Glasgow 1967: The Lisbon Lions

-This way, please.

-Gangway. Gangway there.

The bus begins its trip from the airport to Celtic Park.

There's the bus, there are the players.

Everyone is very happy indeed.

In 1967, Glasgow Celtic became the first British team

to win the European Cup.

-COMMENTATOR:

-Gemmell.

Murdoch.

It's there!

Celtic have scored!

All you were doing was... Excitement, just jumping about.

"Oh, ya dancer," you know?

-COMMENTATOR:

-And onto the field come thousands of Celtic fans.

This is a great moment.

I don't think I'd ever seen my dad with tears in his eyes before,

but he literally had tears in his eyes.

He gave me a big, massive hug,

which I don't ever remember him doing before.

When I watch it all, I just sit and bubble all the way through it.

And yet it is my happiest football memory.

Thousands lined the streets of Glasgow to welcome the team home.

50 years on...

How are yous?

..fans still greet them as returning heroes.

I love singing with them. I love applauding with them.

And I love what they love - that team.

It just changed our lives forever.

I mean, this is 50 years on.

We're still talking about it.

Most people remember Bobby because he was a great player,

but a lot of people know that he was a good man.

As boys, these players beat impoverishment,

illness and intolerance

before they'd even pulled on their boots.

They learned to believe in themselves.

I was the shyest guy in the world.

I was embarrassed going in and joining in

with the guys playing football, so I just left. Didnae play.

They saw a big man held back by small minds.

He was very, very upset.

And there were tears.

And the scorer who secured glory for Glasgow

was the man who survived its deadliest disease.

"We're very sorry. This is the diagnosis.

"You've got three weeks to live."

On that sunlit May evening 50 years ago,

the 11 men brought back not just a trophy

but history, hope and happiness

to the proud people of Glasgow.

1967...

..the moment when the footballing world revolved around Glasgow.

A Scotland team packed with Glaswegians

beat World Champions England at Wembley.

Glasgow Rangers went all the way to the European Cup Winners' Cup final,

only to lose in extra time.

And, most fantastically of all,

Glasgow Celtic won the greatest prize in European football

with a team who were all born within 30 miles of the stadium.

But, in many ways, Glasgow was an unlikely setting for a fairy tale.

So you've come to Glasgow, have you?

Pretty grim, isn't it?

This was a city with a reputation for hard men

and poverty-blighted lives,

for gangs, for drunkenness, for sectarianism.

Glasgow was a hard place. Don't kid yourself on. But a nice place.

You only got a doing if you deserved it.

'Glasgow people love one another violently, and when they fight...'

Glasgow is regarded as one of the most densely populated urban areas

in the whole of Western and Central Europe at that time.

It's an emphatically working-class city.

The overwhelming majority of the population tended to,

if you like, make their living with their hands.

Glasgow was the engine of the Empire.

Ships were launched from the Clyde,

built from steel forged in its furnaces...

..and powered by coal hewn from the Lanarkshire mines.

And from this male, socialist culture came leaders.

The next step when you left school was to go into the pits.

It was as simple and straightforward as that.

I was 13 years in the pits then after that.

The story of the Lisbon Lions begins

when a miner called Jock Stein

swapped his pit boots for football boots.

Stein captained Celtic.

Then, in 1957, after being injured,

was put in charge of the club's promising young reserve team.

All I tried to do is to try and work for the players.

Because, after all, the players work for me when they're on the field.

I do my best for them off the field.

I expect the same from them on the field.

One of these young players was future captain Billy McNeill.

The son of a Black Watch soldier,

he lived just a short bus journey from Celtic Park.

On his way to training,

he was joined by another hopeful youth, John Clark,

who was determined to succeed after a devastating setback

in his early life.

I was ten, the oldest of the family.

I was outside the house, kicking a ball,

and then the police came

and asked, "Where does Clark stay?"

I says, "Right, that's it in there", you know?

So I can always remember it.

The two policemen came, but they wouldnae let me in.

They said, "You stay outside."

The next thing, I heard my mother crying, so...

My father had been killed in a train accident.

He was in the railway, he was a foreman.

And my mother was still expecting a child.

So it was pretty hard at the time

and it was rough.

Stein took these young players under his wing,

and when Celtic bought Jock a wee car,

he would give Billy and John a lift home from training,

teaching them about football, life,

and occasionally even stopping off for fish and chips.

I think big Billy had the bigger legs, so he'd probably be

-in the front, so we'd have to take the back seat.

-Aye, that's right.

Jim Conway, a centre forward, also travelled in the car

with McNeill, Clark and Stein.

# Gonna build a mountain... #

There was players there, young players that were there,

-that were as good a player as anywhere that was going.

-Yes.

-The talent was always there.

-Yeah.

# ..build a mountain

# Least I hope I will... #

At that particular time, it turned out good for Celtic,

because we had to start a new reserve team

to build towards the future.

# Gonna build a mountain... #

We started to get things pieced together.

I was doing not bad then.

I was the first boy he ever signed.

He was a father figure. You know, he cared.

-He was a miner at one time.

-Yes.

-Salt of the earth, as they call it.

That's right, yeah.

He knew down below how hard it is.

He kept you level. He never let you get...

-Too big for your boots.

-That's right.

Kept your feet on the ground.

# Gonna build a daydream

# Gonna see it through... #

Talented and ambitious, Stein and his young colts were going places.

But a meeting with the Celtic chairman

shattered Big Jock's dreams.

The chairman had told him he couldn't go any further

at the club because of his religion.

I says, "You're joking, Jock."

Couldn't believe it, myself, you know?

He says... He really was upset. And there were tears.

He was very, very upset, because he loved the club.

I was a non-Catholic,

so Robert Kelly thought that I had gone as far as I would expect to go

with a club like Celtic.

It took five long trophyless years before Celtic righted the wrong.

In 1965, the club invited Jock to return as manager.

Stein had proven himself with success at Dunfermline and Hibs,

and now, reunited with the players at Celtic,

he impressed them with his knowledge,

ambition and sheer presence.

You've got to play the game in space.

Billy and John Clark tighten up here at the back.

John and I will have to make up our mind early

which one of us is going to pick up the main striker.

Jock Stein encapsulated the values that we think we have as Scots -

no nonsense, quiet wisdom.

He was clever and he commanded respect.

I think a lot of Glaswegians looked at him and said,

"Yeah, that's the way to be."

You know, normally our midfield men...

The dressing room was full of talented but underachieving players,

amongst them, the mercurial winger, Jimmy Johnstone,

talented youngster Tommy Gemmell...

..and, at the heart of the team, Bertie Auld.

That's a very good move, that, boss.

You know, with me holding the ball in the middle of the park there,

big Yogi hesitating just that few seconds...

Like most of his team-mates,

young Bertie learned his moves on the streets of Glasgow.

This is Panmure Street.

University, adversity.

See, as I'm standing here, honestly, I feel my legs jelly.

There must be ghosts in every part of this place,

because see the people that...

Honestly, they were warm, they were fabulous neighbours.

My mum was out selling fruit and suchlike

and they would see me playing in the street, maybe five o'clock.

All the neighbours said, "Bert, is your ma not in yet?"

They would roll up just a bit of bread and butter.

It wouldn't be butter, it'd be margarine or something like Stork.

She'd throw it out,

just to make sure you weren't going without anything to eat.

Mrs...Mrs Muckalee had that... See that light there?

I'm sure she had 15 kids. Loved football.

But she was let down at the finish-up...

..because she had nae inside left.

LAUGHTER

Panmure Street even had its own football team,

and would take on anyone.

# We are some of the Panmure boys

# We are some of the boys

# We know wur manners and how to spend wur tanners

# We are expected wherever we go

# Doors and windows opened wide Opened wide

# Here we go! #

Everybody speaks about football.

I'll tell you this about football.

You know how important it is to breathe in through your nose

and out through your mouth?

Well, that was football.

If you take the tenements of Glasgow, you know, the inner areas,

the streets were the playground.

I mean, the houses were too small to do very much in,

so people tended to be outside most of the time.

This is the nursery where you learn to dribble as soon as you can walk.

Where you shoot before you can run.

This is the prelude to Hampden or Wembley.

That photo there, he looks about five or six in it.

He just kicked a ball all the time, even before he started school.

There was a friend, Thomas McLaughlin, that stayed upstairs.

Jimmy had a ladder from the back window.

The two of them used to go before they went to school in the morning,

have a kickabout.

Legendary winger Jimmy Johnstone first jinked his way

past milk bottles on the outskirts of the city.

When he was younger, he used to put his father's pit boots on,

kick a ball. I think some of the neighbours used to go mad.

The poor neighbour down below,

I think her light was shaking like anything.

When he became a ball boy at Celtic Park,

wee Jimmy seemed destined to play for the club.

But one of his future team-mates grew up closer to the home

of Celtic's fiercest rival.

Now, this is us approaching Govan, just along the road from Ibrox Park.

But, as a pupil at Saint Anthony's,

Jim Craig was unlikely to be welcomed at 1950s-Ibrox.

There's the school just here.

Well, this is my former primary school.

We were only half a mile from Ibrox Park,

round the corner from Harmony Row,

where Alex Ferguson went to school,

but if you were a Catholic, you went to that school,

if you were a Protestant, you went to that school.

I was too young to think there was anything wrong about that, you know?

This is the playground. This is where we used to hone our skills.

I think every boy in those days thought he was going to be

a footballer, cos all we did was play football in the playground.

This is where I was born.

This is the boys's bedroom. It was in here.

It was just a single room.

There were four boys, and that's where the four boys slept.

Into the right here was the kitchen.

My ma, she was the worst cook in the world.

But I'll tell you, she gave you plenty of it. You were never hungry.

Young Bertie was happy to play for his street,

but dreamed of a bigger stage.

So when Celtic spotted him at 16 and offered him £20 to sign,

Bertie couldn't wait to tell his mum.

I had this £20 note in my hand like that. I never let it loose.

It was one of they ones that was about that size.

It was like the inside of a juice paper.

I folded it all and put it in my pocket. That's the way I held it.

And I came up here. My mam, she turned, "Hello, son", she says.

"Hi, Ma. I've got a wee surprise."

And she done that. Honestly, she started

to take my fingers out like that, cos they were that tight.

She got this £20 note. She looked at it like that. This is what she did.

She just put it right down her bra.

£20, the 23 tram

and a gallous swagger was enough to get Bertie to Celtic Park.

But one boy had a much longer journey to make.

For Bobby Lennox, it wasn't just the 27-mile journey

from the seaside town of Saltcoats to the big city of Glasgow,

the forward had something holding him back.

I was the shyest guy in the world.

I would go in and sit down and not talk to anybody.

I didn't start playing until I was 12 because I was embarrassed

going and joining in with the guys playing football.

So I just left, didnae play.

I was really a shy boy.

It was difficult, I just...

I just felt...

"Am I good enough to be here? Should I be here with these guys?"

You know? It was difficult.

At 17, Bobby took a conveyor belt job

making boxes with the area's big employer, ICI.

Loads and loads of buses sat outside the ICI.

People came piling in and piling in. Nearly everybody worked in the ICI.

It was a dynamite factory. They made explosives and stuff like that.

'The gelignites, the dynamites, the TNT ammonium nitrates,

'and still the list is only half complete.'

From time to time, somebody would get killed

or somebody would be hurt, you know.

I worked on this big machine. It just kept filling up.

I had to knock out boxes for it. It kept filling up.

When everybody else was finished, I'd always have a load

still to be done, you know, I really hated it. Hated it.

While playing for the factory football team,

Bobby's talents were spotted by Celtic,

and the shy boy realised this was his chance

to escape the production line.

Up on the train, smoke belching out the engine.

In through the Gorbals at that time on the train.

The Gorbals at the time wasn't the prettiest place in the world.

One member of Stein's team lived within sight of Celtic Park.

Raised in a Glasgow tenement, his name would go down in club history,

but in his youth, he was almost a victim of the city's biggest killer.

'Health experts say the cause of Glasgow's high TB rate was

'malnutrition during the Depression of the '30s,

'combined with lack of ventilation in the blackout.'

Glasgow was a city designed for tuberculosis,

because there was so much poverty, overcrowding, lack of sunlight.

Just the ideal breeding ground.

Stevie Chalmers was a promising young striker.

In 1955, he felt ill and was rushed to hospital.

He just thought he was unwell and had a cold, I think.

He didn't actually realise how serious it was.

It wasn't until people in beds next to him were getting curtains

pulled round and dying and he was lying there thinking,

"I just want to go out and play football."

He was moving his legs out the side of the bed

and thinking, "Why am I here?"

Glasgow was winning its battle with TB,

but there were still strains of the disease which were fatal.

Tuberculous meningitis was the deadliest disease in Glasgow ever.

100% fatality at that time. It was a terrible disease.

Doctors had to break the devastating news to young Stevie

that he had contracted TB meningitis.

"We're very sorry, this is the diagnosis.

"You've got three weeks to live."

With time running out, Stevie needed a miracle.

He came under the care of Dr Peter McKenzie,

a remarkable man.

He was a great Rangers supporter.

He always talked about Stevie Chalmers

as...a tremendous gentleman.

He really liked him.

No patient at the hospital had ever survived TB meningitis.

Dr McKenzie decided to try an experimental new drug treatment.

It was a miracle cure. It was not believed

that people could survive tuberculous meningitis.

And Stevie Chalmers was one of the very first in Scotland.

Stevie never forgot Dr McKenzie.

And after joining Celtic, he wrote to the Rangers-supporting doctor,

signing off with, "My success is your success."

I suppose getting TB and realising that, actually,

he was near death was actually probably the thing

that really spurred him on to be the footballer he was.

Actually, the passion that he has probably shows in that.

With Jock Stein in charge, survivor Stevie Chalmers,

shy Bobby Lennox, gallous Bertie Auld,

captain Billy McNeill, jinking Jimmy Johnstone

began to play together... like a team.

They won a league and cup double in their first full season,

which meant they qualified for the European Cup

for the first time in the club's history.

Stein took his victorious young squad

for a six-week summer tour of America.

We started away in Bermuda, Toronto, Vancouver, Los Angeles,

Miami, San Francisco, New York.

Jock, he knew what ability we had.

He was wanting people to build their own confidence.

And on that tour,

the boys from working-class Glasgow began to believe in themselves.

Being in America was the start of it.

Everybody got to know each other so well

and was in each other's pockets.

Especially Wee Jimmy and I, we were in everybody else's pockets.

Jinky and Bobby Lennox, they loved to have a wee song, you know...

Pretty Flamingo, that was one of the songs that was out then.

# On all our block

# All of the guys

# Call her Flamingo

# Cos her hair glows like the sun... #

Every time we were on the plane, they two would start singing.

It got to the stage where you'd be throwing things at them, you know?

Billy McNeill brought the cine camera on the tour

and for 50 years, the reels sat in his attic.

Recently rediscovered,

the grainy footage doesn't show much of the 11 games, 8 wins, 41 goals.

But what it shows clearly is a happy group of pals bonding into a team.

We were in New York, we were told never to go out alone,

be sure two or threes.

I'm walking past this opening. This guy jumped out and went for me.

I really nearly wet myself.

It was Bertie.

We became one, as a team, you know what I mean?

And it was through Jock that all happened.

Are you a disciplinarian?

To a certain extent, yes, I would say so, yeah.

But I come and go a bit. Probably I'm supposed to be hard,

but I'm probably softer than most of them.

Celtic won their final game in LA.

They were undefeated on the tour.

The Bhoys felt like Hollywood stars.

We were in the movies every time we got up in the morning.

I'm no' kidding.

I was all full of love bites. Self-inflicted, right enough.

After six weeks on the road, they returned to Glasgow...

fired up and raring to go.

My son Bobby was born nine months to the day

his father came back from America.

And he's not the only one. There are quite a few of them.

God help me if he'd been early. I'd have been in trouble!

It was an excited,

rejuvenated Celtic team that kicked off the new season in 1966.

Stein was introducing a smart, exhilarating form

of attacking football,

with Celtic scoring 26 goals in their first six games.

The city of Glasgow too had idealistic, ambitious plans

to reinvent itself as a modern metropolis.

On that is crammed 150,000 of the city's dwellings.

-But that's ridiculous.

-Of course it is, by any standards.

-What are you going to do about it?

-Knock them down.

Glasgow began demolishing the old tenements,

and Stein's Celtic began demolishing European opponents.

As the modernist Red Road Flats rose in the city skyline,

Celtic were inventing a new modern brand of football,

and swept away Swiss champions Zurich.

In the heart of the city, the new Glasgow is taking shape.

The times, they were a-changing, and the club was a-changing with them.

In a pioneering move, Celtic became the first football club in Britain

to publish its own weekly newspaper.

The Celtic View was a chance for Jock Stein

to speak directly to the fans,

to advertise Celtic fags, and in a time before fan forums,

the letters page was a platform for lively debate.

In 1966, in these pages, controversy erupted when The Celtic View

published a picture of the winner of the Miss Celtic competition.

Well, that's the sash. It's a lovely green sash. Celtic Queen, 1966.

Miss Celtic's picture was splashed in The View,

but not everyone welcomed the injection of glamour.

Someone had written in to say

that they were very surprised at The Celtic View.

They weren't very happy with the picture,

because they thought it was a bit immodest.

I don't know whether they thought my dress or whatever...

A Mr Black of Wimbledon declared himself shocked and surprised

at the bad taste and low moral standards of The Celtic View.

It's hilarious now, but they said it was the Swinging '60s.

It must have swung right past me.

But most pages of The Celtic View that season were filled

with brilliant news - how Jimmy Johnstone inspired Celtic

past the French champions Nantes.

One of the French players put it poetically,

saying that trying to mark Wee Jimmy

was like trying to pin a wave to the sand.

Jinky was Celtic's most famous player,

but being a football star was different in an era before agents,

before multimillion-pound deals,

and certainly before Wags and nightclubs.

I met him at a youth club in Viewpark.

I was coming up for about 17. No drink or nothing.

A shilling to get in. There were a wee band used to play.

Sometimes Jimmy used to bring his record player to the youth club.

Got married when I was 19. That was in the taxi.

When we got married and that, we stayed in his mother's back room.

We didnae have the money for a house or anything.

Fame was about being able to afford a car, and eating like

other people ate if they had a few bob -

a gammon steak with a bit of pineapple on top of it.

That sort of thing. This is not the high life.

The Celtic stars ate at their local cafe and married the girl next door.

More pie and beans than Posh and Becks.

We always met in here.

Come in here, go to the pictures, come back up and come in here

-and have a Coca Cola before we went home.

-Happy memories.

-I'd walk her round the road, a wee cuddle.

-Mm-hm.

Then I'd run home.

In 1967, the wedding of the year was Elvis and Priscilla,

except in Saltcoats.

The boss turned up for the big day,

but he wasn't so keen

when the players' wives turned up for the big games.

He really didn't like the wives to get together, for some reason.

After a big game, if we were up in the car,

the girls had to stand outside the stadium.

We came out and got them after we were changed, bathed and changed.

He didnae fancy Mrs Lennox and Mrs Murdoch maybe sitting together

gabbing about something or whatever, you know?

He just didn't... He thought... You know, he'd say things like,

"Does a plumber's wife go and see him fitting a sink?

"Does a joiner's wife go and see him putting a cupboard up?

"So why are they coming to the fitba? It's your work."

But in the case of Mrs Johnstone, he needn't have worried.

I just went to about four or five games all in.

In his entire career?!

That's terrible, I know, isn't it?

She came one day and she asked me who was Jimmy.

She didn't know which team was which.

I says, "You've got to be kidding on."

I says, "Can you not see Jimmy in that park?"

That was Agnes.

Agnes didn't know what she was missing.

Sometimes there was only one place in Glasgow to be

for a big night with singing, dancing and amazing drama.

-COMMENTATOR:

-70,000 voices making a tremendous racket here.

The only game in the run to the final that I was at

was Vojvodina Novi Sad, the quarterfinal.

See when they ran out under the floodlights,

they looked magnificent.

You know, they just glowed...

The Celtic song would play, standing in the Jungle, all floodlights.

-COMMENTATOR:

-Chalmers.

Johnstone.

The first leg, it was 1-0 over there.

It was 1-1 here going into the last couple of minutes.

Billy... When you really needed it, he did it.

The ball hits the back of the net.

There's that famous still of the Vojvodina defender on the goal line,

I think he was the number six, with his arm up, trying to stop the...

The goalkeeper's... I don't know where he is.

I think he's gone for it and Billy's just taken him out.

While some footage of the game survives,

the only film of the winning goal was captured by a fan's cine cam,

almost focused on his TV set.

-COMMENTATOR:

-Charlie Gallagher.

Billy McNeill.

CHEERING

Celtic are through to the semifinal of the European Cup.

Billy McNeill has got them there in the last minute of the game.

Most of Celtic's 1967 season, on and off the pitch,

was captured in glorious Technicolor.

With remarkable prescience,

the club commissioned a film crew to document the season as it unfolded.

Well, I'd done four documentaries for STV.

By accident, I ran into Bob Kelly, who was then chairman of Celtic,

who said, "I like the programmes you did.

"You know there's a good story to be done about Celtic.

"Would you do it for us?"

It was a great privilege being allowed to do it, frankly.

For goalkeeper Simpson, too, a dream year.

At 36, his 22nd season in senior football.

So there was quite a lot of people involved in it.

Oscar Marzaroli did a couple of shifts on the film.

Bill Forsyth, who went on to make Local Hero and other things.

Made for cinematic release,

The Celtic Story is a ground-breaking documentary.

Not only the story of the club, but featuring fans and players.

And, for the first time,

the supporters got to see beyond the dressing room door.

This can be a year that every one of us can remember,

so let's make sure that each player helps each other,

make sure if somebody's having a bad game, somebody near him helps him.

Jock, I mean, he wouldn't allow anything to interfere with football,

but he didn't mind a couple of things,

because he knew a story had to be told.

But as they were shooting the Celtic Story,

they could never have guessed how it would end.

Now I'm lost.

Yes. They've left it open. Good.

Now, it's in here, isn't it? Yeah.

50 years ago, a new recruit, costing a club record of £30,000,

walked into this dressing room for the very first time.

It's fantastic...

to walk back in again.

I wish I could play,

but, you know...

past.

But the new boy Willie Wallace was quickly initiated

into its little secrets.

I don't think a lot of people would know

there was a little glass of whisky through the back.

If you wanted a wee sip of whisky before you went out, it was there.

Just a stimulant, you know.

There was a few used to have it.

Old Fallon was one of them.

Ronnie, he liked a wee sniff just before he went out.

There it is.

Yeah, this is when you knew you were playing. When you got to this bit.

'My first game in Europe for Celtic

'was the semifinal of the European Cup.

'I was nervous going out here.'

-COMMENTATOR:

-75,000 people,

practically all of them cheering Celtic for all they're worth.

Wallace.

It's a goal for Wallace.

Wallace has scored.

Things worked out for me.

I was lucky enough to score a couple of goals.

I thought, "Well, at least I've paid something back."

If Wispy's first goal was all about instinct...

It's a goal for Wallace!

..the second was all about guile.

Wallace's second goal.

As Wallace put Jock Stein's training ground theory...

..into match-winning practice.

There he is, look at him.

3-1 in Glasgow, and after a goalless draw in Prague,

Celtic became the first British team

ever to reach the European Cup Final.

This feat was all the more remarkable

as Celtic were involved in a hard-fought league campaign

against one of the great Rangers teams,

culminating in a title decider at a rain-soaked Ibrox.

They had a collectiveness about them, a team spirit,

great ability, great individuals.

I always felt, when we played against Celtic in those days,

you were playing against 12,

because no matter how well you did in the first half in these games,

you knew that Jock Stein would do something different at half-time.

Celtic drew the game to win the treble, as two spies looked on.

One of them was Helenio Herrera,

the manager of Inter Milan, Celtic's next European opponents.

Celtic were in the European Cup Final,

Rangers were in the Cup Winners' Cup Final,

and Kilmarnock were in the semifinals

of the old Fairs Cities Cup.

That's staggering when you think about that now.

Scotland, just in soccer terms, in football terms, was a hotbed.

# Sunshine came softly through my

# Window today... #

May 1967 was the beginning of the Summer of Love.

But no-one in Glasgow was going to San Francisco

with a flower in their hair.

If they were Celtic fans, they were hoping to travel

nearly 2,000 miles to Lisbon with shamrocks in their kilt.

A week-long journey...

through France...

over the Pyrenees...

across Franco's Spain.

# ..made my mind up

# You're going to be mine... #

But fans crammed into any old banger and hit the road.

There were three cars.

We were in a Mini Cooper.

The big mate had just bought a new Hillman.

Another pal of mine, his wee Morris 1000.

Everybody out on the street, all waving at us, and off we set.

Green sticky tape along the side of the car.

I thought, "I'm part of this, this is me, I'm going to Lisbon."

One of the boys in the other motor,

he lost his case afore we even got to Bishopbriggs.

Aff the roof rack!

You couldn't get a seat on a plane for love nor money,

but there was a soft porn magazine...

HE LAUGHS

It was called Titbits. The parish priest did all the spadework.

He said, "There's a magazine running a plane, they're called Titbits."

I said, "Seems a bit dodgy."

He said, "We got three seats."

There was another priest in the next-door parish

was going to come as well.

Finding a seat on a plane was one thing.

Finding the money,

especially for shipyard workers like Jimmy and Danny, was something else.

Supposed to be saving to get engaged.

And getting engaged in they days was a big deal.

And I just said to her, "Look, see this getting married carry-on,

"saving up for an engagement ring,

"I'm wanting to go to the final - end of story."

She wasnae that pleased.

As Celtic fans began to make their way across the continent,

the team arrived in Lisbon to prepare.

Stein was leaving nothing to chance,

and they brought their own steaks,

square sausages and chops from Scotland.

Well-fed and rested, the team relaxed in their hotel.

And the fans continued on their epic journey.

See even going in the car, you were getting the "toot-toot-toot"

fae French and everything, because you seen the registrations,

you know, the Germans and the French and all that.

They were all for us - unbelievable.

MUSIC: Les Vendanges De L'amour by Marie Laforet

And for one young Celtic fan, the journey took an unexpected turn.

One of the drivers got lost. We ended up in the middle of Nantes.

Go into the station bar, there was a few people there,

and there was a very attractive young lady behind the bar.

Her name was Ghislaine, she was 19, she was a student.

I don't know how it happened, but we got on like a house on fire.

And within half an hour, I was in love with her.

Time just flew in.

At one point I turned round, and there was my two companions

with their heads on the table, fast asleep.

Put her arms around me and gave me a kiss and I thought,

"This is the love of my life."

Charles had a choice.

Would he je t'aime Ghislaine or would he je t'aime Cel-tique?

She wanted my Celtic scarf.

GLASS SMASHES, GASPS

I said to her, "No, we need it for hanging out the window

"and I want my Celtic scarf to be in Lisbon."

I wakened up my companions, and that was us, we were on the road.

Fans headed south by planes, trains and automobiles.

We began to see people with green and white scarves.

It was a trickle at first,

but the nearer we got to Lisbon, it became a flood.

It was quite something.

In 1967, the Portuguese capital was very beautiful, very poor,

very Catholic, and about to be invaded.

Once we got to Lisbon itself

and made our way down to the main square,

it was a sea of green and white.

The locals were mesmerised,

they couldn't believe the colour,

they couldn't believe the volume of people there.

At the Estadio Nacional on the outskirts of the city,

Celtic dug out their mismatched training kit for a kickabout,

much to the amusement of some immaculately attired onlookers.

Celtic's opponents had won the competition twice

in the past three years.

And Inter Milan's Helenio Herrera and Celtic's Jock Stein

represented two opposing ideologies.

Inter Milan had a reputation for being

hugely defensive, and in a way, that presented the perfect foil

for the Celtic of that time.

The team with the best defence in Europe

and the team with the best attack in Europe.

Inter played a negative brand of football known as "catenaccio" -

disciplined, oppressive, stifling creativity.

Fascism in a football formation.

And in city streets, Celtic fans were getting

a glimpse of life under the rule of Portugal's dictator Salazar.

The one thing that was remarkable

is, soldiers with guns, you know?

And you could see everybody going, "What's this?"

Those guns were the reality every day for the Portuguese people,

and some of the things that we were doing,

like singing in the streets, enjoying ourselves,

that wasn't accepted by the regime.

# We shall not be moved... #

Thursday, May the 25th, 1967

would be a momentous day in Celtic's history.

In Glasgow Airport,

it was an early start for the thousands of fans flying to Lisbon.

I hadn't even been out of Scotland, never mind going to Europe.

Never been on a plane. Just that happy.

We just went on the plane and it was a prop plane.

Prop plane, it wasnae a jet thing.

Fantastic.

My dad and I were sitting up at the front of the plane,

and just before the plane took off, this guy stood up

and he shouted to the back of the plane,

"Right, lads, we've got a young girl sitting up here,

"don't want any cursing or swearing on the way to Lisbon."

And I was mortified, absolutely embarrassed.

We took off from Renfrew, and our first stop was...

Cardiff.

That was to pick up alcohol!

By midday, all of the planes had left...

except one.

We were meant to leave at 9.15,

but it became clear that our flight was going to be delayed,

and the story was it was delayed one hour, then a couple of hours.

And then it was delayed, and it was delayed,

and other people were going.

It's estimated that more than 10,000 Celtic fans

followed the Bhoys to Lisbon, and they made friends all the way.

When we got off the plane, they said the bus was outside,

so we dived outside.

And one of the guys coming on all of a sudden produced

a bottle of whisky and a wee cup.

And he half-filled this wee cup and gave it to the driver.

The driver said, "Oh..." Portuguese guy.

Whisky!

Eventually, the last flight left Glasgow.

During the whole flight it was, "How long? How long?"

From 20,000ft or 15,000ft or whatever it was,

to the plane landed,

it was just madness on a plane.

As the kick-off approached,

players and fans began to arrive at the Estadio Nacional.

-See when we were going up to that stadium...

-The weather was terrific.

..the weather was brilliant. There was trees,

bushes with flowers on them...

Never seen that going to a football match in Scotland.

And here we're walking up to this place, I said to him,

"Are you sure this is where this fitba park is?"

-You just strolled up.

-You walked up.

Nae going through turnstiles, you just walked right up.

Just walked into the gate, naebody asked you for your ticket.

No ticket or anything.

The nerves were starting to kick in, the stadium filled with fans...

..the cameras were ready to beam the game round the world.

And in the skies above,

the last flight from Glasgow was coming in to land.

And everything was in slow motion then,

because the landing crew, God knows where they were.

We were the only plane, no steps,

so I sat down on the ledge and went for it.

I didn't realise how big a drop that was.

But I was 19, a pretty fit guy, so I went over and landed

on my two feet, but it was a long way down, and I hit with a thud.

But recovered, and there was guys coming behind me,

just dropping, dropping, dropping.

And we started running towards the terminal building.

Back home, the great city of Glasgow was a ghost town.

I remember the night of the Celtic game

there was a famous picture appeared in The Daily Express,

and it was looking down Sauchiehall Street.

And there was nothing in the street, which was unheard of.

It was unbelievable, cos everyone was indoors watching this game.

I remember sitting in my living room,

my dad was working late and my mum was making the dinner,

and I just sat there on the edge of the chair.

I remember praying...

-LAUGHING:

-It's pathetic.

We've reached the moment of truth.

Can Celtic become not only the first Scottish, the first British,

but the first non-Latin team to win the European Cup?

Everyone from kids in Kilsyth to famous thespians in London

waited and watched.

I've been a Celtic supporter

all my life. So how could I prepare for the most momentous match ever?

So I just ordered my wife off the field. "Right, take the..."

I'd four children, or was it five by then?

"Right, take them out, take the dog out."

We couldn't get rid of the cat, so the cat joined me on the sofa,

just like this.

As the teams emerged from the tunnel,

Jock Stein's men famously burst into The Celtic Song.

# For it's a grand old team to play for... #

It was a lovely, proud feeling when you walked out.

Bobby always came out last.

That was one of his things.

He had to be last on the park,

and it's a sin, because they've got all these fabulous pictures

of the Lisbon Lions walking out on the park,

and Bobby's right on the end, so you cannae really see him, you know?

-COMMENTATOR:

-There's Jock Stein on the right.

You can imagine Inter Milan looking at these guys and going,

"What is the...? What are we...?"

And they're walking out on the park, wee Jinky's looking at Facchetti -

"Are you marking me? Are you marking me?"

A bunch of boys fae Baillieston and Bellshill and Saltcoats

walking out there, taking on the best in Europe.

And wee Jimmy says, "Look at them, wee man, they're like film stars."

That's the way he says, you wantae have seen their teeth.

I says, "But can they play?"

-COMMENTATOR:

-Here's Johnstone.

From the kick-off, Celtic showed that THEY could play.

Oh, a chance for Johnstone.

We were in this stadium, the sun's shining, foreign land,

and there we were, watching our team play in a European final.

Lennox.

And Johnstone!

Oh, and a great save by Sarti!

Celtic fans were soon reminded that streetwise Inter were there to win.

A penalty? He's given it, it's a penalty. It's a penalty.

-HE SIGHS

-Sick. Absolutely sick, man, couldn't believe it.

And they've given away a penalty after only seven minutes.

He went down like a sack of potatoes and the referee, I think,

was conned into it.

And listen to the Celtic fans and the Portuguese fans.

It's 1-0 for Inter!

You fear the worst then, know what I mean?

Knowing the Italian team, you think, "That's it, they've scored."

That's it, end of story.

It will be interesting to see whether Inter now come right back.

Catenaccio is Italian for "door-bolt",

and as soon as they were ahead, Inter's defence bolted the door.

Got to score two. That's it, there's no other way you're going to win it.

Auld... Oh, and a great...!

Lennox! Oh, a brilliant...

Celtic attacked, and nearly 2,000 miles away, a city held its breath.

COMMENTARY ECHOES

..in the Celtic half. And even now Inter won't come out.

Just a massive, massive TV event, you know?

My father was working in the Red Road flats at the time,

and he watched the end of the first half on Springburn Road somewhere,

in some TV shop, with a crowd of people looking in.

While the world watched in black and white...

Oh, great shot and a wonderful save!

..Cinema Celtic captured the game in colour.

Or at least, most of it.

There was only one camera,

so you had to change reels and hope that nobody scored a goal

while you were changing reels!

The one incident we missed, we couldn't get,

which I've seen on the black and white television version,

is when Ronnie Simpson, halfway up into his own half, backheels.

Well, how about that for confidence?

I apologised to Jock and said, "We haven't got that."

"Just as well, should never have done that."

He was raging at the risk he was taking.

The half-time whistle goes,

one goal to nil in a heartbreaking game not only for Celtic supporters

but for all those who cherish attacking football.

They hung on and hung on and proved what they are.

They were hard to score against.

-ARCHIE MACPHERSON:

-Celtic aren't obviously just taking on Inter,

they're trying to end the ice age of defensive European football.

Celtic were now facing their biggest challenge.

But Stein believed in his team, and his team believed in Stein.

The big man had come a long way

from the dark coalfields of Lanarkshire

to the evening light of Lisbon.

The players too had come from kicking a ball in Glasgow streets

to a pristine pitch

at the very pinnacle of European football.

And the fans had spent their life savings

to travel nearly 2,000 miles to support the team they loved.

Stein had always urged his players to remember who they were,

where they came from and who they played for.

He told his skilful young team

to remain true to his footballing philosophy.

And the goal that ended decades of stifling,

defensive catenaccio was made in Glasgow.

Clark, to Murdoch.

In comes Craig.

Gemmell - he's scored a great goal!

CHEERING

Gemmell, a great goal.

What we were doing was excitement, just jumping about.

"Oh, ya dancer!" You know?

I just greet every time.

-VOICE BREAKING:

-Every time I see these things.

And I greet when...

-HE SIGHS

-..Tommy Gemmell scores.

Tommy Gemmell has done this time and time again for Celtic...

Don't use this one...

Oh, dear!

In the stadium, in living rooms at home

and across the entire continent,

everyone was now willing on the 11 boys from Glasgow.

Oh, he's hit the bar!

The Portuguese around us couldn't believe Celtic were

running rings round them, playing this wonderful football.

Johnstone.

Celtic were cutting through Inter's defensive system,

but time and time again were thwarted by the brilliance

of the Inter Milan goalie.

Oh, what a save by Sarti.

That guy was out of this planet!

You wantae see some of the saves he was coming away wi'.

We're going like that, "Sarti!"

Five minutes left now, one goal each.

It was to be the most important five minutes in 11 men's lives.

The most joyous five minutes for the thousands crowded round TVs

in an industrial city 2,000 miles away.

The most memorable five minutes in Celtic Football Club's history.

Gemmell.

Murdoch! A goal!

Celtic have scored!

-HE MIMICS BALL BEING STRUCK

-We're in.

HE ROARS

Most important goal we've ever scored.

I think Chalmers put it in.

To complete the fairy tale,

the man who was once told by doctors

that he had just weeks to live

scored the goal of his life.

It just gives me goose bumps when you hear "Chalmers" getting shouted.

"It's Chalmers!"

Stevie Chalmers put it in.

The cat was flying as high as the roof

and it fell,

and then my wife came rushing in,

thinking I'd had a heart attack or something.

The crowd started moving. And you went wi' them, you know?

Oh, man.

And the whistle is going, and Celtic have won the European Cup,

and onto the field come thousands of Celtic fans.

This is a great moment.

They won! They won!

You just jumped about wild,

and you couldnae get near anybody because every player was...

There were hunners round them, you just couldnae...

There was an explosion of joy in Lisbon and Glasgow.

Fighting his way through the delirious crowd

was an exhausted Billy McNeill.

Handsome and proud, every inch the inspirational captain.

The man they called Cesar lifted the cup for all the world to see.

Fantastic moment for Celtic, and how well they deserve it.

It's a frozen in time moment.

Because I still picture big Billy up with the cup,

and it'll remain in my mind till the day I die.

FANS SING

50 years after that win, Celtic fans are still celebrating Lisbon.

The 67th minute.

Now, come here...

What other club, or what other support, in the world

would have that in their mind, to do that?

1967 was not just a triumph for Glasgow Celtic.

1967 was a triumph for Glasgow.

No European Cup-winning side before or since

has won the trophy with a team of 11 local heroes.

Mythical. There's no other word to describe it, it's mythical.

The 300 Spartans or the defenders of the Alamo or something.

There's a heroism about them.

I meet people and they'll say to me, "What's your name?"

"Willie Wallace." "Oh, you're a Lisbon Lion."

Doesn't matter where you are in the world.

And it just changed our lives forever.

The sunburn has long since faded,

but the fans who went to Lisbon still have their own souvenirs

and their own stories to tell.

When I got home, I got my Celtic scarf and I parcelled it up

and I wrote a letter to Ghislaine, Bar de la Gare, Nantes.

I never heard from her.

I got married to her a year later.

-Honeymoon in Lisbon.

-Honeymoon in Lisbon.

-Really?

-BOTH: No, no, no.

It was a caravan in Girvan, actually.

-COMMENTATOR:

-Glory hovering over Parkhead.

It'll never be equalled, I don't think. Absolutely amazing.

And I can imagine the scenes back in Scotland tonight.

From Maryhill, Saltcoats, Uddingston, Govan

and all across Glasgow,

came football-daft wee boys with big dreams.

It's pretty hard to look back without a great sense of loss.

There's a photograph just inside the door of Celtic Park

which is just the 11 players.

-VOICE BREAKING:

-Just taken shortly after that day, that's in my memory.

We were like brothers.

I loved them. Absolutely loved them.

I miss them.

Simpson, Craig, Gemmell, Murdoch, McNeill, Clark, Lennox, Auld,

Johnstone, Wallace, Chalmers.

The Lions of Lisbon.

Bobby just always said he would never change his time.

I'm going to get emotional now. That he was...

That was his team, that was his time, he loved playing.

He loved Celtic always, anyway, but, I mean, he loved that

and that was his time, and he wouldn't change his time.

He would never have...

That was what he just said, he would never have changed his time.

# And you are willing it to end?

# You promised me a feeling

# Something to believe in

# You promised me a feeling

# And I promised to be real. #