Celtic in the Thirties: Unpublished works of David Potter – Johnny Crum

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The Celtic Star

·27 décembre 2024

Celtic in the Thirties: Unpublished works of David Potter – Johnny Crum

Tonight we continue our series on The Celtic Star where we post unpublished works of David Potter dealing with Celtic players from the 1930s…

Willie Buchan and Johnny Crum. Image The Celtic Wiki

Name: JOHNNY CRUM Born: January 1 1912 Died: July 6 1969 Appearances: 280 Goals: 111 Scottish League medals: 1935/36, 1937/38 Scottish Cup medals: 1936/37 Glasgow Cup medals: 1938/39, 1940/41 Glasgow Charity Cup medals: 1935/36, 1937/8 Scotland Caps: 2

Celtic star Johnny Crum, Image by Celtic Curio for Celtic in the Thirties

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Johnny Crum was one of Celtic’s best players of this era. Like so many players of this time, he was looked upon as one of those who was unlucky I that the war got in the way, but he still did well enough. And he had at least one great moment that guarantees immortality.

He was born on New Year’s Day 1912 on the same day that Jimmy Quinn scored a hat-trick against Rangers. He came from the Hyndland district of Glasgow and was working on the railway when he signed for Celtic in 1932. It was clear from an early stage of his career that he was a fine centre forward with two good feet, but for Johnny there was the obvious problem that, good though he was, he was not as good as McGrory!

But he was content to bide his time, and there was something very endearing in the gallus Glasgow lad with his slightly splay-footed walk and his perpetual patter which cheered up the dressing room in the same way as Bertie Auld would do some 30 years later. He was also a musician and could play the piano and sing at social functions – attributes which are very important for the morale a football team!

Johnny Crum in action against Rangers at Ibrox. He scored the winner as Celts won there on 21 September 1935 for the first time in almost 15 years. The Rangers defender is Jimmy Simpson, Ronnie’s father.

He was really too good to be left out of the team altogether. In 1933/34 he was played on the right wing, in 1934/35 in various other positions, but it was only 1935/36 that a metier was found for him at inside left.With Delaney, Buchan, McGrory and Murphy, Johnny Crum could hardly not be a success, and although the goals tended to flow from McGrory, Crum notched a good few as well that season as the Scottish League was won for the first time for ten years.

He would have been surprised however to be chosen to play for Scotland against England at Wembley. With Jimmy McGrory hammering in the goals that season, and Jimmy Delaney tearing past everything on the right wing, it would not have been totally beyond the limits of credibility for these two to get a game for Scotland, but the crazy Selectors opted to omit these two in favour of Dave McCulloch of Brentford in the centre, and on the right wing, Celtic’s excellent inside left Johnny Crum!

Now, Crum had played on the right wing ( and not without success, either) but he was now a first rate inside left while Jimmy Delaney was a world class outside right! Newspapers of the time use words like “surprising” while terms like “insane” or “mad” were possibly more appropriate.

Celtic star Johnny Crum, photo The Celtic Wiki

Nevertheless, Crum, humbled by being so honoured, did not let Scotland down in what turned out to be a respectable 1-1 draw. Indeed it was Crum who was fouled in the incident which led to Scotland’s penalty, and he was off the field being treated when Bobby Walker of Hearts scored the penalty.

1936/37 saw more of the same, although there was less consistency this season and the League was narrowly lost. But there was more than adequate recompense in the Scottish Cup final in which Crum scored Celtic’s first goal. It was scored at the King’s Park end and it was a rebound after goalkeeper Johnstone had only managed to parry a Buchan shot. Aberdeen equalised soon after but Willie Buchan scored the winner in the second half, and in front of an astonishing crowd of 147,365 Celtic had won the Scottish Cup for the 15th time and Crum had won a medal.

The following autumn saw changes in the forward line. McGrory retired from the playing side of the game in order to become Manager of Kilmarnock and this meant that Crum was now called upon to take over the centre forward role. A few weeks later, Buchan was transferred to Blackpool and replaced by Malky MacDonald, but that was a seamless move, and the same could be said about the centre forward position as Crum kept scoring, Celtic kept winning and the Scottish League was secured for the second time in three years.

Crum was such a nimble player. He had the traditional striker’s instinct of being in the right place at the right time, but he could also judge where a ball was going to land, and had a great relationship with wing halves George Paterson and Charlie Geatons. He was no great header of a ball, unlike McGrory, but he could score with either foot, and did so with regularity.

Celtic star Johnny Crum, photo The Celtic Wiki

But it was the Empire Exhibition tournament that Crum is most remembered by. He scored in the semi-final against Hearts, and then in the final against Everton at Ibrox on that warm Friday night of June 10. The game was even for ninety minutes with neither team able to break down the organised defence of the other.

The game went to extra time, and it started well for Everton. But then The Scotsman says that “After ten minutes MacDonald burst through to give Crum a difficult pass that the centre hooked to the net, Sagar just failing to hold a hard spinning ball”. Ibrox erupted, and as it was doing so, it was treated to the extraordinary sight of Johnny Crum the goal scorer running behind the goal towards the spectators, stopping, putting his hands on this hips and dancing a Highland fling! He then sprinted back into position to play out the last 20 minutes of extra time to guarantee Celtic’s triumph.

It was indeed a great triumph and much celebrated by the club at their Golden Jubilee Dinner at the Grosvenor Hotel on June 15. But there was something else to be happy about that day, for that was the day that Johnny Crum married Mary Allan.

Celtic in the Thirties – Volume One

Celtic in the Thirties – Volume Two

From then on, things went less well for Johnny. He did win another cap for Scotland this time against Northern Ireland and a Glasgow Cup medal in the autumn, but he shared in the general decline of Celtic in 1938/39, and of course the chaos that reigned at Parkhead during the second World War. Being in a reserved occupation during the War, he was never called up and was usually available to play, but this was a poor Celtic team, and one of Jimmy McStay’s worst decisions was to sell Crum to Morton in 1942 under the mistaken belief that at 30, Crum was just too old. Crum played for another four years at Greenock and seldom failed against Celtic.

Much as he resented being offloaded by Celtic when he was still able to do a job for them, Crum remained a Celtic man at heart, going to see them whenever his duties as a salesman in a sports shop in West Regent Street allowed him. His very presence in the shop added to the sales for he remained a cheery “Glesca keelie” with all the patter until illness compelled him to give up. On one famous occasion in 1953, Crum persuaded a Celtic family to put all their money on Celtic winning the Coronation Cup. It turned out to be an inspired piece of persuasion, even though the family remains much indebted to Johnnie Bonnar for keeping them out of the poorhouse.

His death in July 1969 was much mourned.

David Potter