David Potter’s young Celtic eyes on Eintracht Frankfurt hitting them for six, twice

The Celtic Star

·16 May 2022

David Potter’s young Celtic eyes on Eintracht Frankfurt hitting them for six, twice

Funnily enough, Eintracht Frankfurt are one of the teams that I remember with some clarity seeing on my TV. It was 1960, and I am talking about the European Cup Final at Hampden which Real Madrid won 7-3. It is generally regarded as the best European Cup final of them all, although we naturally enough think it is only the second best!

The football was quite remarkable, and it is almost certainly the only European Cup final where the referee walked from his house to the game! The referee was Jack Mowat of Rutherglen, generally regarded as one of the best around and a fitness fanatic who would enjoy the walk. “So where are you off to tonight, Jack?” a neighbour doing his garden might have asked. “Oh, no place special!”

OneFootball Videos

But Eintracht had been to Scotland before. They had played and beaten Rangers in the semi-final by the quite astonishing score of 12-4! (6-1 in Germany, and 6-3 at Ibrox!) What on earth would the score have been at Hampden against Real Madrid if Rangers had made it to the final?

The truth was that Rangers in 1960 weren’t really all that good. They had won the 1959 Scottish League only because Celtic had done them the favour of beating Hearts in the final game (nice to help out your old friends, isn’t it?), but Hearts were going to win the League in 1960. Frankly, Celtic were awful that year, having folded miserably to the mediocre Rangers in the Scottish Cup semi-final reply after an honourable draw in the first game.

The youth policy was not yet producing the goods at Celtic Park.

Rangers flew to Frankfurt for the first leg of the semi-final on 13 April. Gair Henderson of The Evening Times was there with them. He was impressed by the Stadium which he thought was one of the best he had ever seen, and was confident that Rangers were going to do well.

He was never brilliant at calling results, was Gair (or “Gers” as he was known to those who suspected his allegiances) and Niven, Caldow and Little; Baird, Paterson and Stevenson; Scott, McMillan, Murray, Miller and Wilson held Eintracht to 1-1 at half-time, before disappearing in the second half, one of the six German goals being scored by a man called Stein. (But not our Jock, for he was Manager of Dunfermline Athletic in 1960).

The crowd was 80,000, the floodlights were brilliant, and Rangers solitary goal came from Eric Caldow with a penalty (Yes, a penalty! Honestly, these men with the funny handshakes and the rolled up trouser legs were everywhere!).

Rangers were probably glad to hear the final whistle with the score still at 6-1. They wouldn’t have wanted it to be 7-1! Not again!

The second leg was at Ibrox on Thursday 5 May 1960. We all know that Rangers loved the Royal Family but to arrange this game on the very eve of the wedding of Princess Margaret to Anthony Armstrong-Jones seemed like a strange attempt to rally together their followers and persuade them that they had some sort of a chance to pull back 5 goals. They didn’t. They conceded another 6 (although they pulled back 3) and the whole game was as much a success for Rangers as was the marriage of Princess Margaret, commonly known as “mad Meg” for her sexual shenanigans with younger men on the Caribbean island of Mustique, and her ill-concealed jealousy of her sister who apparently had a better job than she did!

John Rafferty in The Glasgow Herald stated categorically that Rangers were “not in the same class as Eintracht”. Rangers fans seemed not to like John Rafferty whom they accused of being a Celtic supporter (well, with a name like Rafferty, you have no real choice, do you?) but that game killed Rangers off for the season.

Eintracht actually played not too badly at Hampden – scoring 3 goals against Real Madrid is not bad going – but they were simply swept aside of the forward like of Canario, Del Sol, Di Stefano, Puskas and Ghento. Some not bad players there, but not as good as Patsy Gallacher, my father said!

I actually started to support Real Madrid then. They came to Glasgow to play Celtic in a friendly in 1962, and then on more serious business to Ibrox in season 1963/64 in the European Cup.

The aggregate score was 7-0. Who for, do you think? The Most Successful Club in the world perhaps? Yes, you are correct…

…Real Madrid.

David Potter