Celtic Player of the Day – 7-1 hat-trick hero, Billy McPhail

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·2 Juni 2025

Celtic Player of the Day – 7-1 hat-trick hero, Billy McPhail

It would be a mistake to describe Billy McPhail as a true Celtic great. He did have his great moments, one in particular, but his career was a short one lasting only two seasons. He played only 57 games for the club, but scored 38 times, and his moment of glory was an immortal one which will be spoken about as long as the club lasts.

He was the younger brother of John McPhail and they more or less collided with each other at the front door in 1956 when John left and Billy arrived from Clyde where he had had a disappointing injury prone career.

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He started well enough with Celtic who were making a belated attempt to join the ranks of League Cup winners, and scored twice against his old club Clyde in the semi-final. This put Celtic into the final against Partick Thistle. The first game was a shocker with Thistle unlucky not to win, but McPhail scored twice in the replay as the League Cup was lifted for the first time.

But that was nothing compared with the following year where Billy scored a hat-trick in the 7-1 tanking of Rangers. It was his big moment, but within a year his career had ended because of a damaged knee. “Short and sweet” sums up his career.

He died of dementia in 2003.

David Potter

MORE FROM DAVID POTTER ON CELTIC’S BILLY McPHAIL

Billy McPhail, Celtic FC. Photo The Celtic Wiki

Considering the tremendous influence that this man had on Celtic and their followers, it is quite astonishing to record that he only played 57 times for the Club. And of his two seasons a considerable part of both was lost to injury, particularly a knee injury, which eventually caused his permanent retirement in 1958.

Billy McPhail learned his footballing craft in the Army and joined the Club in 1956 from Clyde, more or less at the same time as elder brother John was leaving. He was immediately seen as far slimmer and faster than John. The Club had lost men like Jock Stein to injury, and the fans were far from happy with the way that the team had tamely surrendered to an admittedly good Hearts side in the 1956 Scottish Cup Final. Yet good players abounded – Collins, Fernie, Tully, Evans and Peacock – so there really was no excuse for Celtic not having a good side.

Billy McPhail, Celtic FC. Photo The Celtic Wiki

At long last with McPhail on board, the team got off to a good start to a season. They had been notoriously slow starters even in their good season of 1954 and therefore the League Cup had never been decked with green and white ribbons. The League Cup Section of 1956 was the very strong one of Rangers, Aberdeen and East Fife. Celtic won it convincingly, dropping only one point to Rangers at Ibrox. McPhail scored two goals in six games, not perhaps a completely impressive yield for a centre forward, but fans noticed his ability to head a ball, to turn defenders and to draw the defence out of position by fine running.

Billy McPhail, Celtic FC. Photo The Celtic Wiki

The start to the League campaign was a less than total success, but Celtic did cheer up their fans by capturing the Scottish League Cup for the first time ever in October 1956. McPhail scored twice against Dunfermline in the Quarter Final, twice against his old team Clyde in the Semi Final, then twice in the Replayed Final against Partick Thistle. Bobby Collins scored the other goal in a purple spell at the start of the second half as Celtic won 3-0. This League Cup Final was good, but next year’s one would be even better.

But before that, McPhail hit injury trouble in early December 1956, and although he returned in January, was back on the treatment table by March, thus ruining Celtic’s season. A fit McPhail might just have made a difference in the League and Cup campaign, particularly in the Scottish Cup Semi Final where Celtic, without McPhail, went down to Kilmarnock in circumstances eerily reminiscent of last year’s Final against Hearts.

Billy McPhail, Celtic FC. Photo The Celtic Wiki

Summer 1957 saw Evans sacked as captain and replaced by Peacock (on board ship as the team sailed to America!), and the return from injury of McPhail. He had a successful American tour, which lined him up as it were for the League Cup campaign. This was McPhail’s moment of glory. In 10 games he scored 13 goals, famously three against Rangers in the 7-1 League Cup Final of October 19 th 1957 – a triumph that shines out like a beacon in several years of under-performance by Celtic. The first goal was a header, the second was a tap in after Wilson’s shot was blocked and the third was when he left poor John Valentine stranded from almost the half way line.

But even a hat-trick and all the adulation accompanying it in some ways underestimates what McPhail did that day. The Rangers defence was run ragged as he teamed up brilliantly with the rest of the forward line of Tully, Collins, McPhail, Wilson and Mochan, leading the line in the spirit of Jimmy McGrory, unselfishly laying off chances for others and pulling experienced defenders like Shearer, Caldow and McColl apart. All that apart from what he did for the luckless John Valentine, who never played again for Rangers.

Billy McPhail, Celtic FC. Photo The Celtic Wiki

Yet, after that game, it was almost as if Lady Luck had decided “Thank you, Billy McPhail. You have now done your job!” A couple of months later in December he was injured again, and like the previous year, only returned when the damage had been done to the League campaign. The team had also exited the Scottish Cup in his absence. The following season 1958-59 saw him injure his knee yet again in the pre-season Trial Match, and this time it was so bad that he decided to retire at the tragically young age of 30.

Billy involved himself in the hairdressing business (his dapper good looks had led him to being called Teasy Weasy after a well-known TV character) and he also owned a restaurant.

In later years, Billy suffered from dementia – a condition brought on him by too much heading of the wet and heavy ball that they used in the 1950s. Because of this and his famous hat-trick in 1957, a myth grew up (and it has crept into the works of some journalists who should know better) that the 7-1 game contained an all-headed hat trick by Billy McPhail. This is not true, but that in no way diminishes the outstanding, albeit short-lived contribution to Celtic of Billy McPhail.

David Potter

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