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tonystarkbingo · 4 years

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Tony Stark Bingo Prompt Meme

So, we did another Prompt Meme game, and came up with these summaries based on a three-tag prompt. This is an open prompt, if any of these summaries look like fun to you, please feel free to write them!! Tag us or the writer of the prompt when you do so we can all see how cool you are and what you’ve given us for the promot

@summerpipedream - Winteriron - All Tony wanted to do after finishing up at MIT was to pack up his desk at Stark Industries and quietly fade into obscurity. Sure money was tight, but he never expected Jan to actually sign him up for one of those social media reality shows. Now, he was stuck in a house, with no phone, no internet, or access to the outside world, trying to avoid the sexy Bucky Barnes, who's mission in life seemed to be to never wear a shirt around him.

@darthbloodorange - The world is ending, an alien race has all but taken over the world, it is an apocalypse of devastating proportions, most of the world is dead. The Avengers, those who are left, have retreated to a bunker built a fourth of the way down into the Earth’s core. Tony and Steve have been growing closer, when they are not working together to find a way to fight back against the aliens, they are fuck buddies. Tony’s a genius, he knows the odd of surviving this are not in their favour. Odds were that they were going to die… and well, Tony doesn’t want to die without letting Steve know how he feels. Before the battle Tony corners Steve in the armoury and confesses that he loves him. Steve is aromatic, has been since project rebirth. They are both so very sorry.

@newnewyorker93 - After a series of strange killings where the victims are found set up kneeling like they're praying, Tony Stark (a private detective) is on the case. An initial (false) suspect is the local priest, Matt Murdoch, who ends up being a helpful ally in solving the case (and possibly more)

@27dragons - Winteriron: You'd think that Tony Stark would have learned to ski when he was growing up. You'd think wrong; Howard never saw the point in it. So here he is, almost done with his PhD, and his friends have decided on a spring break trip to go skiing. He doesn't want to admit to them that he doesn't know how, so their first night at the lodge, he offers one of the ski instructors a large sum of money to sneak him up onto the slopes for a few lessons that night. Against his better judgment -- but desperately needing the cash -- Ski instructor Bucky Barnes takes Tony up on the slopes. Unfortunately, just as Tony's starting to get the hang of things, it starts snowing. Hard. Even more unfortunately, the newfallen snow disguises a patch of ice and Tony tumbles out of control. By the time Bucky catches up to him and verifies that he's not badly hurt, the snow is coming down too hard to see the lodge -- so what else are they to do but seek shelter in a caretaker's cabin conveniently (TM) nearby and wait for morning...?

@gavilansblog - Tony is kidnapped as part of an Evil Plot (TM). He's handling things just fine, tyvm, until his would-be rescuer (who he's been pining for, obviously), gets dragged in and handcuffed back to back with him. Seriously, dude? If you insist on breaking the kidnapping procedure at least actually rescue me! The taxes come in when the Evil Plot Master does his monologue and reveals that the kidnapping is part of a Villain Logic scheme to get Stark Industries to throw money behind the campaign to get a new law requiring actually taxing billionaires to fail. Evil Plot Master is, naturally, a billionaire. Tony would facepalm if he weren't handcuffed to his idiot rescuer, seriously. And then the kidnapping protocol kicks in and Jarvis shuts the whole facility down only instead of being handcuffed by himself Tony is now handcuffed to his rescuer so they have to do the whole escaping part of the plan while handcuffed together, resulting is the standard Tension (TM) moments and possibly an almost-kiss.

Fey Relay - Bruce, Tony, and Peter, resident science geeks, get de-aged and really want to play in the lab. You know, the one that has lots of things that can kill them in it? But they're still sort of mentally in there, just cranky and smol. So they get assigned their own Non-Science Adults who they hand-hold and point to do their sciency bidding. Thor, Steve, and Natasha oblige them and have great fun!

@rise-up-ting-ting-like-glitter Dragons were real. Okay they were actually just souped-up dinosaurs, but that didn’t mean Tony wasn’t being hunted—with intent—by lizards. He hadn’t wanted to come to this stupid Island in the first place. SI funding had explicitly been removed from the crackpot idea to return dinosaurs to the food chain. He could have told everyone that this was going to happen. Instead he was climbing through a jungle with a one-armed man who refused to give his name and if they didn’t get to the raptor enclave, retrieve the anti-venom, and return in time, people Tony loved were going to die.

His guide had better live up to his scruffy wild-man appearance or Tony was going to lose everything.

@somesortofitalianroast - Nurse Bucky Barnes wasn’t sure what exactly was going on. The vigilante known as Nomad had just crashed through the (luckily) open fire escape window. While he was lucky not to have any broken bones, he was unlucky enough to have a bad concussion. A really bad one. One that meant he couldn’t fall asleep. Also unfortunately, he only had the one bed and the enormous Nomad wouldn’t fit on his couch, so they’d have to share. It was only after he helped Nomad into his bed that he noticed the blood, and, unthinking, he pulled the cowl off to check for another, serious injury. And gasped. Nomad was Steve Rogers, his best friend in school, who’d died in an IED attack in Iraq 5 years earlier.

@polizwrites Natasha Romanov and Virginia Potts are the proprietors of Chaykus - a Russian tea room on the seedy side of town. Its new mission is to be a sanctuary for women who have been smuggled into the country for sex trafficking purposes. As for the men who engage in such practices? Well, they are quickly discovering that their days are numbered.

@dixiehellcat - Pepper is the manager of the heavy metal band War Machine. James Rhodes, lead guitarist and founder of the band, is looking for a new lead singer. He did not expect the woo-loving Virginia to get horoscopes cast for the applicants and decide based on that. He just wants somebody who can sing, dammit. This Stark kid is uncomfortably attractive, yeah, but he's been thrown out of two bands already. what? the shower sex? it was only that one time after a show, and they were both wasted...

@dracusfyre Tony was born without a soul mark. Bucky's was lost forever when Hydra took his arm. Without the universe to give you a hint that this person is The One, falling in love is gambling with your heart. But soulmates don't have to be born, they can be made - and Bucky and Tony decide that the same should be true of soul marks, as well

@ceealaina Tony was like nerd prime growing up. Normally he doesn’t let it bother him too much — he’s got inventions to invent, after all. But all of a sudden he realizes that he’s almost 20, he’s got two degrees under his belt, and has no idea how to do much more than kiss. He’s not entirely sure how he manages to convince Rhodey to sleep with him to “get it out of the way,” or how he manages to convince him to keep sleeping with him to “help improve my technique,” but it’s the best sex of his life (not that he has much to compare it to) and he never wants it to end. But it’s the night when they’re watching movies, and Tony’s ends up dozing against Rhodey’s shoulder only to wake up to a feather light kiss against his forehead that he realizes he might be in trouble.

@thudworm - King Anthony considers it part of his royal duties to protect his people by going out and taking care of any monsters harassing them. Of course, no one can know that the knight Iron Man is really the king, which leads to some fun assumptions about Iron Man’s identity.

@jacarandabanyan Tony’s mom forbid him to purposefully drive out his roommates so that he can have a room all to himself where he can tinker until morning light. She had to hear about it from friends, acquaintances, and other well-known socialites often enough when Tony went to boarding school and ran his roommates off there. Now that he’s in college, that behavior must stop. Luckily for Tony, he doesn’t even have to try to get the first two roommates at MIT to request a room switch. But then he meets his third roommate- a tall, handsome, funny man named James Rhodes. At first it was just natural joy at having a fellow competent engineer to hang out with, and perhaps the occasional dirty thought. But his crush on the man quickly grows. Before he knows it, Tony’s pining hard for his best friend. Every once in a while he thinks Rhodey might be interested too- but then he hears Rhodey lecturing a computer science senior for plying Tony with :beer: alcohol at a party because “come on, man, kid’s only 16. Have a little class and try chasing skirts a little closer to your age.” After that, he’s convinced Rhodey will only ever see him as a friend and a kid.

psychiccatpanda - Tony works hard and puts in long hours. So what if some of his long nights turn into very early mornings at CHew 2 OH. The only drawback is his business partner and head baker, Steve, with his disappointed looks and his continual arguing. When Steve's friend Bucky starts hanging around the shop, though, Tony notices. Oh lord, he notices. A month or so later, one night when he and Steve are working after hours at Steve's place to plan their seasonal menu, Steve tells him that he's noticed him checking out Bucky. Tony hits him with a decorative pillow and things kind of get out of hand. Surveying the damage (let's face it - Steve's coffee table was never going to be quite right again), Steve turns to him, "I was just going to suggest you get some practice kissing before asking him out." Oh. Oh...

@tisfan So... the problem with being a necromancer is being able to practice one's skill. The local cemeteries won't even let you look at a dead body if you're not a relative. Tony Stark, budding necromancer, forges a marriage certificate for the John Doe so that he can practice his craft. Only to find that it works perfectly. Bucky is No Longer Dead, and 100% interested in staying married...

@abrighterdarkness He didn’t mean to snoop. He knew that wasn’t what he was being paid for here--the loud laughter of the party echoing from down the hall where he was actually supposed to be, was clear enough reminder of that fact. All Tony wanted was two short minutes to breathe without being pawed at--yes, yes, that might be his job but breathing room was much appreciated just the same--and now he was stuck in this closet sized bathroom with what sounded like a mob-hit being discuss right outside the door. He knew he should’ve turned this job down.

magica - Howard Stark had an idea. Some people - alright, most people, stop hitting me, Maria! - would say it was a terrible idea. But it was only a little injection of stuff based on that strange glowing blue cube they'd found in the Arctic. And Tony was absolutely willing, let's get that straight, Maria! How was Howard supposed to know that it'd enable Tony to open up his own portals? And if some mystical green energy happened to swamp Tony just as he was opening a portal to Egypt? Well, that wasn't his fault. The dark-haired, well-built Priest of Anubis that Tony manages to bring back with him? That is not his fault either, damn it, Maria!

@festiveferret - Tony could say with absolute confidence - at least, if he could say anything at all in his current predicament - that this was not the way his PR rep, Pepper, would have wanted him to come out. There were, he figured, several hundred ways that the day could have gone better, but if asked to rank the top three, he'd put them thusly:

1) That he decided to come out by having a wild, unabashed make out session with none other than Captain America, in the middle of a busy New York street.

2) That it was, in fact, the morning after their first "date" - a term he was applying loosely here - and not a tasteful reveal of a long-standing, safe, secure, adult relationship.

And 3) That at some point between the first floor lobby of his apartment building and the front door off his penthouse suite he'd suddenly, unexpectedly, and so-far permanently been turned into a ferret and no one knew.

It would also probably concern her to discover that of all these rather bewildering turns in his life, the one at the forefront of his mind was that ferrets couldn't send morning-after texts, and he didn't want Steve to think their little dalliance had been nothing more than an - albeit unfortunately public - one night stand.

Of one thing he was sure, however: Pepper was going to need a raise.

#tonystarkbingo2020 #bingo party #prompt meme

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Why Now Is the Right Time for a Dark City TV Series

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This article contains spoilers for Dark City (1998).

Back in the late 90s, UK cinemas were still running an annual promotion where you got to see as many recently-released films as you liked for the tidy sum of £1 each. The promotion was usually only set up for one day, so movie buffs used to plan that day with extreme dedication. You had to line up the screening times just right to make sure no film overlapped, but if you had nerves of steel and a butt lining to match? Yeah, you could squeak through five major releases for £5 and feel insufferably smug about it.

Alex Proyas’ Dark City was one of the movies caught in the net of that promotion in 1998, and I remember being bowled over by how surprisingly weird it was. Clearly influenced by Metropolis, Brazil, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro’s The City of Lost Children, the neo-noir science fiction film arrived to positive reviews, but audiences weren’t really ready for it’s strangeness and it subsequently chalked up a disappointing box office result.

Maybe I didn’t help matters with my £1, and I’m truly sorry about that, which is why I was excited to learn that over two decades later I might have a fresh chance to fully get behind Dark City, as Proyas has now confirmed that a TV series based on the film is in the works.

“Dark City right now is really an intriguing one to me because we’re developing a series, a Dark City series, which we’re in the very early stages [of] but I’m having to re-analyze in order to construct a new story,” Proyas said (via Bloody Disgusting). “I’m having to go back and kind of jog my memory as to what we actually did and what I think worked and what I think didn’t work and re-evaluate my own film, so that’s been a very interesting experience as well which I’ve not done before.”

There are currently no details on what the series would entail, but its development is pretty intriguing considering Dark City’s legacy is kinda square in the realm of just being a small, beloved project that influenced other, often more successful, projects. Christopher Nolan was partly inspired by the film when he wrote Inception. Equilibrium, eXistenZ, and Requiem for a Dream all appear to owe some shading to Proyas’ sci-fi-experiment, and its weird tendrils still feel wrapped around the career of Dark City writer David S. Goyer.

If the movie had emerged further along the cinematic timeline, it might have had a much different fate than its “cult classic” brand – a year later the Wachowskis unleashed their sleeper hit The Matrix, which was filmed at the same studio as Dark City and even used some of Dark City’s sets. To be clear: The Matrix doesn’t just “look a bit like Dark City“, it also has a fairly similar vibe and plot to the blockbuster sci-fi action franchise that would go on to score a massive $3 billion in revenue.

In the stylish but gloomy tale, a confused man called John Murdoch wakes up to a phone call from a mysterious doctor, who tells him that a group of ominous men called “the Strangers” are pursuing him, and one of these Strangers in particular then becomes hyper focused on tracking him. A noir tale ensues as Murdoch pieces together his real identity and the true nature of the city he lives in, which is completely controlled by the Strangers. He also develops the power of psychokinesis and uses it to manipulate reality, overthrowing the Strangers’ control. In an incredible Twilight Zone-esque climax, the city itself is revealed as a deep space habitat covered by a force field.

A fair amount of this plot probably sounds familiar, but at the time it was fairly wild stuff. And now? It seems like the kind of project that would slide right into any prestige TV schedule like a knife through butter. Since Dark City was released, its themes of identity exploration and feeling trapped in what may or may not be a bleak simulation have become major viewing fodder.

Lost ran for six seasons on ABC. Wayward Pines became TV’s most-watched show during the summer of its release. Mr. Robot kicked Sam Esmail and Rami Malek’s careers into high gear. Westworld became HBO’s pricey flagship sci-fi series. I could go on listing examples for a while, as virtually every network or streamer has sought at least one serialized dark mystery hit at some point in the last twenty years.

Even on the film side, the genre shows no sign of slowing down. Warner Bros. has just gambled a huge wad of money to get a fourth big screen Matrix offering ready in the same year that Free Guy, a film about an NPC who becomes self-aware and tries to save the day, is released.

Clearly the well has not run dry, and Dark City could now be in an ideal place to take advantage of the viewing public’s hunger for the genre, but there’s another reason that a series set in the film’s universe would work better now than it did in the ’90s – humanity has felt increasingly trapped by invisible enemies, and continues to be instilled with the post-Matrix realization that even if an individual broke free of the “concept” of reality, there would be nowhere left to go.

As the march of capitalism destroys the climate of our humble rock and emerging viruses alter the way we live forever while billionaires spend their wealth encroaching space, is there a better time to explore new stories of people determined to seize some power back and live their authentic lives in the face of certain doom?

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The post Why Now Is the Right Time for a Dark City TV Series appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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laresearchette · 3 years

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Monday, March 01, 2021 Canadian TV Listings (Times Eastern)

WHERE CAN I FIND THOSE PREMIERES? THE VOICE (CTV2) 8:00pm BELOW DECK SAILING YACHT (Slice) 9:00pm

WHAT IS NOT PREMIERING IN CANADA TONIGHT DEBRIS (NBC Feed) EASTER BASKET CHALLENGE (Premiering on March 02 on Food Network Canada at 9:00pm) BIG TIME BAKE (TBD - Food Network Canada)

NEW TO AMAZON PRIME/CRAVE/NETFLIX CANADA/CBC GEM:

AMAZON PRIME TOP GUN

CRAVE TV DEREK DELGAUDIO’S IN & OF ITSELF THE DOORMAN

NETFLIX CANADA BIGGIE: I GOT A STORY TO TELL 10 YEARS THE BUCKET LIST BLANCHE GARDIN: BONNE NUIT BLANCHE DIANA HAPPY FEET TWO HIT & RUN HOW TO BE A LATIN LOVER JONAH HEX JUST ONE OF THE GUYS MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS POWER RANGERS BEAST MORPHERS (Season 2) ROCKNROLLA RUSH HOUR RUSH HOUR 2 S.W.A.T SERENDIPITY SHAZAM! THE AMERICAN THE CORONER (Season 1) THE CORONER (Season 2) THE KARATE KID PART II THE KARATE KID PART III THE MASK OF ZORRO THE PIANIST THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING THOMAS & FRIENDS: MARVELOUS MACHINERY: A NEW ARRIVAL THOMAS & FRIENDS: MARVELOUS MACHINERY: WORLD OF TOMORROW TRICKSTER (SEASON 1) U.S. MARSHALS WELCOME TO MARWEN WHEN CALLS THE HEART (Season 5) YOU DON’T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN

G LEAGUE BASKETBALL (SN1) 3:30pm: Raptors 905 vs. Canton

NHL HOCKEY (SNWest/TSN5) 7:00pm: Flames vs. Sens (SN1/SNEast/SNOntario) 7:00pm: Hurricanes vs. Panthers (SNPacific/TSN3) 8:00pm: Canucks vs. Jets (SN1/SNEast/SNWest/SNOntario) 10:00pm: Leafs vs. Oilers

DWIGHT IN SHINING ARMOR (Family Channel) 7:00/7:30pm (SERIES PREMIERE): Dwight accidentally awakens a medieval kingdom hidden outside his suburban town. In Episode Two, Jacopo the Troubadour entrances Woodside citizens to aid in his quest to steal Gretta's throne.

NBA BASKETBALL (TSN) 8:00pm: Jazz vs. Pelicans (TSN4/TSN5) 8:30pm: Nets vs. Spurs (TSN) 10:30pm: Hornets vs. Trail Blazers

MURDOCH MYSTERIES (CBC) 8:00pm: Murdoch's investigation of a murder at an opium den intersects with Brackenreid's pursuit of Nomi's missing friend.

FRANKIE DRAKE MYSTERIES (CBC) 9:00pm: Mary looks into a morality violation by Rita Hart's modern dance troupe; Frankie questions if they've brought the Spanish flu to Toronto.

DEREK DELGAUDIO’S IN & OF ITSELF (Crave) 9:00pm: Magician Derek DelGaudio wows audiences with his mesmerizing tricks and autobiographical storytelling.

MUD MOUNTAIN HAULERS (Discovery Canada) 10:00pm: An early spring thaw turns a road building project on a mountain cutblock into a muddy battle for Brent and Taylor; Craig locks horns with his son-in-law over a mechanical breakdown.

GREAT CHOCOLATE SHOWDOWN (Food Network Canada) 10:00pm: Ten home bakers dive into the wonderful world of chocolate and must tackle the art of table tempering; creativity runs wild in the elimination challenge as the home bakers create a chocolate dessert based on an animal that best represents them.

#cdntv #cancon #canadian tv #canadian tv listings #murdoch mysteries #frankie drake mysteries #mud mountain haulers #great chocolate showdown #nba g league #nhl hockey #nba basketball

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freenewstoday · 3 years

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New Post has been published on https://freenews.today/2021/01/02/we-are-seeing-another-level-for-brandon-ingram-and-he-can-still-get-better/

We are seeing another level for Brandon Ingram, and he can still get better

12:21 AM ET

Andrew LopezESPN

With the New Orleans Pelicans clinging to a 3-point lead with 2.6 seconds left and Brandon Ingram at the free throw line to put the game away with one more shot, he already knew what was about to happen.

He looked to the side and television cameras captured Ingram telling someone, “This one’s over. It’s over. It’s over.”

One more free throw and the game was indeed over, as Ingram iced the Pelicans’ 120-116 win over the Toronto Raptors with his 11th free throw make of the night.

The week was also over, putting an end to a wild ride for the reigning Western Conference Player of the Week.

It started with a 28-point, 11-rebound performance on Sunday in a win against the San Antonio Spurs. Next the Pelicans suffered a disappointing blowout loss to the Phoenix Suns on national television Tuesday.

Ingram followed that up by getting ejected in the third quarter because of an iffy-at-best flagrant foul 2 call on the road against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday, and then his 31-point effort on Saturday closed things out.

This week — and this season so far — has been a showcase of Ingram’s talent and of how the Pelicans plan to use him.

1 Related

New Orleans signed Ingram to a maximum contract extension just before the season started. It’s a five-year deal with no option. The plan going forward is for him to be a franchise cornerstone alongside Zion Williamson.

And while the 20-year-old Williamson has been phenomenal offensively at times, New Orleans is leaning on Ingram early to be the team’s closer.

“I feel very comfortable,” Ingram said of the closing role. “I know my teammates look to me to make plays at the end of the basketball game. It’s on me to deliver.”

Brandon Ingram gets ready to make his next move against the Raptors. Layne Murdoch Jr./NBAE via Getty Images

The problem so far this season, however, is that Ingram hasn’t been able to deliver in the way he has wanted to. Through Saturday’s games, Ingram is 6-of-21 (28.6%) in the fourth quarter and he’s yet to make a fourth-quarter 3-pointer on six attempts. He’s 8-of-11 from the line and that’s mostly due to his 7-of-9 shooting on Saturday.

Among 70 players with at least 15 field goal attempts in the fourth quarter, his shooting percentage is tied for 68th.

How does that compare to Ingram in the first three quarters? Before the fourth quarter, Ingram is shooting 51.2% overall and 50% (16-of-32) on 3-pointers.

Of his 21 fourth-quarter field goal attempts this season, 19 have been jumpers. Of those 19 jumpers, 18 have been contested according to data collected by Second Spectrum. He’s forcing himself into these shots as he tries to be the leader, and slowly but surely, the Pelicans are looking to him as such.

“Brandon has been playing great overall,” Williamson said. “He always steps up for us. When we need him, he’s there for us.”

The NBA is back! Catch all the 2020-21 season action on ESPN, ABC and the ESPN App.

Wednesday, Jan. 6 • Celtics at Heat, 7:30 p.m. on ESPN • Clippers at Warriors, 10 p.m. on ESPN

Friday, Jan. 8 • Hornets at Pelicans, 7:30 p.m. on ESPN • Clippers at Warriors, 10 p.m. on ESPN

All times Eastern

Just a season ago, Ingram shot 46% overall and 41% from deep in the fourth quarter. He averaged 5.8 points in the final 12 minutes, second on the team to only Williamson’s 6.5 average (and he played in only 24 games).

For the leap he made last season, Ingram was named the league’s Most Improved Player. For some, it was a jump that Ingram had been expected to make ever since he was the No. 2 pick in the 2016 NBA draft by the Los Angeles Lakers.

But injuries and inconsistent play, and a year in which trade rumors swirled around him in Los Angeles, never allowed Ingram to start to fully tap into his potential until he reached New Orleans.

Now, he’s started to take another leap. Overall, his scoring, field goal percentage, 3-point percentage, rebounds and assists per game are all up from a season ago. His fouling is down. His turnovers are down. And he’s doing it all going from a team that played the fourth-fastest pace in the league last season to the third-slowest in the early part of this young season:

BI continues to improve

2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 FTA/game: 5.6 | 5.9 | 6.7 Rebounds/game: 5.1 | 6.1 | 6.8 Assists/game: 3.0 | 4.2 | 5.3 Personal fouls/game: 2.9 | 2.9 | 1.2 3%: 33.0 | 39.1 | 42.1 — > Traded from Los Angeles to New Orleans in June 2019

Ingram is still taking the steps needed to become that franchise cornerstone the Pelicans envision him being alongside Williamson.

“I know it’s early,” Bledsoe said of Ingram’s ability to close out the game, “but all I can say is MVP.”

Bledsoe and the 750 or so fans in attendance at the Smoothie King Center on Saturday who started some MVP chants late in the game might have those aspirations for Ingram. Right now, Ingram is just trying to get better.

“I have to hold myself to a high standard,” Ingram said. “I have to make the right plays at the end of the game, still play loose but just knowing that taking care of the basketball and knowing the right shot to take and making plays down the stretch, it means if they put trust in me like that, I have to trust myself to make those plays.”

Source

#Brandon Ingram #daily #NBA #New Orleans Pelicans

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celticnoise · 4 years

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TODAY CQN brings you the twelfth EXCLUSIVE extract from Alex Gordon’s book, ‘CELTIC: The Awakening’, which was published by Mainstream in 2013.

The book covers the most amazing decade in the club’s history, the Sixties, an extraordinary period when the team were transformed from east end misfits to European masters.

THIRTEEN days after Lisbon, Celtic provided the opposition for the legendary Alfredo di Stefano at his glittering Testimonial Match at the Bernabeu Stadium. This was to be no friendly occasion.

Bertie Auld recalled, ‘Big Jock took me aside and told me, “Real Madrid are desperate to do us. We’ve just won the European Cup, but they still think they are best team in Europe. Amancio is their main player – do your utmost to keep him quiet. Keep an eye on him. I want to win this one.”

‘John Cushley was reserve centre-half to Billy McNeill at the time and he was one those rarities, a well-educated footballer! He could read and speak fluent Spanish and he told us what Real Madrid were saying about us in the national press. Basically, they were informing everyone that Celtic had merely borrowed the European Cup from Real for a year. Oh, yeah?

‘When we turned up at the Bernabeu the place was a 135,000 sell-out, everyone in Madrid appeared to want to see the great Alfredo for the last time in that famous all-white kit of Real. He was forty-years-old at the time, but still looked incredibly fit. He kicked off and lasted fifteen minutes before going off to the sort of hero’s accolade he undoubtedly deserved after such an incredible career. However, when he disappeared up the tunnel, the real stuff kicked in. Now we would see who was the best team in Europe.

JIMMY JOHNSTONE…marvellous in Madrid.

‘Wee Jinky was unbelievable that night. He was simply unstoppable. It looked as though he wanted to put on a special show for Di Stefano who, along with England’s Stanley Matthews, was Jinky’s idol when he was growing up. The Real players were queuing up to kick our little winger, but he was simply too good for them. They just could not get the ball off him. Even I felt like applauding at times. Honestly, it was an awesome array of talent Wee Jinky provided that night. That wasn’t in the script.

‘This was supposed to be Alfredo’s Big Night and here was this wee bloke from Viewpark, in Uddingston, stealing the show. While he was going about his business, Amancio and I were getting ‘acquainted’ in the middle of the pitch. He didn’t like the attention I was paying him and we had a couple of wee kicks when no-one was looking. Nothing too serious, but enough for him to realise I was there to do a job for Celtic that night. Friendly? After Alfredo said his farewells, I don’t recall anyone, and I do mean anyone, pulling out of a tackle.

‘They were absolutely determined to hammer us and, equally, we were just as committed to the cause to show we were worthy European champions. Just borrowed the European Cup? It was just unfortunate for them we had a bloke who could read the lingo.

‘Amancio and I were still going at it when, suddenly, there was a 50/50 ball and we both went for it. Crunch! There was a bit of a fracas. He threw a punch and I felt the need to return the compliment. The referee was far from amused. If he thought he was turning up that night to simply swan around the place taking charge of a routine friendly, then he must have been in for a real shock. Here were two teams going at it hell for leather. But they would be doing so without any more input from me or my friend Amancio – we were both sent off. To be honest, it was a fair decision because we were both as bad as each other. As I walked past Big Jock in the dug-out, I looked over and said, “Problem solved, Boss.” He had the good grace to laugh.

‘It was Jinky’s night, though. He was at his elusive best. I recall one of their defenders, I think it was a so-called hardman called Grosso, coming out to the right to give the Wee Man a dull one. He clattered into him and down went Jinky. The Real player then turned his back and returned to the penalty area to take up his position to defend the resultant free-kick. He must have been alarmed when he looked round and saw Jinky back on his feet and preparing to take the award.

‘He was irresistible. Maybe he thought he had to make up for Lisbon where he stuck to the team plan. In Madrid, though, he had the freedom of the pitch. It was apt that we won 1-0 and Jinky – who else? – set up the winner. He took a pass from Tommy Gemmell on the left, skipped past a couple of tackles in that effortless style of his and slid the ball in front of his great mate Bobby Lennox. Bang! Ball in the net. Game over.

‘Even the Real Madrid players must have admitted we were true masters of European football after that exhibition. To be fair to their support, they started to applaud Celtic and, obviously, Jinky, in particular. He would sweep past one of their own players and the fans would shout, “Ole!” It was a night for our wee magician to display his tricks and flicks. He didn’t let Alfredo down.’

SEEING RED…Bertie Auld dismissed in Di Stefano’s Testimonial Match.

The serious European business kicked off again on 20 September and Jock Stein fielded the same line-up that had won in Lisbon in the opening defence of the trophy against the tough Soviets of Kiev Dynamo. Sadly, Celtic made some unwanted history on this occasion as they became the first holders of the trophy to go out of the tournament in the opening round. It was also Celtic’s first defeat in Glasgow in European competition.

The timing that was impeccable in Lisbon deserted them in Glasgow four months later. Unfortunately, too, the first leg would be at home. The psychological advantage was already with the Russians. There was an unusual slackness in Celtic’s early play as they faced Kiev that evening. The 55,000 fans, obviously still on a high and anticipating another wonderful European adventure on the club’s newly-found magic carpet, chanted, ‘Attack! Attack! Attack!’ for a full fifteen minutes before kick-off and continued raucously as the game made its early progression. By half-time, there was silence and concern with the Soviets two goals ahead through efforts from Valentin Pusach and Anatoly Byshovets.

Gemmell, hero of Lisbon, admitted, ‘I don’t think we got caught up in the atmosphere or anything like that. We were used to that sort of thing. Aye, we were aware the fans were shouting, “Attack” over and over again, but that was the way we always played, anyway. As I recall, I got down the wing in the first minute or so and fired a shot into the sidenetting. Another couple of inches to the right and who knows? Certainly, it had beaten their keeper. However, we left ourselves open at the back and they took full advantage.

‘Bobby Lennox pulled one back in the second-half and we piled forward, still taking risks at the back. It ended 2-1, but I can tell you we were convinced we would get back into it over there. We had already played Kiev in Tiblisi two years earlier, so it wasn’t like we were going into the unknown. I scored in that game as we got a 1-1 draw and went through 3-1 on aggregate. We knew we could win in Kiev if we got a break.’

Unfortunately, the bounce of the ball, quite literally, was against Celtic in the return. Bobby Murdoch, so influential and so important in the engine room of the team, was dismissed by Italian referee Antonio Sbardella for throwing the ball to the ground after yet another strange decision from the match official. Murdoch had already been booked in the first-half for dissent and Sbardella looked as though he couldn’t wait to punish him further just before the hour mark as he hastily pointed to the dressing room.

EARLY EXIT…Tommy Gemmell and Co had no luck against Kiev Dynamo.

Bobby was crestfallen,’ recalled Gemmell. ‘He burst into tears and was inconsolable for hours afterwards. We reminded him that it was an Italian who had been put in charge and maybe he was an Inter Milan fan. He certainly acted like it in Kiev. Billy McNeill had the ball in the net and it looked okay to everyone, but it was ruled out. Big John Hughes came in for Stevie Chalmers that night and he netted after one of those mazy dribbles of his, but the ref called it back and awarded Kiev a free-kick for some unseen infringement. A Steward’s Enquiry might have come in handy around this time. One thing was certain – most of the 85,000 fans in the ground that night weren’t complaining about the ref’s performance.’

Remarkably, Celtic went ahead only two minutes after Murdoch’s ordering-off when Lennox levelled the tie on aggregate, snapping a free-kick delivery from Auld beyond a startled Ivan Zanokov. But Celtic still needed another because the goals away counting double rule had been introduced by UEFA at the beginning of that season. So, 2-2 would still have seen Jock Stein’s men topple out of Europe.

The fates were conspiring against them. With one minute remaining, Celtic, who had dominated even with a man short for half-an-hour, earned a corner-kick. Gemmell said, ‘There was nothing else for it but for everyone to pile into their box. At that stage we knew we were out, so we had nothing to lose. They left one player, Byshovets, on the centre spot as they came back to defend the award. He was on his own, every Celtic player, barring Ronnie Simpson, of course, was in the Kiev penalty box. The ball came over, was hacked clear and, unfortunately, went straight to Byshovets. Honestly, it could have gone anywhere.

But a wild boot out of the box turned into an inch-perfect pass. We all chased wildly back, but it was a lost cause. He tucked the ball behind Ronnie and that was that. I’m not being churlish or unsporting, but, in truth, we had played Kiev off the park for three of the four halves over the two games. Make that three-and-half. They didn’t contribute much more than the twenty-five minutes in the first leg that were to prove so crucial. Yet we were out and they were through. We paid a very heavy price for a wee bit of hesitancy early in the game at Parkhead.

‘I remember Big Jock was very positive after the match. He realised he couldn’t have asked for anything more from his players in Kiev. The referee was dodgy, no doubt about it. Whether something untoward was going on or he was just rank rotten, we will never know, but he gave everything to our opponents that night. Jock knew it. We knew it. So, we travelled home, at least, with the consolation we had not been hammered out of sight by far superior opponents. Big Jock also understood he would have to get our heads up for our games against Racing Club of Buenos Aires with the first leg due at Hampden in a fortnight’s time. He said, “If we can’t be European Cup winners again, let’s be the best team in the world.” That uplifted all our spirits. It was an appealing thought.’

Unfortunately, ‘appealing’ was not the word anyone around Celtic was using after three brutal confrontations against an odious bunch of thugs masquerading as footballers in the officially-named Inter-Continental Championship trophy. It was the so-called reward for the European champions to meet their South American counterparts to decide who would be acclaimed as the World Club winners.

‘It was the night fitba’ went oot the windae,’ was the way Jimmy Johnstone remembered the shocking first leg against the unscrupulous Argentines. He didn’t need to be too eloquent, but those nine little words summed up with sublime perfection that night in Glasgow on 18 October.

‘The Wee Man nailed it,’ said Bertie Auld. ‘No-one could have put it better. Listen, I can take someone kicking me. When you can play in the Scottish Junior football as a teenager, there is nothing left to frighten you on a football pitch. As a kid, I was told my leg would be broken in so many places by so many hulking brutes in my short time at Maryhill Harp. Sometimes it was my jaw or my neck or my arm or my back or my nose. It didn’t bother me one bit. As long as they could take it back!

ARGY BARGY…Billy McNeill and his Celtic mates faced a whole new ball game against Racing Club.

‘But I defy anyone to accept someone spitting in your face. Where I came from in Maryhill you sorted out your problems with your fists. No-one would ever have even thought of spitting. That would have been seen as cowardly and, yet, it seemed completely acceptable to the guys who wore Racing Club’s colours in our three games against them. I still find it difficult to call them players. They would wait until the ball was fifty yards or so away with the referee and his linesmen following play and they would sidle up and gob in your face. Then they would run away leaving you to wipe their spittle off your face. If they did that to you in the street you would be after them to sort them out. But they hid on the football pitch where they were protected by a gullible referee.

‘They were sleekit, yes, that’s the word, to disguise what they were doing. The fans would miss the initial reaction and then spot your retaliation. Look, I loved my football, still do, and I thoroughly enjoyed most of it as a player and as a manager, but I never dwell on those encounters. The entire episode from start to finish was just a nightmare. Unfortunately, we couldn’t handle it and eventually cracked in the play-off in Uruguay. We were only human, after all, and there is just so much we could tolerate, so many times you can turn the other cheek for some cretin to spit on it.

‘Manchester United, following their European Cup triumph the year after us, got the same treatment in their games against Estudiantes. I had warned my pal Paddy Crerand to watch them carefully. He might have thought I had been exaggerating until he telephoned one night after their two meetings with that particular rancid gang of Argentines and said, “My God, Bertie, you weren’t kidding, were you?” Later on Ajax, Bayern Munich and Nottingham Forest declined to participate against their South American opponents. What was the point of seeing the likes of Johan Cruyff, Franz Beckenbauer and Trevor Francis putting their careers on the line to win any title?

‘Who was running the show, anyway? FIFA, the world’s governing football body, presided over the tournament, but UEFA, the European wing of the organisation, didn’t seem to be too involved. I found that strange. We were representing Europe, after all. Certainly, they didn’t even have match observers at our three games against Racing in Scotland, Argentina or Uruguay. You can be certain, though, that they would have helped themselves to a hefty percentage of the gate money from the Hampden game. Maybe if they had sent a representative along to the first match they might have deemed it wise to lobby FIFA about considering scrapping these crazy confrontations.

‘Someone took the decision to make the occasion a one-off final at a neutral venue in 1980 and that format remained in place for decades. If that had been the case in 1967, I have no doubt Celtic would have been acclaimed as world champions. No-one, by fair means, could have beaten us. We came back from South America knowing we were the best team in the world. Sadly, we didn’t have a trophy to show for it.’

What should have been a showpiece spectacle for global football to embrace was, in truth, a shambles. Once again, Celtic had to play the first match in Glasgow and that didn’t work in their favour, either. If the games ended in a tie, the play-off would be held in South America. Neither goal difference nor goal average would come into it. It was on a points system based on league formats; two points for a win, one for a draw, zero for a loss.

Racing Club were offered the choice of three referees – an invitation that was also extended to Celtic in Argentina – and, as a Spanish-speaking nation, they, unhesitatingly, went for an official called Juan Gardeazabal, who happened to be a Spaniard. Sadly, for Celtic, he didn’t speak a word of English. Auld recalled, ‘During the game in Glasgow we could hear him conversing with their players, but all we got were shrugs and gestures when we tried to query anything. It didn’t help much, either, that he frowned on heavy tackles that were perfectly legal and something we did every matchday in Scotland. He understood the Latin-style of play and that certainly favoured Racing Club when, on that rarest of occasion, they were quite happy to kick the ball and not an opponent.’

A crowd of 83,437 turned up at Hampden Park to witness what had been billed the biggest club game ever staged in Scotland. Prime Minister Harold Wilson was in the VIP seats. Stein rarely tinkered with his defence and was satisfied to go with the Lisbon Five: Simpson; Craig, McNeill, Clark and Gemmell. Murdoch and Auld again got the nod to patrol the midfield and do most of the link-up play. The trickery of Johnstone and the pace of Lennox, he knew, would give the Racing Club defence problems if they were allowed to play. That turned out to be a big ‘if’.

THE LONG WALK…John Hughes sent off against the Argentines.

Wallace, who could look after himself, was in, too, so it was now a straight choice between European Cup matchwinner Stevie Chalmers or John Hughes with the latter getting the go-ahead. Stein liked to keep pre-match routines as normal as possible. After going through the tactical work that had been detailed the previous evening at the hotel on the Ayrshire coast, he appeared to be spending an inordinate amount of time as the clock ticked down to the kick-off going over ground he had already covered.

As John Clark said, ‘He rarely repeated himself.’ Now, though, he was telling the players for the umpteenth time, ‘Don’t let them put you off your natural game.’Or ‘Don’t get drawn into any feuds.’ Or ‘Don’t retaliate. That’s what they will want you to do.’ Or ‘If you lose your discipline, you’ll lose the game.’ Or ‘Let the world see how to win the Celtic way.’ Auld recalled, ‘There was a genuine concern from The Boss. He must have been exhausted just going through his team talk. Big Jock was meticulous, as everyone knew, but he just seemed a wee bit more cautious than normal on this occasion.’

Within minutes, the Celtic players realised why their manager was fairly apprehensive about the conduct awaiting them out on that football pitch. Jimmy Johnstone was the target. With just about his first touch of the ball he was sent spinning into the air after a crude lunge from Juan Rulli. With the outside-right still coming back to earth, he was met with another so-called challenge from Oscar Martin. Johnstone went down in a heap. Auld remarked, ‘I thought they were trying to volley the Wee Man over the stand and out of the ground. I looked at the referee and wondered what action he would take. He didn’t even admonish either of the villains. My heart sank.’

The Racing Club players immediately realised Senor Gardeazabal was a weak referee. He had opened the door for Scotland’s national stadium to become a clogger’s dream, a hacker’s paradise. The Argentines took full advantage. They set about abusing their opponents from that moment on with Johnstone feeling the full brunt of their punishment. It seemed their priority was to put the Celtic player in hospital that evening.

Jim Craig observed, ‘People often talked about the undoubted skills of the Wee Man. One thing quite often overlooked was his courage. He would be scythed down, bumped, thumped, kicked, punched, elbowed, knocked about like a rag doll, but he always came back for more. Jinky gave you the impression an Elephant Gun might be required to stop him and keep him down, but I doubt if that would have worked, either. He was unbelievably brave.’

Opportunities were at a minimum against a defence that was happy enough to give away fouls anywhere within a thirty-five yard radius of their goal. They got a fright, though, ten minutes after the turnaround when Auld slung over a beautifully-judged deadball effort and Billy McNeill’s header bashed against woodwork. The Celtic skipper had better luck when Hughes swung over a right-wing corner-kick later on. McNeill had been blocked and jostled any time he had come forward for corners or free-kicks.

‘That happened in every game and I was used to it,’ said McNeill. ‘They were a bit more sly or cunning than anything I had encountered in our game at home, but I always kept my concentration. Their aim was to distract you and I wasn’t going to let that happen.’ Hughes flighted over ball just off centre of the goal about twelve yards out. Unbelievably, McNeill found himself with a yard or so of freedom. He leapt, made solid contact and watched in expectation as the ball almost lazily arced away from stranded keeper Augustin Cejas and high past Jinky’s pal Martin into the net.

‘We all ran to congratulate Caesar,’ said Auld. ‘He broke off his own celebrations to have a quick word with Alfio Basile, who would later manage the Argentinian international side. Basile had tried to rough up our skipper time after time and it is to Caesar’s credit he refused to take the bait. Later I asked my pal, who could actually speak a little bit of Spanish, what he had said to the Racing Club defender. He was the picture of innocence when he replied, “You know, Bertie, I can’t quite remember.” I assumed he wasn’t asking him out for a drink afterwards!’

McNeill, however, did recall Basile’s reactions at the end of the game. ‘You get guys making all sorts of daft gestures as you head for the tunnel,’ he said. ‘Most of the Racing Club’s players were at it. Silly threats that are supposed to be menacing, but it is best to smile at these guys. They hate that. Show fear and you are a dead man in the next match. I remember Basile motioning with an imaginary knife that he was going to cut my throat. And, do you know, if he had carried out that threat on the pitch at Hampden that night there is every chance the referee wouldn’t even have booked him.’

There was a moment of honesty from left-back Juan Diaz afterwards when he was being interviewed by a South American journalist. He was quizzed about what he thought about playing against Johnstone. He answered in a rush of Spanish. Afterwards, the press man was asked for a translation by his Scottish counterparts. Diaz had said, ‘I tried to tackle him fairly at the start, but I realised this would be impossible for the entire game. I elected to kick him when he came near me after that. He would have destroyed me.’

Astonishing, then, at no time during the game did match official Gardeazabal elect to have a word with Diaz. Even more revealing, in a game riddled with fouls, is the fact that not one single player was booked. Maybe the good senor had left his little black book in Spain. Johnstone, sturdy individual of body and mind though he may have been, was in no fit state to play in the next game, a 4-2 league win over Motherwell.

The great South American adventure continued with the trip to Buenos Aires that lasted twenty-one hours with stops in Paris, Madrid and Rio. There was the usual obstructions that Celtic were now becoming to expect. The hotel was a wreck, the training facilities were a disgrace and the locals were hostile. Just a year beforehand, England manager Alf Ramsey had branded Argentina’s players ‘animals’ after their 1-0 World Cup quarter-final win over them at Wembley. Geography, along with football etiquette, was clearly not a strength in this part of the universe. England and Scotland appeared to be one and the same country according to most of the Buenos Aires population and it was a bit too late to argue the case.

Eventually, Celtic moved their HQ to the Hindu Club about thirty miles or so from the city centre. They were greeted with the sight of four policemen carrying machine guns. There were another twenty armed cops with shoulder holsters dotted around the complex and there was a twenty-four hour watch on the grounds. Auld said, ‘Did someone tell them we were there to start a revolution instead of play a game of football? It was all very surreal.’

Auld was forced to miss the game after injuring an ankle in the 5-3 League Cup Final victory over Dundee the day before the team flew out. He said, ‘I was desperate to play, but I knew Big Jock wouldn’t select me unless I was 100 per cent fit. I accepted that wouldn’t have been fair to my team-mates. As we were driven in our coach through Avellaneda, I have to say I was depressed at some of the sights we passed on the way.

‘Buenos Aires looked affluent enough, but we witnessed an awful lot of poverty and deprivation on the hour-long trip to the ground. Crumbling wooden shacks that were homes to some poor unfortunates, children wandering around on their own and dogs foraging for morsals of food on the streets. Now we understood why their players would run over children’s bodies to get their promised bonus of £1,500-per-man to lift the trophy. That would have been a fortune in that part of Argentina.’

Mr VERSATILE…Celtic’s unsung hero Willie O’Neill.

Celtic’s coach had to avoid several hundred Racing Club fans with obvious death wishes as they tried to postpone the journey by putting their bodies in front of the vehicle and pushing, shoving and rocking it from side to side at every set of red lights. The driver, obviously a local who had seen all this before, ignored the obstacles and steered a steady path. If someone wanted to headbutt his bus that was their problem. Eventually, the coach reached its destination, the monstrous oval-shaped, grey-walled Avellaneda Stadium.

Outside, cops, with massive sabres, on horseback pushed back supporters. There were other policemen with leather lashes who weren’t slow to use them if they thought the fans were getting a bit too excited. Cops with guns patrolled outside of the ground. Gemmell, like everyone else in the Celtic party, wasn’t too impressed. ‘It wasn’t even close to kick-off and they were already baying for blood,’ he said. ‘A few stared through the windows of our coach and made all sorts of weird gestures. They were all pulling hideous faces with gargoyle-like expressions. I began to wonder if we were still on earth. I don’t suppose they mentioned any of this in their travel brochures!’

Willie O’Neill, a left-back or midfield enforcer, got his pal Auld’s position in the team and Chalmers, his speed a vital factor, came in for Hughes from the team that had won at Hampden. Auld took his place in the stand alongside Hughes and Joe McBride. As they settled in, the three thought they felt a slight drizzle of rain. Warm rain. Auld looked up to the tier that ran directly above the Celtic party. ‘There was a group of disgusting lowlifes urinating on us. When one was finished, another would take his place. We were stuck right underneath them and couldn’t move in a packed stadium. Spat on in Glasgow and peed on in Avellaneda. I was beginning to agree more and more with Alf Ramsey.’

Celtic had also been warned the Uruguayan referee Esteban Marino was ‘not strong’. But just moments after the match official had led the teams out of the tunnel, the occasion was veering to what could have turned into a full-blown riot. Marino might not have a game to control, after all. Ronnie Simpson was felled by an object thrown at him as he went out to check his nets before the kick-off. There were massive wire fences behind both goals and it looked virtually impossible for an individual to throw something over it and down with any degree of accuracy. A more sinister thought was that the keeper had been assaulted by someone posing as a photographer or a character with an official pass hovering around the touchline behind the goal.

SHOCKER…Ronnie Simpson had to be replaced after being hit on the head by a missile.

After treatment, it was reckoned that Simpson had been hit by something heavy like a metal bar. Yet, a search of the immediate area only moments after he went down, failed to discover anything of the nature that could have caused such damage. Nothing nearby such as a brick or a bottle could be found. Clearly, whatever it was had been removed. By whom? No-one ever did find the mystery object. The trackside security later admitted they had failed to search the photographers’ camera cases. You could have got a bazooka in some of those enormous holdalls back then.

Robert Kelly hadn’t welcomed the thought of fulfilling the return leg obligation after the unacceptable behaviour of the Racing Club players in Glasgow. As you might expect, Auld was rightly concerned, as were the other players stranded alongside him in the stand, rows and aisles away from the Celtic officials. ‘If our chairman had called the players off the pitch at that point, then God only knows what would have happened next.

‘I don’t scare that easily, but I looked around me and all I could see were these ugly faces screaming and screeching abuse. We might just have made it to the sanctuary of the dressing room, but I genuinely doubt if we would have got out of that ground unscathed. I have been in the thick of all the emotions that run high in an Old Firm game, but the Glasgow derbies were tea parties compared with this. Everywhere you looked people were gesticulating and threatening, snarling and spitting. Welcome to hell.’

After a hasty confab between Kelly and the Celtic directors, they agreed, albeit reluctantly, to allow the game to go ahead, fifteen minutes late. In those most extreme of circumstances, there seemed little alternative. John Fallon took over from Simpson in goal. Astoundingly, in the midst of all the madness, Celtic were awarded a penalty-kick in the twentieth minute.

Auld said, ‘As you might expect, it was an absolute stonewaller. Jinky wriggled through and was sent clattering to the ground by their keeper Cejas. It was a clear goalscoring opportunity and, these days, would have brought an automatic red card for the keeper. Now that would have been interesting. I still shudder to think how the fans would have reacted to that.’

Gemmell placed the ball on the spot. ‘The Racing Club players were, as usual, doing everything they could to distract me. You would never have detected it at the game or on the television, but they were throwing little pieces of dirt or flicking stones at me and the ball. On the run-up, a clump of something or other went scudding across my path. I ignored it. I recall one game where I was about to take a penalty-kick and a shinguard was thrown at the ball. Didn’t bother me. I scored then and I scored against Racing. I enjoyed giving the ball an almighty whack at the best of times and here I was only twelve yards from goal with just the keeper to beat. I reckoned if I hit the ball as hard as I possibly could and got it on target then there was a good chance I would score.

‘There was little point in a keeper trying to second-guess me when I didn’t know which way it was going, either. Seemed a reasonable formula. I took a lot of pens, but I think I only missed two or three and I believe I hit the keepers with those efforts! I was always confident I would score, so the antics of the Racing players didn’t put me off one jot. I hammered it and the effort thundered past Cejas, who had advanced to about the six-yard line by the time I struck the ball. If he had saved it, I wonder if the referee would have been strong enough to order a retake? Doubt it.’

Alas, the lead lasted a mere thirteen minutes when Humberto Maschio, a tricky midfield customer, picked out Norberto Raffo, all on his own in the Celtic penalty area, and he looped a header over the stranded Fallon. Sweeper John Clark, who made such an exemplary job of controlling the back four, is convinced the goal shouldn’t have stood. ‘He was yards offside when the ball was played to him. Not just a shade off, but yards.’

BAFFLED…John Clark couldn’t believe the ref allowed Racing’s first goal to stand.

McNeill added, ‘Blatantly offside. No argument.’ Auld said, ‘From where I was sitting, I couldn’t see how he could be onside. I agree with John, he was in oceans of space and our back lot never afforded anyone that luxury. If you see photographs of that goal, you will notice that Raffo is completely on his own. However, after the referee had awarded us a penalty-kick, he was hardly like to rule out a goal by that lot, was he?’

The winning goal of the evening arrived shortly after the turnaround when Juan Carlos Cardenas, one of the rarities in this Racing line-up who seemed to genuinely want to play football, thumped one past the diving Fallon. The keeper had no chance. Racing, in front of their own howling banshee of a support, then retreated back into defence. For the next forty minutes or so they were rarely tempted across the halfway line.

Chairman Robert Kelly, in fact, didn’t want Celtic to play in the third game. However, Billy McNeill said, ‘Yes, we were all sick at the way we had been treated, but, deep down, we knew Big Jock was eager to show everyone we were the best club side in the world. He also believed the players might get better treatment in a neutral country. I think that’s what persuaded the board to go ahead with the game.’

Celtic requested the same referee, Esteban Marino, for the third game. It made a bit of sense, considering he was a Uruguayan and he would be officiating in his homeland. FIFA disagreed and awarded the game to Rodolfo Cordesal, a Paraguayan who was still to blow out the candles on the cake for his thirtieth birthday. Who was it who said common sense isn’t that common? The world’s footballing body seemed hell bent in wrecking their own blue riband climax to the planet’s biggest club competition.

Thankfully, Fallon had come through the Buenos Aires experience without any mishap and Auld had recovered from his injury to return in place of O’Neill. Chalmers also made way with Wallace moving into the main striking role and Hughes taking over at outside-left. When rookie referee Cordesal, who had just turned twenty-nine, put the whistle to his lips to signal kick-off at the Stadio Centenario in Montevideo no-one, not even Nostradamus, could have predicted what would happen next.

GROUNDED…John Fallon in action.

The first twenty minutes passed without any calamity or consternation although left-back Nelson Chabay, who had replaced Diaz, appeared to want to get inside Johnstone’s shirt at times. Diaz the honest man making way for Chabay the hatchet man. Seemed about the norm for Racing’s way of thinking.

Unfortunately, Cordesal didn’t twig that the Argentines seemed to have drawn up a rota to kick Johnstone. Chabay would hack him. Next time it would be someone else, who would be replaced by another until it came round to Chabay’s turn again. The crowd of around 60,000 weren’t quite as animated or intimidating as they were at the Avellaneda and that might have been down to the fact that 2,000 plain-clothed riot police mingled among them. The Uruguayan authorities were resolute in their policing of the game.

There would be no trouble on the terracings; pity they couldn’t do anything about the events on field. The match official awarded twenty-four fouls against Celtic in the first-half. Auld observed, ‘That was about as many as we gave away in an entire season at home!’

The fuse that had been lit in Glasgow burned all the way to Montevideo and was about to ignite another explosion of fireworks. Up it went just eight minutes before the completion of the first-half. Astonishingly, the first Celtic player to be sent off was Lennox, the same Lennox who could go through season after season without so much as a word in the ear from a referee. There was yet another melee and, once the torsos of both sets of players had been disentangled, Basile, the guy who threatened to cut McNeill’s throat, was being ordered off. As ever, he protested his innocence as he rubbed his jaw, as though he had been punched.

What happened next just up about entirely summed up the sorriest chapter in Celtic’s history. The match official had a word with the Racing player, Basile pointed to Lennox and the ref went over and signalled for the protesting Celt to leave the field. He had been banished, too. Lennox looked mystified. ‘Me? What have I done?’ he asked. Either Cordesal didn’t speak English or was hard of hearing, but he simply dismissed the protestations and walked away. Lennox made his way to the touchline, but was waved back on by Jock Stein. There had to be some mistake. Lennox about-turned and noticed that Basile was also still engaged in ‘discussions’ with the ref. He pointed at an injured colleague who was lying on the ground. Apparently, he wanted the crocked player to take the blame and go off in his place.

Lennox walked back on, Cordesal sent him off again. The Celtic player, still wearing a puzzled expression, trudged to the touchline where he was met by Stein once again. The Celtic manager, stopped his player, turned him around and propelled him back onto the pitch. The referee signalled to the sidelines and two soldiers with swords came on.

MARCHING ORDERS…Bobby Lennox was ordered off in Montevideo.

Lennox said, ‘The soldier was only a couple of feet away from me. He told me to get off. I looked at his sword. I headed back to the touchline. I could risk the wrath of our manager, I wasn’t going to argue with a soldier with a sabre. I headed straight for the dressing room.’ The argumentative Basile also thought the better of continuing his debate with the match official and beat a hasty retreat when another soldier, armed with a sword, headed in his direction.

Gemmell observed, ‘I was standing there with my arms folded wondering what the hell was going on. Bobby Lennox sent off? There had to be some mistake. He may have been a bandido on the golf course, but he wouldn’t say boo to a goose on the football pitch. Around this time, I could see that my colleagues, as well as myself, had had just about enough of this nonsense. We had now had to endure two-and-a-half games – fifteen minutes short of four hours – of the Racing players spitting on us, kicking us, pulling our hair, nipping us, och, basically going through the whole repertoire of dirty tricks.

‘They had picked on the wrong bunch of guys. I looked at Bertie, Bobby, Billy and the rest of the lads. John Clark was a cool customer, but he looked about ready to erupt. We weren’t going to accept any more abuse in the second-half. We knew we would not get any protection from a decidedly ropey referee. He had lost the plot, probably lost it around the time of the kick-off.

‘We were all getting frustrated at the ridiculous treatment of Jinky. The Wee Man could look after himself, but you do feel a bit helpless when you see your colleague being used as a football by a bunch of louts. Soldiers with drawn swords escorting one of our players off the field was not in the script, either. It wasn’t what we signed up for when we won the European Cup and then genuinely looked forward to playing against Racing Club. How naive can you get? We thought they might be honourable sportsmen. What a laugh. What a preposterous notion. Mind you, we realised that about two minutes into the game at Hampden when two of their defenders tried to play keepy-uppy with Jinky.’

Shortly after the interval, Johnstone, much sinned-against throughout, was dismissed, again in remarkable circumstances. Martin tried to remove his shirt once more and the player tried to wrestle free. His elbow appeared to hit the defender on the chest, but Martin went down clutching his face. That was enough for the ref to race over and point once again to the dressing room.

Auld said, ‘I caught the Racing players looking at each other. They were delighted. They were terrified of Jinky and the referee had come to their aid; they wouldn’t have to face him again. To a man, we knew we would not get justice that day. On a personal note, I was getting sick and fed up of players spitting on me. I wiped my hair at one stage and it was covered in spittle. You have to be an extraordinary individual blessed with the patience of a saint if you can accept that sort of behaviour from anyone.’

The mood didn’t get any better when Cardenas, who had scored the goal to take the game to Montevideo, rifled in a long-range effort for what turned out to be the winner in the fifty-sixth minute. Jock Stein later blamed stand-in keeper Fallon for not saving the thirty-five yard drive, but Auld jumped to his colleague’s defence. ‘I don’t think he had much of a chance. The ball swerved and dipped before it flew past him. Believe me, like our manager, I was a serial critic of goalkeepers, but I don’t think Fallon was culpable on that occasion.’

The game descended into anarchy with Racing now determined to do anything they had to do to hold onto their lead. The referee, who would probably never recover from this experience, couldn’t control the Racing players as they continually put the boot in. John Hughes was next to see red. He followed a passback to Cejas, in the days when the keeper could pick up the ball. The Argentine could simply have lifted it, but, to waste time, he collapsed on the ball.

As he lay there, Hughes tried to kick the object out of his hands. A definite foul, it must be admitted. What happened next, though, should have earned Cejas, who had been fairly theatrical throughout, a stick-on Oscar for Best Actor. He rolled around as though the Grim Reaper himself was in attendance. Off went Hughes and back to his feet got Cejas. A career in Hollywood beckoned.

Years later, Auld could laugh. ‘I asked Big Yogi what on earth was he thinking about.’ He replied, “I didn’t think anyone was looking.” Just the rest of the world!’ Hughes admitted, ‘Aye, I did say that and it has to come back to bite me for years. It seemed a reasonable thing to do at the time.’

Unfortunately, the TV cameras did catch another incident when play had stalled yet again. There was the usual posse of players from both teams arguing the toss over something when Gemmell came into the director’s shot to the left of the screen. Raffo, adept at the sneaky foul, was standing a few yards from the latest melee. The Celtic left-back raced forward at full speed and booted the Argentine up the backside. ‘That was inexcusable, I accept that,’ said Gemmell. ‘At the time I wasn’t thinking straight. Who would in the midst of all we had gone through? I can tell you that one of their players, I think it was their No.11, went along our back four of Jim Craig, Billy McNeill, John Clark and myself and spat in our faces immediately after the start of the game.

‘We had played these hooligans three times inside two weeks and everyone has a breaking point. Mine came in that moment. I looked at Raffo and he was obviously fairly pleased with himself. He was very clever. He jumped out of every tackle and we couldn’t catch him. He had got away with murder and not one of the three referees had even spoken to him. I decided to mete out a little bit of justice myself. Yes, I gave him a dunt up the rear end. It could have been worse – he could have come off that pitch with three Adam’s Apples!

‘It was only when I got home that I realised the entire incident had been caught on the telly. It’s a pity the TV editors weren’t quite as diligent in capturing the antics of our opponents, but they were a wee bit better in disguising their kicking of us. The game, in fact, was edited by the BBC in their London studios and they seemed to dwell on everything the Celtic players did and ignored what Racing were getting up to. It looked like extremely biased editing – maybe that old Scotland v. England thing – and I can tell you Big Jock was livid when he saw the edited tape. I don’t think he spoke to the BBC for about a year which was a bit harsh when you consider the lads in Scotland had no control over the final film.’

It was long overdue, but even Rulli couldn’t escape for three full games and, with five minutes to go and after another foul, he, too, was required to leave proceedings. A couple of minutes later, Auld clattered into one of the many culprits who had been dishing it out and down went the Racing player. The referee signalled for the Celtic midfielder to join team-mates Lennox, Johnstone and Hughes in the dressing room.

Auld said, ‘I shrugged my shoulders and basically told him I didn’t speak Spanish, so I hadn’t a clue what he was indicating. I looked him straight in the eye and realised he was in a state of panic, if not shock. He looked genuinely startled. I wasn’t arguing with him. I just wasn’t going off. I simply refused to move. What happened next surprised even me – he restarted the game with a free-kick to Celtic!’

MISTAKEN IDENTITY…Bobby Murdoch “sent off” against Racing.

Bobby Murdoch was surprised to later discover he had been sent off in the game, according to the referee’s official report. ‘Aye, that’s right,’ said Bobby. ‘Somehow he got me mixed up with John Hughes. I don’t know if Bertie was ever in any report. That incident was laughable. The bold Bertie just stood his ground and the ref crumbled. Och, that bloody guy couldn’t get anything right.’

The misery continued for the Celtic players when they discovered the board of directors had decided to fine every player £250. ‘That was our bonus for our League Cup win over Dundee,’ said Gemmell. ‘The club said they weren’t happy with our conduct and announced they would be withdrawing the cash and giving it to charity. We had been subject to the most degrading stuff from a shower of animals – yes, I agree with Alf Ramsey, too – and now we were being fined for our troubles. It was like all our nightmares had come at once.’ Gemmell, with that knowing smile, added, ‘Lisbon will live forever, though.’

Glasgow, Lisbon, Kiev, Buenos Aires, Montevideo. Yes, 1967 had been quite a year of discovery.

* TOMORROW: JOCK v RANGERS. The real story behind the scenes of the Celtic manager’s thoughts on the men from Ibrox – and the incredible Old Firm battlesin another dramatic and exclusive instalment from Alex Gordon’s ‘CELTIC: The Awakening’ – only in your champion CQN.

The post CELTIC: THE AWAKENING: THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE RIVER PLATE first appeared on Celtic Quick News.

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km-theatre · 7 years

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Cast & Creatives The Ladykillers

NEW WOLSEY THEATRE IPSWICH SUFFOLK UK 15 SEP 2017

Friday 15 September 2017

Ann Penfold — Mrs Wilberforce

Theatre credits include: The Taming of the Shrew (RSC),Brighton Till I Die(Brighton),, Revenger's Tragedy, Deep Blue Sea,(West Yorkshire Playhouse)Saturday Sunday Monday (National Theatre/West End) The Wars of the Roses(English Shakespeare Company, world tour and Old Vic) Design for Living (Peter Hall Company,) The Winslow Boy,(Guildford and tour) The Contractor (Oxford Stage company tour) Forty Years On (Scarborough)The Glass Menagerie,(Greenwich), In Celebration,(Chichester.) Duet for One (Edinburgh, Lyceum)

At the Wolsey Theatre: The Winter's Tale; Hamlet; Romeo and Juliet; Mrs Warren's Profession; Perfect Days.

And at Salisbury Playhouse: For Services Rendered ( and at the Old Vic), and The Lady in the Van.

Television credits include: Tripped (Mammoth Screen), Doctors, Casualty, Sea of Souls, Dangerfield, No Place Like Home, Mrs Pym’s Day Out, Cranford, Villette, There is Also Tomorrow (BBC), The Bill, The Vice, Coronation Street, The Brontes of Haworth, The Ruth Rendell Mysteries (ITV) A Wing and a Prayer, Family Affairs (Ch5)

Film credits include: Keeping Rosy, Winter Sunlight, Family Life.

Steven Elliot — Professor Marcus

Theatre Credits Include: Frankenstein, The Winter’s Tale. (Royal National Theatre) Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Revenger’s Tragedy, Henry V, Twelfth Night, Pentecost, The Bite of the Night, The Jew of Malta, Measure For Measure (Royal Shakespeare Company) The Devil Inside Him (National Theatre Wales) Dancing at Lughnasa (Abbey, Dublin) King Lear (Almeida, London) True West (Glasgow Citz) Arcadia (Bristol Old Vic) Frank, in Educating Rita (Oldham Coliseum) Dumb Show, Inherit the Wind (New Vic Theatre) The Weir (Sherman, Cardiff) Amadeus, Hamlet, And Then There Were None, Jane Austen’s ‘Emma’ (Salisbury Playhouse) Macbeth, Two Princes, A Chorus of Disapproval, Arcadia, Troilus and Cressida, Measure for Measure, The Suicide, Noises Off, Jumpy, Cyrano de Bergerac (Theatr Clwyd) Steven recently played the role of George Ring in an adaptation of ‘Adventures in the Skin Trade,’ by Dylan Thomas, at the Sydney Opera House and Melbourne Arts Centre, Australia. He also recently played Oscar Wilde in a tour of ‘The Trials of Oscar Wilde.’

Directing Credits Include: Assistant Director to Terry Hands on ‘Pygmalion’ by George Bernard Shaw (Theatr Clwyd) A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Rose Theatre, Kingston) Well Thumbed (Notional Theatre) The Dreamer (Maltings, Farnham)

Television Credits Include: Da Vinci’s Demons, Holby City, Judge John Deed, Ghostboat, Crash, Tunnel of Love, Porthpenwaig, Inspector Morse, Harpur and Isles, Art that Shook the World, 90 Days in Hollywood, Return to Treasure Island, That Uncertain Feeling, Rhinoceros, Van der Valk, 999 Killer on the line, Mike Bassett - Manager, Gwaith Cartref.

Film Credits Include: Steven has just finished filming ‘The Watcher in the Woods’ with Anjelica Huston, in which he plays the title role. Other Film work includes; Hamlet, Cold Earth, Rise of the Appliances, Trauma, Trail of Crimson, De Sade, Green Monkey and Time Bandits. Also recordings of Frankenstein (NT Live) King Lear and True West (Digital Theatre)

Graham Seed — Major Courtney

Graham trained at RADA and is best known for playing Nigel Pargetter in the radio series The Archers for 27 years, until the character’s untimely demise in January 2011. Theatre credits include: Dead Sheep and An Audience with Jimmy Savile (Park Theatre), Dead Sheep (National Tour),  Bedroom Farce and Separate Tables (Salisbury Playhouse), Flare Path (National Tour) Jim Hacker in Yes Prime Minister (National Tour), Basket Case with Nigel Havers (National Tour)Major Metcalf in The Mousetrap (60th Anniversary tour), Toad of Toad Hall (West End); Me and My Girl (Adelphi Theatre); Relatively Speaking and Confusions (national tour); Design for Living (English Touring Theatre); Twelfth Night (BAC); Translations (Watford and tour); A Chaste Maid of Cheapside (Almeida and tour); Someone to Watch Over Me (Frankfurt); An Eligible Man (New End, Hampstead); The Skin Game (Orange Tree); Nelson (Nuffield, Southampton); Present Laughter (Theatr Cymru); French Without Tears (Mill at Sonning); Journey’s End (National Tour) Accolade at the Finborough. He has also played many repertory seasons including: Birmingham, Greenwich,  Library Theatre, Manchester, and Perth.

Television credits include: The Durrells, I, Claudius, Edward VII, Brideshead Revisited, Mike Leigh’s Who’s Who, Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV, Jeeves and Wooster, The Cleopatras, Crossroads, Coronation Street, Brookside, Prime Suspect, Nature Boy, Dinnerladies, Station Jim, Band of Brothers, The Chatterley Affair, Doctors, Midsomer Murders and He Kills Coppers. Film credits include: Peterloo, Gandhi, Good and Bad at Games, Honest, Little Dorrit, These Foolish Things and Wild Target with Bill Nighy and Emily Blunt. Radio credits include: Nigel Pargetter in The Archers. He is an occasional presenter on ‘Pick of the Week’ and was a regular voice on ‘What The Papers’ Say’ both for Radio 4.  He was the recipient of the Broadcaster of the Year Award 2010 from the Broadcasting Press Guild and the Voice of Listener and Viewer Special Award 2010.

Marcus Houden — Constable Macdonald

Theatre credits include: The Tempest (Hope Theatre, London) - BroadwayWorldUK Best Leading Actor nomination, Overture Live (Hippodrome, London), Peter Pan (UK Tour), Robin Hood and the Babes in the Wood(Gala Theatre, Durham), Treasure Island (Cambridge Touring Theatre), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (International Tour), Romeo and Juliet, Sense and Sensibility (Chapterhouse Theatre Company), Bouncers(UK Tour), The Three Musketeers (Jamie Marcus Productions), The Merry Wives of Henry VIII (Edinburgh Festival), Art, Macbeth(Seagull Theatre), Tartuffe, The Beaux’ Stratagem (Lichfield Garrick) and Dick Whittington (Theatre Colwyn).

Damian Williams — One-Round

Damian became well known to television audiences in the early nineties for his appearances as Ginger Gahagan in the BBC series Billy Webb and the second series Alfonzo Bonzo. His other television appearances include Lumpy in Spatz; Gavin in Exam Conditions and Ian in The Bill. Damian was the presenter of Damian’s Are You Smarter Than Your 10 Year Old for Sky One and was also in the new series of Birds of a Feather.

Damian is always in demand for Musical Theatre and in 2013 and 2014 Damian played Edna Turnblad in Hairspray both at the Leicester Curve as well as a tour of Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.

Damian’s first love is comedy (his heroes are Laurel & Hardy) and he has played various comedy roles from Luther Billis in South Pacific to Pseudolus in A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum. Damian played Tommy Cooper in the new play Being Tommy Cooper, and toured in the one man play My Dog’s Got No Nose. Most recently he’s also played Tommy Cooper in the short film The Last Laugh, written and directed by Paul Hendy for which Damian won best Actor (Southampton film festival)

Damian has toured the country for over 25 years and has a wealth of experience in Theatre, a well respected farceur Damian has appeared in; Run for your wife, Cash on Delivery, Funny Money, Tom Dick & Harry, It Runs in the Family, Not now darling, There Goes The Bride, Out of Order, Caught in the Net, Dry Rot, See How they Run and Don’t Dress For Dinner.

As resident Dame of 10 years at the Sheffield Lyceum Damian is set to play Mother Goose this year.

Damian was born in Tilbury in Essex and now resides in Southend on sea with his wife Barbie. They are proud parents of twins, Joshua and Esme, undoubtedly Damian’s finest productions to date!

Anthony Dunn — Louis Harvey

Anthony has worked extensively as an actor in the UK, Europe, Canada and the United States over the last 30 years. Theatre includes Calamity Jane (UK and Ireland Tour), Paved in Gold (Canada), Birds (US Tour), Face (UK Tour), Buddy (Victoria Palace), Bouncers (Hull Truck), L'Ascencore (European Tour) and Don Quixote(Warehouse Theatre). His television appearances include The Murdoch Mysteries (US and Canada), Roomers and The Last Word for the BBC and Stuck on You, The Upper Hand and Frank Stubbs for ITV. Anthony has also worked in academia, teaching and doing Ph.D research in Washington and New Orleans. When not working as an actor, Anthony can be found taking groups of people on entertaining historical tours of London by road, river or foot.

Sam Lupton — Harry Robinson

Training: Manchester School Of Theatre (Man met, Acting)

Theatre includes: ‘Wilfred Crompton’ in Spring and Port Wine (Oldham Coliseum 2017); 'Seymour' in Little Shop Of Horrors (UK Tour 2016), 'Boq' in Wicked (Apollo Victoria Theatre, West End); 'Princeton’ & ‘Rod' in Avenue Q (UK Tour 2012); 'Man' in Starting Here, Starting Now'; Greg' in Single Sex and 'Gena Hamlet' in Galka Motalka (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester); 'Harry' in Love On The Dole and 'Young Collector/Sailor' in A Streetcar Named Desire (Bolton Octagon); 'Colin Ireland & Robin Oake' in Out Out Out (Pitgems Theatre); "Jim/Ensemble" in The Hired Man (Bolton Octagon) which won the 2010 TMA Award for Best Performance in a Musical, awarded to the entire ensemble. He Also originated the role of 'Ben' in Firing Life.

Television includes: The Late Late Show (RTE) and Ireland:AM (TV3).

Radio Includes: 'Nino Sarratore' in The Story Of A New Name & My Brilliant Friend (BBC Radio 4), Various Characters in National Velvet (BBC Radio 4)

Workshops: 'Boy & Zacky' in Big Fish; 'John-Michael' in Doris Stokes

Other Work Includes: The Music of Kooman & Diamond (IlliaDebuts, London Debut), "The Concrete Jungle": UK Album Launch (IlliaDebuts), 'West End Switched Off' (Parallel Productions)

Sam has also worked as a puppet coach for the 2014 professional UK tour of Avenue Q. In 2016 he made is directorial debut with How To Curse at London's Etcetera Theatre.

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mavrock1 · 7 years

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Tuesday, July 22, 2014

SUPER-SIX LIST: A JIM ROCKFORD WISH-CRAFT

With James Garner's death over the weekend comes the realization that we will never have any new movies or TV show appearances for either of his two most famous roles.

The Powers That Be should have done something about that while they had the chance. (Yes, I know about the TV movies for Rockford and the big screen adaptation of 'Maverick'. But what can I say? I'm greedy.)

SIX TV SHOWS IN WHICH

JIM ROCKFORD COULD HAVE APPEARED

1) 'Columbo'

Martin Ross is a blogmate who has a fanfic site dedicated to stories about Lt. Columbo. And one of his stories is about a case in which Columbo found himself working with a private eye named Jim Rockford.

A GOOD CIGAR IS A SMOKE-SCREEN

I could see the two of them meeting and eventually teaming up. Probably against one of Jimbo's clients - but the Rockfish would have found a way to hold off the Lieutenant until he got paid.......

2) 'Remington Steele'

Steele would have exasperated Rockford but Jim would have continued the forced partnership for the sake of Laura Holt. And that could lead to Steele's suspicions that Rockford was Laura's biological father.....

3) 'Hart To Hart'

I could see Jim having worked for Jonathan Hart in the past. And he might have recognized Jennifer Hart as the twin sister to private eye Christine Dusseau (who once worked for U.N.C.L.E. using the code name "April Dancer".)

(I could also see Rockford getting in the middle of an SID case involving Al Mundy. Rockford would be just Rockford's luck to be the only private eye who could foil a burglary and be arrested by the government for his troubles.)

4) 'Batman'

I used to argue that Toobworld's Gotham City had to be in California since the 1966 movie had those ocean scenes. But I now accept the claim that it's to be found in Delaware - so it would be on the Atlantic and not the Pacific.

Jim Rockford had traveled to the East Coast in the past - in one episode he found himself in New Jersey. So he may have come to Gotham City, Delaware, in pursuit of a villain who double-crossed him for his fee. Or maybe it was a failed attempt to clear his name before he got sent to prison for five years.

I'm thinking Colonel Gumm as the man responsible.....

Colonel Gumm was played by Roger C. Carmel

5) 'Murder, She Wrote'/'Jake And The Fatman'

We got ourselves a three-way! Hey! Easy, boy.....

Jessica Baines Fletcher may have lived in Cabot Cove, Maine, and Jim Rockford lived in a trailer in a parking lot along the Pacific Coast Highway. But J.B. Fletcher traveled all over the world because of her murder mystery books so a trip to Malibu would not have been unlikely for her.

Perhaps their paths crossed due to District Attorney Jason Lochinvar McCabe, who lived in the same area as Rockford. (His home was just beyond the pier restaurant seen at the other end of Rockford's parking lot location.) Maybe Jessica had been consulting with McCabe for background information for a new book and he suggested she talk with the private eye who broke that case.....

6) 'The Saint'

Simon Templar is a world traveler and I'm sure Los Angeles would eventually have been on his itinerary for one reason or another. With Templar, adventure usually fell into his lap and he may well have just stumbled into a case that was being investigated by Rockford. (Perhaps it could have been a return visit by Kendall Warren. At least it would make sense that her path might cross with that of Simon Templar's, with Rockford along for the ride in Kendall's wake.....)

As usual, I am restricted by naming this category after a cartoon show. But I do have one more suggestion to share.....

BONUS!

'The Prisoner'

My "Don't Laugh!" entry for this list.....

In episodes like "The House On Willis Avenue", Jim Rockford doubled-talked himself into a lot of dangerous places and found out things that he was never meant to see. Sometimes this information was classified by the government and if somebody found out.....

Well, there are places for people who know too much. It could be that Jim Rockford was abducted and found himself in The Village back in 1967 where they had given him a number and taken away his name.

Eventually, Rockford would have been released. (I think he would have been too smart/cautious to attempt an escape.) And that whole story about him serving time in prison could have been a cover story to mask the truth.

At any rate, I just always wanted to see Patrick McGoohan and James Garner together in something.....

SUPER SIX LIST - A BRET MAVERICK WISH-CRAFT

With James Garner's death over the weekend comes the realization that we will never have any new movies or TV show appearances for either of his two most famous roles.

SIX TV SHOWS IN WHICH BRET MAVERICK

COULD HAVE APPEARED

1) 'Downton Abbey'

Bret Maverick was born April 7, 1847. I'd like to think that he lived as long as James Garner did, which would mean that he died in 1933. (Bret Maverick is one of those characters, like Archie Bunker and Lt. Columbo, who should be considered as having died around the same time as the actors who portrayed them. It's inconceivable to imagine anybody else stepping into those roles - at least on TV.)

So it's feasible to think that he could have made the ocean voyage to England at any point during the 'Downton Abbey' timeline which began onscreen in 1912 and so far has reached 1923. (Maverick would have been 76 in 1923.)

But why/how would he have met anyone from Downton Abbey, whether upstairs or downstairs? Perhaps he got himself invited to one of Lord Grantham's clubs for a friendly game of cards. Or at some other social function like the running of the horses at the Derby.....

2) 'The Murdoch Mysteries'

Again, Bret Maverick would have been still hale and hearty at the turn of the 20th Century. And as Maverick wandered all over the West looking for a game, perhaps he went to Toronto in hopes of joining in on one with a big pot there. Or maybe he was looking up somebody who owed him a sizable debt. That would be a great kick-off to an episode in which the debtor winds up dead and Maverick is blamed. It would take William Murdock to find the real killer.

BRET MAVERICK AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY AND BEYOND

3) 'The Adventures Of Brisco County Jr.'

I've always said that if only Robert Conrad had been hired to reprise his character of James T. West in 1891 for the show, then it ight have brought in enough ratings to justify a second season. Having Bret Maverick playing poker against Brisco and Lord Bowler would have done the same thing in - ahem! - garnering ratings.....

4) 'The Wild Wild West'

A lot of the small towns visited by Bret Maverick over the course of his series - like Duck 'n' Shoot - would have been the perfect backdrop for some Old West despot to establish his base of power. And I can just imagine Dr. Miguelito Quixote Loveless being driven to exasperation by Maverick's constant quoting those Pappyisms.....

5) 'Nichols'

What a fantastic Sweeps Week episode it could have been for Garner to play two roles in the same episode - but unlike the final episode of 'Nichols', at least we would see the two of them together, thanks to special effects. Yes, there would have been an age difference - by 1914, Bret Maverick would have been 67 years old, while Garner was just 43 at the time. But he resorted to old age make-up in the past in order to play Pappy Beauregard Maverick, so why not again?

6) 'Doctor Who'

Don't laugh! With the TARDIS, anything is possible, so the Doctor could easily have visited the Old West while Bret Maverick was alive. He did so in "A Town Called Mercy", but the time period would not have jibed with Garner's physical appearance at that point. (Not that he was healthy enough to play the role at the time.)

By the way, "The Gunfighters" storyline wouldn't count as a possibility because the Doctor and his companions were not really at the OK Corral. They never did realize they were in a holographic projection created by the Melkotians from 'Star Trek'.

Why would the Doctor have met Bret Maverick? Besides the random chance always considered whenever the TARDIS comes to a stop, Maverick might have been knee-deep in some scenario that cried out for the intervention of a Time Lord.

The return of the Master?

Some apocalyptic weapon devised by Dr. Loveless

The Orb sought by both Brisco and time traveler John Bly

An invasion by aliens a bit more threatening than those seen in the Old West of a 'Time Tunnel' episode

Of all the Doctors' regenerations, I think it would have been fun to see Maverick interact with either Pertwee's Third Incarnation or Tennant's Tenth. (And again, Garner could have done an episode in that time period of 2006-2010.) Unless they did a lot of location filming, I don't think the production quality of the episodes during the tenures of Hartnell and Troughton would have been acceptable for an appearance by Garner. (And that's not even taking into consideration that his movie career was beginning and that his imbroglio with Warner Brothers would have prohibited him from playing the role again at that time.)

Geronimo!

BRET MAVERICK, CIRCA 1921 GOOD NIGHT AND MAY GOD BLESS

THE HAT SQUAD: JAMES GARNER, NOT A BARBARIAN AT THE PEARLY GATES

As I wrote up my tribute to James Garner for Facebook very early Sunday morning, I got this image in my poor excuse of a noggin which I think would have amused the actor.....

As in my favorite Bret episode of 'Maverick' ("Shady Deal At Sunny Acres"), I picture James Garner sitting outside the Pearly Gates, that celestial Sunny Acres, whittling a stick without a care in the world. "You think you're getting into Heaven?" asks St. Peter.

"I'm working on it...." he replies.

And damn (Sorry, Lord!) if he wouldn't have pulled it off.....

Good night and may God bless......

THE HAT SQUAD: REMEMBERING JAMES GARNER, A TOOBWORLD GIANT

"You're not going to cry, are you?

I can't take that before breakfast."

Jim Rockford

When I saw the news about James Garner online while at work, I quickly dashed off how I was feeling for Facebook; shared on my personal page as well as on the Toobworld Dynamic page. I say I "dashed it off", but some time was spent in putting it together as I wrote, editing and adding details as I went along.

James Garner was one of my big TV idols since I was a kid. And for me, this may turn out to be the heaviest hit the Toobworld pantheon will suffer this year. So I poured a lot of my heart into that piece for Facebook.

I've looked it over and I figure I'm going to let it stand as my tribute to the tall dark stranger there in the plaid sports jacket who works for 200 dollars a day plus expenses and who always has a "Pappyism" at the ready. (Yes, there's no separating Bret Maverick from Jim Rockford for Garner's biggest accomplishment.)

So here's what I wrote in memory of the late great James Garner, who saw himself as Crusader Rabbit......

This one hits me hard. Just the other day when his official page mentioned "Murphy's Romance" as his only Oscar nomination, I thought to myself it would be unlikely that there would be any more. This is a case where I hate being right. Reports coming in from TMZ and picked up by the Daily News are saying that James Garner passed away on Saturday at the age of 86.

Every movie I saw him in I enjoyed, even when he played the villain (only twice that I can think of) although I never thought it was the type of role that suited him. 'The Americanization of Emily' (Of course! Should be required viewing!), 'The Great Escape', 'The Art Of Love', 'Marlowe', even 'The Lipstick Jungle', the combo of 'Hour Of The Gun' and 'Sunset', 'Twilight', and that Atlantis cartoon with Michael J. Fox......

But it was his TV work I treasure most, as many of you would expect. When I first discovered Bret Maverick in high school, it was like finding finally the "hero" who spoke to me, one whom I could admire and wish to emulate. And then that was heightened by the too short run of 'Nichols', a truly craven character not seen in Toobworld before and none to match him since. (It's my holy grail to finally see the last episode of that show which I had to miss due to an altar boy meeting - probably the first step in causing me to lapse. LOL)

And of course during my college years it was Jim Rockfish - er, Rockford. I don't think a month goes by I don't try to catch an episode on ME-TV. (I'll probably watch the one tonight in his memory.)

Before his stroke, he was doing quite nicely as the go-to guy to give a show the jolt it needed if it was flagging in the ratings ('Chicago Hope') or because of an emergency situation ('8 Simple Rules'.)

Bret Maverick is already a member of the Television Crossover Hall Of Fame. (July 2007) It's only a matter of time before the Rockfish joins him......

"My Pappy always said:

'A coward dies a thousand deaths, a hero dies but one.'

A thousand to one is pretty good odds."

Bret Maverick

Good night and may God bless......

#James Garner #HOLLYWOOD #ICON #ACTOR #ROCKFORD

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blistermilk-blog1 · 5 years

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Escondido, 1999

I worked for a season in a strip mall in Escondido. I was editing and revising and formatting books. I would arrive early in the morning and stay late at night. I was there all the time the summer of 1999.

I lived in a house with three guys, two of whom were seminary students at Westminster Theological Seminary. The other, Gregory, was a natural born philosopher; we hit it off immediately. He picked me up from the bus station (my living situation was, loosely speaking, "arranged" by my employer, to whom I owed money) and our conversation started there, the type of talk that is harder to come by these days. Even though we disagreed on many subjects, and often these were not superficial but very deep disagreements, we were instant kin.

The other guys did not spend a lot of time hanging out, though I remember one of them, whose name escapes me, who was fond of Thomas Merton and talked to me about him often. He also recommended to me George Elliot's "Middlemarch," which I have still not read.

The house was a bachelor's pad. It was mostly clean, but the bathroom was abhorrent. That is all there is to say.

Someone owned a stereo and I played a lot of Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Ben Harper and Cake, depending on my mood.

I dated two women in the summer of 1999 in Escondido. Kristi, who I knew in Bible College in Twin Peaks, and I "hung out" briefly. And I met a Filipina girl from San Diego who drove over several times to hang out with me and things got heavy fast, and ended just as quickly. I do not remember her name, but I do remember that she liked it when I played Ben Harper.

I was intrigued by Magic Eye books.

I did not own a car. I usually walked to and from work, a few miles, or on occasion rode a bicycle. It was not my bike. I do not remember at all whose bike it was.

At night I stayed at the office and turned out the lights. I wrote. I averaged about one short story a week that summer. And I wrote book reviews for epinions.com and made enough cash to eventually take a trip to St. Louis on a whim. But that was later. I met people on epinions like David Abrams, who was then known as Grouch, but is now known as the author of Fobbit and Brave Deeds, who sent me some photocopied stories by other authors and discussed RIchard Ford with me. And Letitia Trent, who exchanged poetry with me, and now publishes poetry and novels, such as Echo Lake and Almost Dark. I met about a dozen fine people on that pre-social media site, a precursor to social media, with whom I am still in sporadic contact nearly twenty years later.

I averaged about one short story a week that summer. I was in the late stages of recovering from a brutal, heartbreaking divorce in 1997, a marriage that lasted six months, my first love. My stories played on the themes that arose from that difficult period, mixed with imitation of the somewhat hypermasculine writers I admired then, the "dirty realists," which included Carver and Cheever and all the rest.

I discovered Haruki Murakami in Escondido in the summer of 1999. And RIchard Yates. And Ann Beattie. And Iris Murdoch. And many others. It was a wild compact summer, and I read constantly. I recall even reading Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" in a fervent week while walking my bike to work. And exploring Kierkegaard. And Bertrand Russell. Where did I find the energy?

I heard the new song, "Yellow" by Coldplay and thought they were trying to sound like U2, and criticized them for being derivative, but secretly liked the song.

One day when I was alone at the house, a young Marine based in San Diego showed up looking for my roommate, who was not there. Apparently, even though I did not know him, I sufficed, and he and I spent a couple of hours, drinking beers and bullshitting. My life of hedonism was in full force.

At the office, the adjacent business was run by Mexican immigrants, and I made friends with them. They were worried about keeping their business open, and because I was at the office all the time sitting at a computer, probably thought I was somebody important, or someone with money. I was neither. The guy offered me some coffee and brought me into the labyrinth of their office space, dark rooms filled with stuff. They reupholstered furniture. Very private looking spaces. We walked through several rooms and came to a small kitchenette with a coffee pot. "You can come in and make yourself coffee anytime," he told me.

I tried to explain to him that I was like everyone else, struggling to get by, and not in any kind of position to help him financially. He talked about his fears of having to go back to Mexico. I felt for him, and listened. That's all I had for him, unfortunately.

Another day a man pushing seventy stopped by to sell me a shower head. He was extremely skilled at the craft of salesmanship. Why would I want a showerhead? He was magic. His hands moved gracefully as he presented the showerhead to me, and his speech was hypnotic and hard to resist. The show alone, I believed, was worth the $30, so I paid him cash then and there, and he left, satisfied. Not sure what happened to the showerhead, though.

So much more happened. But I did not stay. Within the next year I traveled and worked in St. Louis, Huntington, West Virginia, Albuquerque, Calistoga, CA, and finally, Lawrence, Kansas.

#writing #literature #poetry #california #dating

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ourkawaiifancollectorfan-blog · 6 years

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celticnoise · 6 years

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LISBON LION Bertie Auld is a veteran of classic Celtic v Rangers confrontations and has some fabulous memories to share with CQN followers.

Here is part one of the Hoops legend’s recollections from his autobiography, ‘A Bhoy Called Bertie,’ co-authored by Alex Gordon which was published in 2008.

We hope you enjoy a Saturday sit-down as the Hoops prepare for the first Glasgow derby of the season at Parkhead tomorrow where CQN will exclusively publish Part Two of Bertie’s memoirs.

NITRO often merged with glycerine when Celtic met Rangers. Old Firm games were never always classical, but I believe you could say without fear of contradiction that they were most certainly always confrontational. They could be enjoyable; they could be exasperating. And, yes, they could be explosive.

I never needed any extra motivation to go out and give my very best when I was playing against anyone. Just pulling that green-and-white hooped shirt over my head was enough to get me fired up and raring to go. I always remember signing for the club first time around and Jimmy McGrory insisting, ‘You must be able to fill that jersey, Bertie.’ Even as a 17-year-old I knew exactly what he meant. However, there was always something extremely energising when a match against Rangers was coming up.

I have heard all about the other derby occasions such as the Merseyside, Manchester, Milan and Madrid encounters. Of course, I’ve also been involved in the Midlands version. There are games throughout the world that people insist is THE derby. With the greatest of respect, forget those observations.

I don’t think for one fleeting second any other match on this planet could hold a candle to the Old Firm games. You’ve got to be involved in them to appreciate what these contests are all about. Passions from the fans would rocket through the stratosphere and some of these tussles should have carried a Government Health Warning such was the ferocity at which they were played. Celtic supporters would be coming up to you days before the game and imploring, ‘Beat them for us, Bertie.’ Or ‘Don’t let us down, please.’ And so it went on. No pressure there, then.

I loved that rivalry. I thrived on these head-on collisions where no quarter was asked or given and the fans on both sides conjured up their own special – if that’s the right word – atmosphere. Bonhomie deserted Glasgow when these games took place. Instead, it was replaced by bedlam. If you were not prepared mentally or physically for these 90 minutes of combat they would overwhelm you. Both sets of supporters gave it pelters and you could hear the racket that was being generated down in the dressing rooms as you prepared for these games.

You came out the tunnel and it never ceased to astonish me what I was about to encounter. In those days the games were played with the Celtic supporters in one half of the ground and their Rangers counterparts in the other half. It was a 50/50 split. That’s changed nowadays, of course, with so many ticket holders at both clubs. The away fans are herded into a section behind a goal and, of course, they are heavily outnumbered in the chanting stakes.

MIDFIELD MASTER…Bertie Auld in his pomp.

You knew you were going to get stick when you played in these confrontations. There seemed to be an ignorance among a fair percentage of the Rangers support who didn’t seem to realise my parents, Peggy and Joe, had actually been married a few years before Robert Auld Esq debuted on this planet. And I’ve got the birth certificate to prove it. Did I find it offensive? If they were screaming abuse at me at least they were leaving some other player alone. Embarrassed? I’m a Glaswegian – you couldn’t give me a red face with a blowtorch!

You got the distinct impression that Old Firm fans just lived for these games. To some, it didn’t matter that their club didn’t win any silverware – just so long as they beat their illustrious rivals when we locked horns. The vitriol bounced around the ground and created a din from start to finish. I’m fairly sure that a huge percentage of those fans parked their brains outside the ground before the game and picked them up afterwards. But forget all the bigotry and the like that is associated with these clashes.

Believe me, both sets of players, ourselves as well as the Rangers lads, didn’t get involved in any of that. We both wanted to win. It was as simple as that. If you were an over-sensitive wee soul then Glasgow on derby day was not the place for you. The faint of heart were advised they would be far better off staying indoors when these games loomed on the horizon.

Obviously, I’ve got some fabulous memories of these games, including my debut first time around against the Ibrox outfit in a Glasgow Cup-tie in 1957. I was playing at outside-left and was up against the legendary Geordie Young. He really was an icon, captain of club and country, and was a monster of a man. But he played me fairly that evening, I have to say that and, if memory serves correctly, we lost 1-0. For me, though, it was such an extraordinary occasion. The first of many I’m glad to say.

THE AULD FIRM…Bertie challenges Rangers keeper George Niven while Bobby Shearer looks on.

I recall another Glasgow Cup-tie at Ibrox in 1966 when I wished a black hole would open up and I could throw myself into it. I was ashamed of my performance that night which was rather strange because Celtic won 4-0! We did well as a team and Lemon, Bobby Lennox, netted a fabulous hat-trick with skipper Billy McNeill getting the opener.

But I wasn’t satisfied with my display on a personal level. It was just 90 minutes when I could do little right and I was growing increasingly frustrated with myself as passes went astray all over the place. I was playing like I had just been introduced to a football minutes before the kick-off.

We went into that game absolutely determined to beat Rangers. In fact, we wanted to hammer them; to rub their noses in it. We had played our old foes in the Scottish Cup Final only a couple of months beforehand and had somehow contrived to lose 1-0 in the replay after having the bulk of the play and possession over the two games. Our name wasn’t on the Cup that year.

I believe Rangers had one shot at goal in the entire three hours of the two encounters. It was from their Danish right-back Kai Johansen and his 25-yard effort simply flew past a startled Ronnie Simpson. There were only about 15 minutes or so to go at Hampden and we were stunned, to put it mildly, that we were losing 1-0.

Big Jock later blamed Yogi, our outside-left John Hughes, for not tracking back and picking up Johansen. That was a wee bit harsh because we shouldn’t even having been playing that night – we should have finished the job in the first game that ended goalless. Caesar came closest to scoring in the Saturday clash when he hit the crossbar with a header. I missed that game, but I returned instead of Charlie Gallagher for the second match.

So, as well as everything else, we had revenge on our mind in that Glasgow Cup-tie at Ibrox. It didn’t matter in which competition we were playing – and no-one could claim the Glasgow Cup was the most glamorous tournament – we were hell bent on making our rivals pay big-style for stealing the Scottish Cup. Caesar got the opener with a shot from close-range after Rangers failed to clear a corner-kick and then Lemon took over with a tremendous hat-trick.

So, our supporters were delirious at seeing the Rangers keeper Billy Ritchie pick the ball out of his net four times while Faither, in our goal, could have taken out a deck chair and read a good book such was the inactivity around our penalty area.

I still wasn’t satisfied, though. I did make one lung-bursting run that took away a couple of defenders and allowed Lemon to score one of his three goals. Big Jock always possessed the ability to surprise you with his observations and he made a fuss of that run from me. ‘Excellent work there, Bertie,’ he said. Maybe he knew I wasn’t happy at my overall performance and was just geeing me up. Mind you, he could put you down, too. If you were caught swaggering around believing you had just put in a world-beating display, he was there to remind you of the things that hadn’t worked out. No-one was going to get big-headed with this bloke around.

GLITTERING PRIZES…Bertie Auld with the European Cup and his best-selling autobiography.

Ibrox was the setting for another game where I came off the pitch a bit demoralised. It was back in the early Sixties and we lost 2-1. It wasn’t the defeat that got to me, though. It was the fact I had been involved in a sickening collision with their left-back Davie Provan that saw him carried off with a broken leg. I was horrified when I realised the Rangers defender was so badly injured. To this day TG, Tommy Gemmell, insists he could hear the awful crack as Provan’s leg gave way. And he was on the other side of the pitch, too.

There is always a lot of innuendo, insinuations and wild stories when a player is seriously injured and, with the Old Firm, there are always added ingredients. You are on the receiving end of some outrageous claims and, naturally enough, some of the Ibrox support believed I had ‘done’ their player. Absolute nonsense. I had switched over to the right for a brief spell as Chopper, Bobby Murdoch, moved to the left. We did that every now and again just to freshen things up and give the opposition something else to think about. I remember chasing a ball down the right flank at the Celtic end of the ground that afternoon.

I was very much aware that Provan was coming across to tackle me. I got there a fraction before him to send over a right foot cross. Just as I delivered the ball, the Rangers player’s outstretched left leg appeared on the scene. I couldn’t stop my momentum and, equally, he couldn’t pull out of the tackle. There was a crunch as my boot made contact with his leg and he went down. I knew immediately it was a bad one. I felt sick, but it was a complete accident. Later in another Old Firm derby Rangers skipper John Greig broke Bobby Lennox’s leg and, as I said earlier, Celtic fans were far from convinced it was purely accidental. Again, that wasn’t fair on Greigy. Lemon was the first to absolve the Rangers player of all blame.

I should say here that Davie Provan was a player for whom I had massive respect. I saw him play against Jinky on loads of occasions and I don’t think he ever kicked our winger. He might have been given the runaround, and I hope he doesn’t mind me saying that, but he never stooped to underhand means to stop Jinky.

It must have been frustrating facing the Wee Man when he was at his tantalising best. Being taken apart in front of thousands watching on cannot be too pleasant. But Davie never lost the rag and never tried to boot our player. You could not say that about too many left-backs Jinky came up against back then. In fact, I rated the Rangers lad so highly as a person as well as a professional that I gave him a job on our backroom staff when I was manager of Partick Thistle. And, just to underline how well we still get on, Davie was a guest among the Lisbon Lions at my surprise 70th birthday bash at the Burnside Hotel in Rutherglen in March 2008.

GETTING SHIRTY…Bertie passes over a signed Lisbon Lions top to his co-author and good friend Alex Gordon.

He reminded me that night of the story of how he reckons he saved Jinky’s life! Some nutcase managed to get onto the pitch at Ibrox and made a beeline for our player. Davie is convinced the yob was carrying some sort of object in his hand. You could be certain he wasn’t about to make a presentation to Jinky to congratulate him on another fine performance. However, as he raced past the Rangers player, Big Davie did a quick bit of thinking and grabbed the would-be assailant. He wrestled him to the ground and the police eventually frogmarched the intruder off the field and up the tunnel. Well done, Davie!

I’ve got loads of happy memories, of course. Back on a gloriously sunny evening in August 1967 we faced our old foes in a League Cup-tie. We knew a victory would put us through; a defeat would knock us out of the tournament we had won the previous year when a goal from Lemon gave us a 1-0 triumph over Rangers in the final at Hampden. I’ll talk about that game in a moment. We were smack in trouble, though, as Rangers took the lead on our ground and were then awarded a penalty-kick deep into the second-half. Something remarkable happened after that and it gave us all the wake-up call we urgently needed.

Kai Johansen stepped up to take the kick and thumped it high past Faither. But the ball crashed against the underside of the crossbar, bounced down and a posse of Rangers players raced into the box to get to the rebound. Johansen was first on the scene and got his head to the bouncing ball. I’m sure there were a couple of other Rangers players in the vicinity who wanted to finish off the job. The referee immediately awarded Celtic a free-kick because Johansen had two consecutive touches of the ball without the opposition getting a kick.

Every Celtic player took a deep breath. We knew we had been let out of jail. We realised how fortunate we had been. There was no getting away from it. We had been given a second chance; a lifeline and we grabbed it. Willie Wallace levelled after their goalkeeper Erik Sorensen failed to clear a corner-kick and, in rapid succession, Chopper put us 2-1 ahead and Lemon finished it with the third. The Rangers players looked aghast and who could blame them? They were twelve minutes away from taking a 2-0 lead and then, in a whirlwind spell, we had completely turned it around and finished 3-1 winners. I’m glad to say we went on to beat Dundee 5-3 in the final to retain the trophy.

A year before that was another occasion where Rangers didn’t know what hit them and were two goals down inside the first three minutes. These games were normally quite tight as the opposition weighed up each other in the opening spell – just like two boxers in the first round. On this occasion, though, I scored in the first minute and Chopper flighted in a gorgeous second from the edge of the box.

I had a good laugh when I scored and my old mate Joe McBride – Jose to his friends – won’t thank me for this recollection. Wee Jinky fired over an inviting cross from the right and it looked as though Jose was certain to score. He lashed at it and got a fair chunk of fresh air. The ball carried through to me and I planted it behind Billy Ritchie. Now Jose didn’t know whether to congratulate me or burst into tears. He is one of the biggest Celtic fans you are ever likely to meet, but, and I believe I am right here, I don’t think he ever scored a goal for us against our Old Firm rivals. Yet the guy was so prolific against just about every other team in the league. He racked up 35 goals in 1966 before sustaining a horrendous knee injury against Aberdeen at Pittodrie on Christmas Eve. That was the end of the season for this genuinely lovely bloke yet he still finished as the top goalscorer in the country.

Jose didn’t even get on the scoresheet in the January 3 game in 1966 when Celtic beat Rangers 5-1. Stevie Chalmers snatched a hat-trick with Chopper and Gallagher adding two more. The extraordinary thing about this match was that our Ibrox pals had led 1-0 at half-time after a 90-second goal from Davy Wilson. Talking about Gallagher,

I must say he was a very clever and cultured player, but Big Jock didn’t believe we could play in the same formation. That was more than a little strange because Charlie and I played in the 1965 Scottish Cup Final success over Dunfermline and combined to score our first goal. Jock stuck to his guns, though, and, therefore, we rarely teamed up in midfield. Charlie, of course, could have gone elsewhere and been guaranteed first team football, but he loved Celtic so much he decided to stay and hope he would get his opportunity. When he was called up, I can tell you he never let the team down. Not once.

Games against Rangers never passed without incident, take it from me. I recall getting a telling off from the Celtic management after a daft wee incident against Rangers. Their big defender Harold Davis scored an own goal in a Glasgow Cup-tie at Parkhead in 1960 and I couldn’t prevent myself from ruffling his hair as I raced past him. It was meant to be playful, but Davis, who was built like a heavyweight boxer, didn’t find it amusing.

I must have been on the brave pills to have done such a thing because Davis never took any prisoners when he was out on the pitch. I think he had been decorated in the war, too. As I ran back up the park I looked over my shoulder and there was the Rangers defender, red-faced with steam coming out his nostrils, chasing after me. I didn’t realise I could run so fast.

Thankully, he didn’t catch me and simmered down shortly afterwards. My Celtic bosses didn’t see the humour in the incident, either. ‘That is not the Celtic way,’ I was told. ‘That is not the way we expect our players to behave.’ Ach, I was only having a laugh.

Actually, the same thing happened in reverse in a Scottish Cup-tie at Parkhead in February 1970. This time Cairney, Jim Craig, put the ball behind Evan Williams to net for Rangers and Willie Johnston patted our disconsolate right-back on the head. Cairney, thankfully for the Ibrox forward, didn’t possess a short fuse on his temperament and at least didn’t race after him all the way to the halfway line. It didn’t matter in the end as we won 3-1 with goals from Jinky, Lemon and Davie Hay.

TOMORROW: PART TWO: Don’t miss some more of Bertie’s remarkable memories of tussling with the men from Ibrox – only in your champion CQN.

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#CelticNoise #Celtic #CelticFC #CelticQuickNews

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celticnoise · 6 years

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TODAY CQN brings you the twelfth EXCLUSIVE extract from Alex Gordon’s book, ‘CELTIC: The Awakening’, which was published by Mainstream in 2013.

The book covers the most amazing decade in the club’s history, the Sixties, an extraordinary period when the team were transformed from east end misfits to European masters.

THIRTEEN days after Lisbon, Celtic provided the opposition for the legendary Alfredo di Stefano at his glittering Testimonial Match at the Bernabeu Stadium. This was to be no friendly occasion.

JIMMY JOHNSTONE…marvellous in Madrid.

SEEING RED…Bertie Auld dismissed in Di Stefano’s Testimonial Match.

EARLY EXIT…Tommy Gemmell and Co had no luck against Kiev Dynamo.

ARGY BARGY…Billy McNeill and his Celtic mates faced a whole new ball game against Racing Club.

THE LONG WALK…John Hughes sent off against the Argentines.

Mr VERSATILE…Celtic’s unsung hero Willie O’Neill.

SHOCKER…Ronnie Simpson had to be replaced after being hit on the head by a missile.

BAFFLED…John Clark couldn’t believe the ref allowed Racing’s first goal to stand.

GROUNDED…John Fallon in action.

MARCHING ORDERS…Bobby Lennox was ordered off in Montevideo.

MISTAKEN IDENTITY…Bobby Murdoch “sent off” against Racing.

Glasgow, Lisbon, Kiev, Buenos Aires, Montevideo. Yes, 1967 had been quite a year of discovery.

DON’T miss ‘Celtic: The History Bhoys’, the celebration of Brendan Rodgers’ two treble-winning seasons at the club – PLUS the clean sweep years of Jock Stein, 1966/67 and 1968/69, and Martin O’Neill, 2000/01. Buy last season’s production and get a 16-page update on the Hoops’ second successive unforgettable campaign absolutely FREE! That’s a 116-page glorious souvenir of the club’s most unforgettable seasons. Written by ALEX GORDON and crammed with over 150 photographs and all the statistics of all five of the most spectacular years in Celtic’s proud heritage. Priced at only £6.95 plus £3.95 postage and packing, you can order your copy at:

http://www.langsyneshop.co.uk/celtic-the-history-bhoys?filter_name=History%20bhoys

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#CelticNoise #Celtic #CelticFC #CelticQuickNews

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