Coincidentally, this game saw Gallagher and Murdoch dropped to allow in Jackson and Divers. Possibly this was a sop to the protests on Saturday, possibly it was just a device to give everyone a game at this early stage of the season, but Charlie would have had cause to feel badly treated, even though Celtic won 3-1 against a dreadful Falkirk team who had now lost all four games this season. The crowd cannot have reached 10,000 because Falkirk fans too were staging their own boycott about their team’s dreadful start to the season. In the past crushing and hooliganism had been a problem at this fixture. This game passed with hardly a whimper.
Celtic then made a decision that had their fans and the Press scratching their heads. Divers and Jackson who had played well in midweek were dropped for the game at Tynecastle, and Gallagher and Murdoch were re-instated! What made this worse was that a decision was made and announced on the Friday morning, which gave everyone loads of time to speculate about really was going on at Parkhead. “Horses for courses” was one way of putting it, and a less charitable way was “musical chairs” – but the whole thing seemed so arbitrary and whimsical and lead to humorous speculation about whether Divers had lost his boots again, having left them in the Falkirk dressing room. It was strange. It must also have been very unsettling for the players concerned, particularly as it was so obviously the wrong decision as, for this trip to Tynecastle, surely the experience of Divers would have been preferable to young Murdoch. Yet this sort of team selection was typical of the disorganised chaos that reigned at Celtic Park at the time.
The game at Tynecastle saw some strange refereeing by Mr McKenzie of Coatbridge, mainly to the benefit of Hearts who won 3-2. But that was not the whole story either. Hearts were 2-0 up at half time and then were awarded a penalty kick which mystified the Press. It was duly scored but then Celtic came back into the game and were awarded a penalty kick which Pat Crerand unfortunately missed. The game now seemed over and the Celtic fans trudging disconsolately to the exits clearly thought so, but the team rallied again and scored two goals within the last 10 minutes. With a little luck, better penalty-taking and better refereeing, they might have had an equalizer or even gone on to win, but 2-3 it was and a major blow to Celtic’s chances of qualification. Gallagher did not have one of his better games, it would have to be said, but he did have several good shots which might just have sneaked in.
But then on the Wednesday, the picture changed dramatically again. Hearts surprisingly blew up at Tannadice at the same time as Celtic showed their fans the football of which they were capable with a 3-0 win over Dundee at Celtic Park. This time it was Charlie Gallagher who put Celtic ahead in the very first minute with a fine shot from a Hughes pass, and the score stayed like this at 1-0 for the next 80 minutes until at last Hughes broke free of the shackles of Ian Ure and scored two fine late goals to make the score 3-0. Gallagher had a good game that night, passing sweetly and not being afraid to shoot when the chance beckoned.
The goals scored were significant because it meant that Celtic now had the advantage over Hearts on goal average, both teams having six points. For their final game, Celtic had to travel to Tannadice Park to meet a Dundee United team who had won both their home games (and lost their away games) whereas Hearts had a home fixture against Dundee who had as yet failed to reproduce the form that had won them the Scottish League last season. Any sort of win was likely to be enough for Celtic, but it was certainly very close.
The crowd at Tannadice that fine afternoon of September 1 1962 clearly exceeded Tannadice’s then official capacity of 20,000. They saw (and Celtic fans clearly were in the overwhelming majority) an entertaining game but one of the most frustrating and unlucky in Celtic’s 74-year history. The records will show that the game finished 0-0, but that does not tell of the times that Celtic hit the woodwork – at least four times with Gallagher hitting the post in one half and the bar in another, and then one of the biggest outrages in Celtic’s history when a ball was a good two feet over the line and was fished out by Dundee United’s left back, but the goal was not given!
It happened at the “Shed” end of the ground where were concentrated the Celtic fans. They clearly saw the ball over the line and voiced their displeasure volubly and loudly, but laudably, the Celtic players accepted the decision of the match officials and played on. One says “laudably” but it was one of those decisions or non-decisions which would have changed the course of Celtic history at least for the rest of the season, and possibly for several seasons after that. And it involved Charlie Gallagher intimately.
The game had gone 30 minutes with Gallagher playing superbly. HarrymAndrew of The Scottish Sunday Express says “inside right Charlie Gallagher was a superb inside forward combining elegance with more strength that I thought he possessed” and that was in the context of how he thought that this was “sustained high class football” from the whole team. The details of the controversial incident remain vividly in mind some 54 years later. Gallagher shot from about the six-yard line to the right of the goal. Goalkeeper Donald MacKay got a hand to it, and the ball then grazed the thigh of Doug Smith before crossing the line by nearly a yard as left half Stewart Fraser hooked the ball out.
The “Shed” claimed “Goal”, but our hearts sank as we saw Referee Hugh Phillips look across to his linesman. This meant that he had been unsighted and could not give the goal. The linesman on the open terrace side of the ground had not pointed to the centre line nor had he run up field. It meant that the goal could not be given. Photographs appeared in the Sunday papers and in the Monday ones (even The Dundee Courier) which showed that the ball was over the line, but what could they do? The lessons were threefold for Gallagher and the young Celtic team – there is injustice in the world, you sometimes don’t get the luck that you deserve, and there are times when you simply have to shrug your shoulders and move on. But it was a significant moment in that season.
