Celtic won five competitions, Dundee United beat Barcelona home and away, Rangers made it to the Cup Winners’ Cup final and the national team beat England at Wembley. Scottish football may never enjoy success like this again

The English tend to go on about 1966. Such boastfulness about something that happened five decades ago can frustrate the rest of the UK and, more probably than not, the rest of the world. So it is high time that the balance was redressed and some of the limelight shared around a little more equitably by focusing on the remarkable events of the following year and the Caledonian joy that was the 1966-67 season.

In many ways this was an even more exceptional year, as the Scots not only recorded one of their most famous international victories but also seriously challenged and shook the accepted order of European club football. This was not just about cocking a snook at the Auld Enemy, however pleasurable that must have been, but it was the year that Scotland became the veritable kings of the continent. Nothing like it had happened before and nothing like it has been close to matching those notable achievements since. In fact, in light of the current state of Scottish football this purple patch may never be seen again.

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Domestically, there was only one team. Celtic carried all before them, winning all five of the competitions they entered thus the Quintuple was achieved for the first and only time in British football. Barcelona and Internazionale are the only other clubs to match this feat in major European leagues. The Scottish Division One title was secured with only two defeats out of 34 matches, both to Dundee United (who also secured a notable double over illustrious opponents, about which more later). Edging ahead of habitual city rivals Rangers, who only lost three games all season, Celtic won the league by just three points. They also beat Rangers 1-0 in the League Cup and then followed that by carrying off the Scottish FA Cup after beating Aberdeen 2-0 in front of 127,117 spectators at Hampden Park.

Winning the Scottish Treble is not that unusual. Between them Celtic and Rangers have won 10, with the most recent being Rangers’ seventh such success in 2003. But that fourth domestic trophy is one that may have slipped under the radar somewhat. The Glasgow Cup had been in existence for over 100 years. Established in 1887 it continued, to a certain degree, as a competition for the five remaining senior Glaswegian clubs until 1989. In this momentous of all years for Celtic, their fourth trophy, the Glasgow Cup was secured by overcoming Partick Thistle 4-0.

There was also room for several other provincial competitions, such as the Forfarshire Cup, won by Dundee in 1967, the East of Scotland Shield, won by Hibernian that year and even the Renfrewshire Cup, which went to St Mirren.

Any complaints about fixture congestion seemed to have been lost in time but the advent of European club football did undermine the appetite for such parochial titles. In the latter years, the Glasgow Cup sometimes just petered out as disinterest grew and it was either not competed for or remained incomplete. Since 1990 it has been restricted to a competition for the youth teams rather than the senior Glasgow sides.

Before moving on to Celtic’s fifth and most glorious triumph, it is worth reflecting on how the other Scottish clubs fared in Europe. Special mention should go to Dundee United who were entering European competition for the first time in their history. They must have been cursing their luck when they were drawn against the holders of the Fairs Cup (the precursor to the Uefa Cup) in the second round.

That the Terrors’ debut European tie happened to be at Camp Nou was a tad terrifying. To then go and beat Barcelona 2-1 was all the more remarkable. That achievement was no fluke, as they also beat the Catalans 2-0 at Tannadice Park, securing a barely credible 4-1 aggregate win over one of the giants of European football. Unfortunately, for Dundee United their second opponent in Europe was no less formidable and they were duly beaten 3-1 on aggregate by Juventus.

Juventus went out in the quarter-finals to eventual winners Dinamo Zagreb, whereas another Scottish team reached the semi-finals. The oldest professional football club in Scotland has not outperformed the Old Lady of Italian football often but Kilmarnock did so in 1967 before falling to one of the leading English clubs, Leeds United, 4-2 over two legs. Rangers went one better in the Cup Winners’ Cup by reaching the final against Bayern Munich before unluckily losing 1-0 after extra time in Nuremberg. With the penalty shoot-out still a few years from its introduction, Rangers progressed in their quarter-final clash with Real Zaragoza through the toss of a coin after both legs finished 1-0 to the home side.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Celtic goalkeeper Ronnie Simpson swings from the crossbar as he celebrates their victory in the European Cup quarter-final against Vojvodina. Photograph: Paul Popper/Popperfoto/Getty Images

It was left to Celtic to place the saltire on the very top of the European summit, which they did with some style on 25 May 1967 at the Estádio Nacional in Lisbon. They became the first British club to win the European Cup and remain the only Scottish club to have reached the final of Europe’s premier club competition over its 60-year history.

The oft-quoted fact that all 15 squad players bar one were born within 10 miles of Celtic Park remains one of the most endearing and enduring football statistics of all time. “We were all local boys and Bobby Lennox had come the farthest and that was from 30 miles away,” reflected Celtic captain Billy McNeill. “The rest of us lived virtually next door to the ground.” By contrast, 2015 Champions League winners Barcelona only had two players, Gerard Piqué and Jordi Alba, born within 10 miles of Camp Nou. Lionel Messi’s birthplace, Rosario, is almost 7,000 miles from Barcelona.

Managed by the legendary Jock Stein, who was born in Burnbank – a similar distance to Celtic Park as Saltcoats – his intent was apparent from the outset. “We are going to attack as we have never attacked before,” Stein declared before the match and the team did just that. The Lisbon Lions, as they became affectionately known, overcame the negative cynicism of Helenio Herrera’s Internazionale, who had won the European Cup twice in the previous three years based on the highly effective but prosaic catenaccio style.

As Hugh McIlvanney described Herrera so memorably in his match report for the Observer: “He continued to receive around £30,000 a year for stifling the flair, imagination, boldness and spontaneity that makes football what it is.” Stein’s team approached the game with a heady mixture of brio, spirit and skill, raining in countless efforts on goal after conceding a penalty in the seventh minute. Inter’s Sarti was by far the busier keeper and he performed heroics in repelling all that was fired at him until eventually Celtic prevailed 2-1 with second-half goals from Tommy Gemmell and Steve Chalmers, who scored the winner with five minutes remaining.

Celtic were not just the first British club to win the European Cup, they were also the first from Northern Europe. They broke the grip of the so-called “Latin clubs”, who had won all 11 previous finals. Real Madrid had already won six titles, Milan’s win was sandwiched in between Inter’s two recent successes and Benfica had also been winners twice. This was a victory for homegrown, natural talent against the stifling system of an expensively assembled squad. As Stein pointed out before the final: “Cups are not won by individuals, but by men in a team who put their club before personal prestige.” To emphasise their dominance, Celtic then played Real Madrid two weeks later in Alfredo Di Stefano’s testimonial and beat them 1-0 in front of 135,000 people at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Celtic captain Billy McNeill leading out his team before the European Cup final. Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty Images

The incredible European success story of not just Celtic but all Scottish clubs involved had followed in the wake of the similarly remarkable triumph of the Scottish national team a month earlier. Even though McNeill, Bobby Murdoch and Jimmy Johnstone all missed the game at Wembley on 15 April, the core of the team that overcame the World champions in their own backyard, were from Celtic. Bobby Brown had just taken over as the first-ever full-time manager of the Scotland team and faced his English counterpart Alf Ramsey, who was still basking in the glory of his World Cup win. England had remained unbeaten in the previous 19 matches, their last defeat coming against Austria in a friendly at Wembley in October 1965.

England were fully expected to continue their impressive form of the last 18 months and retain the Home International Championship, having disposed of Northern Ireland 2-0 in Belfast before thrashing Wales 5-1 at Wembley in late 1966. With these fixtures also acting as qualifiers for the next European Championship to be held in 1968, it was an important game. Ramsey continued with his “wingless wonders” system and there was only one change to the team that beat West Germany nine months earlier, with Jimmy Greaves replacing Roger Hunt. Brown rung the changes and made some bold decisions in handing debuts to 20-year-old Jim McCalliog of Sheffield Wednesday and, even more surprisingly, 36-year-old Celtic goalkeeper Ronnie Simpson, who became the oldest ever debutant for the Scotland team.

In a similar way to Stein’s adventurous approach a month later, Brown was rewarded for his boldness in demanding that his full-backs, Gemmell and Eddie McCreadie, went to support the Celtic wingers, Wallace and Murdoch. Scotland began the match with great purpose and intensity, taking the lead through Denis Law midway through the first half and then doubling their advantage with 12 minutes to go through Lennox. England were hampered by Jack Charlton suffering a broken toe early in the first half and, as substitutes were not allowed, he had to struggle on hobbling around up front. Charlton thought he had reduced the arrears when the ball seemed to cross the line but there was no Azerbaijani linesman to help out this time round although the Leeds central defender did pull one back soon afterwards.

The crucial goal was then scored by debutant McCalliog in the 87th minute to put Scotland 3-1 up and, although Hurst scored towards the end, Scotland held out with Simpson in imperious form. The true spirit of this much-celebrated Scottish win and the accompanying English frustration was best encapsulated in the mercurial impudence of Jim Baxter, as Glyn Edwards famously reported in The Herald. “I shall cherish for a long time the memory of Baxter slowing the game down to almost walking pace, insouciantly juggling the ball with instep, forehead and knees while Stiles, no more than a couple of yards away, bobbed up and down, unsure whether to make his challenge at knee or head level.”

However wonderful this unexpected victory might have been, as it was Scotland there was always the tinge of disappointment lurking just around the corner. The qualification for the following year’s European Championship extended to the next Home International Championship and almost inevitably the Scots came up short, gallant runners-up to England, who subsequently qualified. But such disappointment should not detract from the heroic achievements of not only the national team, nor the all-conquering Celtic but to the likes of Rangers, Kilmarnock and Dundee United, who truly lit up this 1966-67 season and placed Scotland so proudly on the map of European football.

• This article is from The Agony and the Ecstasy

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