was directed at men like Eric Smith and John Divers. Yeterans like Bobby Evans and Bertie Peacock, great players in their day, really did look old that day. Celtic fans often misbehaved in Dundee in those days. Not today however. There were not enough of them, and those who were there were simply too disheartened to throw bottles. They ended up talking to the Dundee supporters and agreeing with them that both teams had seen better days.

But one of the fascinating things about teams in transition is their unpredictability. Celtic then went to Airdrie on the Monday afternoon – it was the local holiday and Easter Monday into the bargain – and thrashed Airdrie 5-2 with Steve Chalmers getting a second half hat-trick and Charlie’s cousin Pat Crerand getting a game and playing brilliantly.

Charlie himself played well, although perspicacious Celtic supporters perhaps wondered whether left wing was the best place for him because he did not seem to be the speediest of players, and his passing ability seemed to indicate that the centre of the field might be a better option. Still, it was a great feeling to trot off in the spring sunshine with a win to the team’s credit for once.