CELTIC face a crucial Europa League match tonight against Ajax and they will be looking for a repeat of the scoreline when the sides met in the European Cup at Hampden in 1971…

JOHN TEMPLETON (Uddingston) – I know that there was a question similar to this recently about the Celtic v Ajax European Cup game in 1971, but I wonder if you could provide more information about the match, such as teams, etc.

It was a case of Double Dutch for Celtic in Europe 1970-1971 as they were first beaten 2-1 by Feyenoord in the 1970 final only to come up against Ajax in the quarter-finals the following year.

The home game against Ajax was on the March 24, 1971, in front of a crowd of 83,684 after losing 3-0 in the away leg.

Celtic legend Jimmy Johnstone scored in the 27th minute giving some hope to the Celtic faithful, but Ajax defended resolutely to hold out for a 3-1 aggregate score before going on to win the tournament by beating Panathinaikos 2-0 in the final.

Celtic: Williams, Hay, Gemmell, Callaghan, McNeill, Brogan, Johnstone, Hood, Wallace (Davidson), Auld (Lennox), Hughes.

Ajax: Stuy, Vasovic, Suurbier, Hulshoff, Krol, Rijnders, Neeskins, Blankenburg, Muhren, Cruyff, Keizer.

On a positive note for Celtic’s forthcoming tie, they will not need to face the likes of Neeskins and Cruyff this time around.

 

R. ROBERTSON (Glasgow) – While working in Lancashire for a few months I attended some Accrington Stanley matches and one of my local workmates told me of a time in the past when they had a Scottish manager who fielded 11 Scots in a match. Was he exaggerating or can you confirm this?

He is correct, Scotsman Walter Galbraith joined Accrington as player/manager in season 1953/54 and in the next season, having retired as a player, his policy of recruiting players from Scotland meant that his starting elevens had a majority of Scots.

The inevitable happened on April 11, 1955, in a league match at home against York City he fielded an all-Scottish 11, the game ending in a 2-2 draw.

This was also the first recorded occasion that a club started a match in the Football League without an Englishman in the team.

The match was played before Accrington Stanley’s record attendance of 15,598 at their previous ground Peel Park.

Accrington’s goalkeeper was Tom McQueen, father of Gordon of St Mirren, Leeds, Manchester United and Scotland fame.

Galbraith repeated this on one other occasion away to Rochdale on August 24, 1955.