IT was, said Willie Wallace, "just another game" - even if the the fact we are all still talking about it 50 years on would suggest otherwise. As the Lord Provost of Glasgow threw a civic reception for the remaining Lisbon Lions at the City Chambers yesterday, it was left to the 76-year-old Wallace - who has flown from Australia to be part of the celebrations - to sum up how the winning mentality of Jock Stein's all-conquering side of that era almost made even becoming the first British team to win the European Cup seem almost routine.

“I’m not being blasé about it but at that time it was just another game in a way because we’d won the league and Scottish Cup final and, before I got there, lifted the League Cup," said Wallace. “Within six months of joining Celtic I had won everything. If someone had said that to me when I signed I’d have phoned the asylum. It’s a fairytale, something you can’t write. To sit and think about it now is unbelievable."

Wallace is a Lion who stands alone. As happy as he is to be amongst old friends, he bucks the trend in a couple of key ways when it comes to this band of men from a 30-mile radius of the East End of Glasgow who went on to rule the football world. Not only was he the only member of the Celtic line-up that fateful day 50 years ago who was actually signed by Jock Stein - he was picked up from Hearts for £30,000 ahead of rumoured interest from Rangers in December 1966 - but he has opted to spend the remainder of his life away from Scotland, on the opposite side of the world in fact.

Not that Wallace - who inherited the place vacated by the injured Joe McBride - ever felt he got any special treatment. "It wasn't any different," said Wallace, now 76. "He [Stein] bought me for as cheap as he could and it was amazing for me. I fitted in there within two weeks. I’d known most of them from Scotland so it wasn’t the wrench that moving from club to club normally is. Within six months of joining Celtic I had won everything. If someone had said that to me when I signed I’d have phoned the asylum."

Nor was the Gold Coast in Australia - where he has jetted into be part of Celtic's golden anniversary celebrations - far enough to get away from the well wishers keen to mark his part in the club's big day. Wherever he goes in the world Wallace is never far away from a Celtic fan wanting to talk to him about Lisbon.

"Even living in Australia, I’m reminded of the Lisbon Lions," said Wallace, who worked as a pundit and still has an involvement in youth development. "I go over to a little tournament in Brittany with some Under-13 teams from Australia and the guys I meet are all Celtic supporters. They were still showing me the newspapers from 1967 just last year – all the reports of the game. There are guys who walk up to you and tell you in Chinese that they are a Celtic supporter."

This is a joyous occasion - not least as Brendan Rodgers side are currently holding all before them in Scottish football - but Wallace can't fail to notice the poignancy of these affairs. While he appears in the rudest of health, not all of his team-mates are so lucky. He was with Tommy Gemmell just days before his pal's death in early March, yet had flown back to New Zealand by the time he learned the news.

"I’m feeling good and the climate out there helps a lot," said Wallace. "I love coming back but it saddens me that the team is falling apart due to ill health and those who have passed away. Every time I come back there’s less members."

He doesn't regret moving to the other side of the world - a decision he took on one freezing night when working with Gemmell in Dundee. "I am surprised that more didn't go abroad, Bobby Lennox went to America for a couple of games but I think that was it," said Wallace. "When I went to Australia I played for an Italian club funnily enough in Sydney and we won the league two years in a row and we won the cup two years in a row. I came back here and was at Ross County for a few months and then big TG [Gemmell] got Dundee so I went there with him for three years. Then one winter’s night I came home from training and the president of my old club in Sydney told me they were moving into the national league and offered me the job. It was snow and ice outside. The kids wanted to go right away and that was it. So I’ve been down there 35 years now. I’ve never regretted it for a minute."