1957 Celtic in Seventh Heaven

CELTIC 7 RANGERS 1

IT’S hard to imagine the Hampden terraces groaning under the weight of more than 80,000 bodies as the national stadium bore witness to a game that gave birth to the most emphatic Old Firm victory in the history of the fixture.

Celtic 7, Rangers 1, is a scoreline indelibly tattooed on the psyche of a club who continue to laud the achievements of the eleven men who won the League Cup in October 1957 and, perhaps behind the 2-1 win over Inter Milan, it is the most stunning victory in the club's past.

The result still stands as a record for a national final in Scotland, and remains Celtic's most emphatic win over their greatest rivals.

In recent times, the 6-2 win enjoyed by Martin O'Neill's side in the Irishman's inaugural Old Firm meeting is the closest the Hoops fans have ever come to savouring anything that remotely resembled that frantic autumn afternoon at Hampden.

And, just as O'Neill's side went into that match as the unfancied underdogs, so too did Jimmy McGrory's team go into the League Cup final with Rangers, then League Champions, as the favourites.

In the history of the beautiful game there are few matches that boast a song in its honour. And fewer still where the song continues to form part of the fabric of a club.

The 7-1 victory it is a result that has been celebrated and relished as part of the club's folklore in the 45 years that have passed since that memorable afternoon.

One of the clichés that gets an airing on the eve of each and every Old Firm game is that the formbook goes out the window in the face of a match whose bitter rivalry transcends an inevitable outcome.

The reality of the situation, as the history books will testify, is that the on-form team does more often than not tend to emerge on top, but even so, it would be a fool who claim an Old Firm encounter is ever predictable.

Every now and again it gives rise to a crazy result, and Celtic's bombardment that day inflicted the most awesome and humiliating Old Firm defeat on their biggest rivals.

The sheer margin of the win remains astounding. Sammy Wilson started the rout off when he opened the scoring midway through the first period, and his strike was augmented by a second from Neil Mochan, but despite Celtic's obvious force throughout the opening half, they headed into the interval with only a 2-0 lead to show for their efforts.

However, after the interval the bombardment intensified with Billy McPhail hitting a deadly hat-trick while Mochan added his second and Willie Fernie converted a last minute penalty to set the seal on an historic outing.

McPhail later enthused that the 7-1 game was the greatest match of his career, an opinion that was shared by many in the team. Players like Fernie, Mochan and Bertie Peacock and Bobby Evans were revered for their part in the annihilation of Rangers that afternoon, a performance that continues to send a shiver down the spines of the Celtic support.

It was an afternoon of utter delirium for the Hoops fans inside Hampden, but little did they know then that would have to wait a full eight years before they were in a position to celebrate another major trophy.

It was a largely experienced side that triumphed 7-1, and it didn't take long before injury, retirement and transfers broke it up.

Fernie and McPhail collected injuries that December and their loss to Celtic was incalculable and a season that had reached its zenith with the League Cup win ended in anti-climax with more silverware unforthcoming.

On the contrary, Celtic 6-2 win over Dick Advocaat's Rangers in August 2000 was the first step on a journey that ended the Ibrox side's domination of Scottish football and that season concluded with the Hoops claiming their first domestic Treble in 32 years.



CELTIC: Beattie; Donnelly, Fallon; Fernie, Evans, Peacock; Tully, Collins, McPhail, Wilson, Mochan.

RANGERS: Niven; Shearer, Caldow; McColl, Valentine, Davis; Scott, Simpson, Murray, Baird, Hubbard.

ATTENDANCE: 82,293