Battle of the Old Firm’s New Bosses – Billy McNeill v John Greig

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The Celtic Star

·9 September 2024

Battle of the Old Firm’s New Bosses – Billy McNeill v John Greig

On this day in 1978 Celtic played host to Rangers at Celtic Park and secured a crucial win in a season that would end in the most dramatic of fashion for Billy McNeill’s side.

Writing in his Diary on The Celtic Star, the late, great David Potter summarised this Old Firm clash as follows:

A good win against Rangers at Parkhead as Celtic maintain their 100% record at the top of the League. Tom McAdam scores twice and George McCluskey once as Celtic win 3-1 on a day in the east end of Glasgow where the weather is dull, but the atmosphere is bright.

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This was Cesar’s first Old Firm match as Celtic manager and it was also John Greig’s first match against Celtic as the new Rangers boss. It certainly was a dramatic afternoon with a happy ending for the new Celtic boss as he was beginning to rebuild the squad after a dreadful season the year before where Rangers won a Treble.

Cesar was trying to bring Bobby Lennox back to the club from Houston Hurricanes and was also looking to sign the Kilmarnock winger Davie Provan, who had submitted a transfer request at the Rugby Park club, while teenager Mark Reid was promoted ground staff to a full time player on his 17th birthday. Celtic reserves played at Ibrox on the same day, with the likes of Paul Wilson and Danny McGrain in the side.

Joe Craig came off the bench to replace George McCluskey and that turned out to be Joe’s last appearance for Celtic with a £50,000 transfer to Blackburn Rovers going through shortly afterwards.

At Celtic Park the Celtic team was as follows:

Latchford, Fillipi, Lynch, Aitken, Edvaldsson, Conroy, Doyle, Glavin, McAdam, Burns (Casey), McCluskey (Craig). Scorers: McAdam (2), McCluskey (14), McAdam (76)

While Rangers lined up as follows: McCloy, Jardine, A Forsyth, T Forsyth, Jackson, McDonald (Miller), McLean (Cooper), Russell, Parlane, Johnstone, Smith. Scorer: Parlane (49)

The Referee was D Syme (Glasgow) and the match attendance at Celtic Park was 60,000. This was an all-ticket match and the kick-off time was 1pm.

Despite being at home, Celtic were clearly the underdogs and the team was weakened by both Roddy MacDonald and Alfie Conn being out. However replacements Mike Conroy and George McCluskey played well and contributed to the Celtic success. The Celtic Wiki takes up the match report.

Celtic took the lead in 2 minutes when Tom McAdam cracked home a tremendous shot after Rangers failed to clear a Glavin free kick. They were 2-0 up after 14 minutes when young McCluskey cut in from the right and fired a low shot past McCloy from a tight angle, the ball skidding past the goalkeeper on the wet surface.

Rangers regrouped after half time when Parlane scored but Celtic increased their lead in 76 minutes when McAdam scored after substitute Joe Craig had shown great determination to escape the clutches of Tom Forsyth.

Rangers rallied again and were awarded a penalty in 83 minutes but Latchford made a brilliant diving save to deny Alex Miller and it finished 3-1. Champions Rangers remained winless after four games in the division with Celtic top with a maximum 8 points.

WHERE YOU AT CELTIC PARK FOR THIS GAME?

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