SIXTY YEARS ago the Celtic support were still basking in the glory from the glory at a sunny Hampden on the afternoon of 19th October 1957 when Celtic won the League Cup after thrashing Rangers 7-1.

Kevin Graham, CQN’s poet, reflected on this match on the anniversary last week and was inspired to read up on the 1957 League Cup Final and put his thoughts into this new poem.

WHEN FERNIE SAID IT WAS DONE

Jumped down the stairs

Sun glare from the grey untiled walls

Brightens the close

The slate is no longer cold

And the street reveals Glasgow

To be the dear green place of old

We would celebrate in the sun

It would be only over when Fernie said it was done

The sky no longer

Like the gates of hell

A soot covered nothingness

Of impenetrable grey

Away from the damped and the cramped

place I called home

We would celebrate in the sun

It would only be over when Fernie said it was done

As god’s eye itself

Looked down on me

Clambering the flatdeck

To cheer on the boys

Song’s fuelled by beer on their breath

With banners held high were fellow timalloys

We would celebrate in the sun

It would only be over when Fernie said it was done

Hampden the monolith

The terrace a wave of green

Passed done the front

into the crowd, I could hardly breath

But I could shout, as the Celts attacked

through the wizard of the weave

We would celebrate in the sun

It would only be over when Fernie said it was done

Slammin Sammy Wilson

Smiler in from the left

A Valentine’s massacre

On Hampdens emerald green

But no rejected flowers or broken hearts

Confettied our wildest dreams

We would celebrate in the sun

It would only be over when Fernie said it was done

Billy MacPhail with his head, then a tap

Rangers rattled like caurs

Simler, again, at the back post

The Celtic end was going wild

and Tully hadn’t even scored

Then MacPhail with his hat-trick smile!

We would celebrate in the sun

It would only be over when Fernie said it was done

And then there was the moment

A penalty kick, up stepped Fernie

To cap it all off

A goal for his vintage display

Dick Beatty with seven fingers aloft

It was seven past Niven that day!

We would celebrate in the sun

It would only be over when Fernie said it was done

The trolley bus home

Was a journey of joy

Waved through the streets

By young and old,

From condemned tenements

With tea towels for banners

The conditions we lived an irrelevance

We would celebrate in the sun

It would only be over when Fernie said it was done

My father rolled home

Evening papers in his pockets

Headlines celebrated the day

I cut out a picture

Of the wizard of the weave

Neatly folded it into the shoebox

Under my bed

So the memories i would always retrieve

We would celebrate in the sun

It would only be over when Fernie said it was done

*When Fernie Said It Was Done was written by Kevin Graham for CQN, in tribute to Celtic’s 1957 League Cup winning team and is based on the stories told in the fabulous Hampden in the Sun book by Pat Woods and Peter Burns.