Celtic in the Thirties: Unpublished works of David Potter – Willie Buchan

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The Celtic Star

·17 de octubre de 2024

Celtic in the Thirties: Unpublished works of David Potter – Willie Buchan

Tonight we continue our new series started yesterday on The Celtic Star where we will post unpublished works of David Potter dealing with Celtic players from the 1930s, as we gear up for the launch of Matt Corr’s wonderful Celtic in the Thirties books (Volumes One and Two), which are both published on Tuesday 5th November…

David Potter named as recipient of Celtic’s 2024 Special Recognition Award, Celtic POTY Awards, Hydro Glasgow, May 2024. Photo Celtic FC

You can read the back story to these unpublished articles from the late David Potter HERE where you can also read the story of Celtic great Alec Thomson. Tonight we’re featuring Willie Buchan, Celtic’s inside forward who scored 59 goals for the club and was born on this day in 1917. Here’s David Potter’s essay on Willie Buchan Celtic’s career…

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Celtic in the Thirties image from Celtic Curio from Matt Corr’s new books out on 5 November on Celtic Star Books.

Celtic in the Thirties – WILLIE BUCHAN by David Potter…

Name: Willie Buchan Born: October 17 1914 Died: July 6 2003 Appearances: 135 Goals: 59 Scottish League medals: 1935/36 Scottish Cup medals: 1936/37 Glasgow Cup medals: 0 Glasgow Charity Cup medals: 1935/36; 1936/37 Scotland Caps: 0

Willie Buchan is also one of the more under-rated Celtic players of the 1930s. He was a classy inside right, and being part of the forward line Delaney, Buchan, McGrory, Crum and Murphy of 1936 and 1937 usually says it all. His career at Celtic Park was comparatively short, but it was nevertheless significant, and it also says a certain amount about the business acumen of Willie Maley.

Willie Buchan. Photo The Celtic Wiki

Jimmy McMenemy dealt with team matters

By the 1930s it was often assumed that Willie Maley was out of touch. It is certainly true that he was not often seen at Celtic Park, preferring to leave mundane team matters to Jimmy McMenemy while he sank into morose depression complaining about present day players whom he compared unfavourably to the “Celts of old”. There is an element of truth in that, but it is hardly the whole story.

Willie Buchan. Photo The Celtic Wiki

On 12 January 1933, for example, Maley dashed by car to Grangemouth (he would normally have travelled by train) to sign Willie Buchan. He was aware that Buchan, of whom he had heard great reports, was of a non-Catholic background and that therefore Rangers were interested as well. But Maley got there first on this occasion!

Buchan was only 18 but had already starred for Grange Rovers. He joined Celtic at a difficult time, and he would have to wait until the start of the following season before he could make his debut. But Maley had heard Buchan being compared to Tommy McInally with all the positive side of the Barrhead boy in that he had great ball control and distribution, but without the negative side of selfishness, laziness and emotional instability.

The slim and athletic Buchan did indeed work hard

Willie Buchan, Photo The Celtic Wiki

The slim and athletic Buchan did indeed work hard, had a few successful games for the reserve side and then after a few games in season 1933/34, which could be described as a “learning experience” he established himself in season 1934/35. These were difficult years for the club and its support, for Rangers were rampant, but they were times of gradual improvement as well, and by 1935/36, with the influence of Jimmy McMenemy, the nominal trainer but in practice a great deal more than that, now apparent, the team took off.

Buchan filled the role of Alec Thomson a few years previously, that of “McGrory’s fetch and carry man”, and he had now developed into a superb professional. He had put on a little more weight, but was still very fit, and had now developed the confidence to win the ball, and to distribute either to McGrory or to his right wing partner Jimmy Delaney or even a long ball to left winger Frank Murphy, who was almost as talented as Delaney. Crowds now came back (the worst of the economic depression was past, in any case) and it was even rumoured that the miserable Maley was seen to permit himself a smile as he watched them from the stand!

Buchan was an ever present in that glorious season

Buchan, an ever present in that glorious season, could also score goals, and a feature of the forward play that season, was that, although McGrory tended to remain in the centre of the field, the other four were allowed to interchange at will, something that made them all the harder to mark. And they were fast, fit and well trained. The League was won comfortably and icing was added to the cake with the Glasgow Charity Cup of that year, won in a thrilling 4-2 victory over Rangers, in which it was Delaney who scored a hat-trick rather than McGrory. But it was still Buchan who supplied the ammunition.

The following year was less successful in the Scottish League, but it was compensated by the victory in the Scottish Cup as Celtic beat Aberdeen 2-1 before a crowd probably several thousands more than the official figure of 146,433. Placards were visible outside the ground and leaflets distributed inviting young men to go to Spain to fight for the International Brigades, but the main attraction was the titanic struggle on the park. Buchan himself would admit that he nearly passed out with the sheer noise and intensity of the crowd, and his own resultant nervousness.

Buchan scored the winner in the Scottish Cup Final

It was as well that he didn’t however, for it was his shot that the goalkeeper could only parry for Johnny Crum to score Celtic’s first, and then he himself scored the winner following a crisp pass from McGrory which he managed to slide past the goalkeeper off a post.

Willie Buchan holding the Scottish Cup alongside Johnny Crum with the unsmiling but still proud Jimmy Quinn in the background. Photo The Celtic Wiki

Pictures after the game show the lean Willie Buchan holding the Scottish Cup alongside Johnny Crum with the unsmiling but still proud Jimmy Quinn in the background as well as Willie Maley and Jimmy McMenemy. Buchan is not out of place in that company.

A deal had been agreed for £10,000

Once again the Glasgow Charity Cup was won in May, but then in the autumn of 1937, things took a bewildering turn. The team were doing well enough and on Saturday 13 November, Buchan had scored a penalty for Celtic in a 1-1 draw against Third Lanark. On the Monday, he was summoned to Maley’s Bank Restaurant to find Maley waiting for him with the Manager of Blackpool. A deal had been agreed for £10,000 and Buchan was more or less handed a pen and invited to sign.

Celtic in the Thirties image from Celtic Curio from Matt Corr’s new books out on 5 November on Celtic Star Books.

Buchan could have refused – and he always said that he loved playing for Celtic – but the deal was a good one for him as well, and although resenting being pressurised like this, he signed and went to Blackpool. £10,000 was an astonishing amount for a football player in 1937 and Willie was often referred to as “£10,000 Buchan”.

The fans were upset and angry

The fans were naturally upset and angry about this, but in fact it was a nifty piece of business for Celtic. Malky MacDonald, prodigiously talented and just as good as Buchan, was waiting in the wings, and when, at the end of the season, Celtic had won the Scottish League, the Glasgow Charity Cup and the Empire Exhibition Trophy, the edge was taken off anyone’s objection.

Whether Buchan made the right decision as far as he himself is concerned is more open to question. He played well enough for Blackpool, but, of course, in less than two years, the world was at war and that disrupted everything, not least Buchan’s chances of winning a full Scottish cap. He did win a War cap but it was in a 0-4 defeat to England in 1943. He went on to play for a wide variety of clubs, including a brief return to Celtic on loan in 1939 and ending up with his local East Stirlingshire in 1955.

Willie Buchan. Photo The Celtic Wiki

He enjoyed longevity and died in Polmont in 2003 at the age of 88. He was a great Celt and it remains a shame that we did not see more of him. Almost every account of him is a favourable one.

David Potter