Celtic played 20 Christmas Day games between its founding in 1887 and 1971, including league and friendlies. Some of these games had big scores, while others were relatively lackluster.
The first occurred in 1888, the year the club was founded, when a Celtic team made up of both first team and reserve players went to Lanarkshire to play a friendly against Airdrie St Margaret. With a 2-1 loss, the new team’s debut was not particularly bold.
A very significant friendly took place at Celtic Park on Christmas Day, 1893, five years later.
Although football was being played under lights in Scotland before then, primarily at the Edinburgh Exhibitions, this match against Clyde was the first to be played under floodlights in a stadium controlled by the club. A dozen fifty-foot-high wooden pillars held wires that dangled sixteen arc lights over the pitch. One hundred gas-jets along the enclosure added further lighting.
About 5,000 people showed up to witness this odd event, which resulted in a 1-1 draw. The atmosphere was enjoyable to watch, but they could not help but note that as the game progressed, the wires started to droop a little and occasionally made it more difficult for a high ball to fly.
Even so, it was a first for the club, and everyone associated with it, including the players, directors, management, and supporters, were thrilled to have been a part of it.
Two years later, a Celtic team made the trip to Lancashire for a second friendly match against Bury. The Shakers, who had a strong chance of winning promotion from the Second Division that season, faced Celtic at Gigg Lane on Christmas Day 1895, and the visitors triumphed 3-0, sending them home.
Eleven years later, on Christmas Day, a Celtic group traveled into England once more for a game. It happened again in 1906, this time against London’s Woolwich Arsenal. Once more, the group currently known as the Hoops triumphed on home ground, this time by a score of 2-0.
The majority of Celtic’s 20 games have been competitive meetings, which is what the fans truly want to watch. Friendships like the ones listed above are all well and well and frequently entertaining;-
1897: Clyde 1–9 Celtic
Kilmarnock 0-1 in 1909 Airdrie 6-0 Celtic 1915: Celtic 0-2 St. Mirren 0-2 Celtic 1924: 0–4 Kilmarnock Celtic: Queen’s Park 2, 3 (1933). Celtic 1934: Queen’s Park 4-0 Celtic
Kilmarnock 0–8 in 1937 Celtic 1943: 3–4 Hamilton Celtic 1946: Queen’s Park 1-0 Celtic
1947: Hearts, 4-2 Celtic
1948: Aberdeen 2-0 Celtic 1954: Celtic 2-2 Clyde
1957: Queen of the South, Celtic 1-2; 1965: Celtic 8-1 Morton (1971): Hearts, Celtic 3-2
That match against Morton involved me. On October 7, 1965, I made my first-team debut in a First Round second leg Cup-Winners’ Cup encounter against Go-Ahead Deventer of Holland. Since then, I have participated in three league games and one more European tie against Aarhus of Denmark.
On Christmas Day 1965, the following players took the field against Morton: Simpson, Craig, Gemmell, Murdoch, Cushley, Clark, Johnstone, Gallagher, McBride, Chalmers, Hughes. The match was significant because Celtic and Rangers were fighting it out for first place in the First Division.
For me, it was undoubtedly a crucial game—an additional opportunity to stake a long-term claim to the starting right-back position. On Christmas Eve, I made sure to have a relaxed and easy afternoon and evening because the Boss, Jock Stein, had announced the team during training.
I was so concerned that people would interpret my absence from Midnight Mass, which I normally attended, as an indication that I wasn’t treating the match the next day seriously enough that I skipped it.
Upon attending the first Mass on Christmas Day, I realized that I had made a grave error. The chapel was crowded with adoring Celtic supporters donning the team’s colors, and they didn’t take long to approach me and remind me of their expectations for the afternoon’s play.
It was Christmas Day, and Morton was at the wrong end of the table, so I wasn’t shocked to see that there wasn’t a big throng outside Celtic Park when I arrived.
By kickoff, it had not improved, and 21,000 people were said to have attended. But that afternoon, the great majority of those in attendance—the Celtic supporting contingent—certainly got their money’s worth.
We dominated the play from the opening whistle, seldom letting Morton participate. Joe McBride scored the first goal in seven minutes, followed by Stevie Chalmers in eleven, McBride once more in twenty-five, John Hughes in twenty-eight, and McBride scoring his hat-trick in thirty-three minutes. At halftime, the score was 7-0 thanks to goals from Bobby Murdoch in 35 minutes and Chalmers two minutes prior to the break.
Surprisingly, 49 minutes into the second half, the Greenock men pulled one back through outside-left Watson.
But even in that comfortable position, players realize the game is won, and a natural pity for the opposition—whom we knew well—also comes into play. I can still remember that we may have all taken our feet off the pedals in our own display, not intentionally. After 80 minutes, there was just one more goal scored by John Hughes, giving Celtic an 8-1 victory over Morton.
I left the game as soon as I could because my mother’s grandma was preparing the family’s Christmas dinner.
Several aunts, uncles, cousins, my brother, and my parents were all there and seemed happy to hear about the outcome and my account of the game. True enough, the afternoon had been unforgettable. Despite having played one less game than our city rivals, the outcome propelled us to the top of the league table based on goal differential.
The following game for both clubs was the New Year’s derby, played at Celtic Park on January 3, 1966, in front of 65,000 fans, and it was my first Glasgow derby.
To say I was anxious before the game would be an understatement. My anxiety grew when Rangers scored their first goal in ninety seconds and maintained the lead until halftime.
After the break, things were different, though. We stepped up, seized command of the play, and the goals materialized. Rangers lost 5-1 to Celtic thanks to three goals from Stevie Chalmers (49, 62, 90), with the remaining goals coming from Charlie Gallagher (68) and Bobby Murdoch (79).
It would be an understatement to say that the club and I had a successful holiday season. With that final outcome, Celtic took the lead in the standings.
But as one former England player once said, “football can be a funny old game,” and later in January and February, there were undoubtedly some strange, if not perplexing, moments in store for the Hoops and their supporters.
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