1979 Scottish Cup Final

[7 Hills]

I was 10, going on 11 at the time and I’d only been to a handful of league matches prior to the final because my Dad wasn’t keen on taking me due to the hooliganism prevalent at the time, as alluded to by other posters.

To be honest, I remember absolutely **** all about the game itself and my main memories are as follows. I badgered my Dad outside Hampden for ages to buy me a Green and White rosette with a wee tin-foil cup embossed on it from a street vendor and he eventually bought me one (he was worried about me attracting unsolicited and unwanted attention from the Bears). I remember going into “Temporary Urinals” outside Hampden, which was a large version of the red and white striped workmen’s tents that you used to see telephone engineers using when working on exchange boxes. It turned out that “Temporary Urinals” was a rather grandiose way of saying, “aluminium dustbins, already filled to the brim with pi$$”. When Dad asked if I could hold on until we got into the stadium, I concurred immediately.

After we got into the stadium and I had seen to my ablutions, we proceeded to find our seats in the old main stand and settled down to have our picnic, which I had carried to the match in my Adidas shoulder-strap schoolbag. We had a Thermos flask of tea and everything! A more civilised Age to the one we live in nowadays. As I said, I have absolutely no memory of the game whatsoever, all I can remember from being at the game is that there was a halftime “show” which consisted of some police dogs competing over an obstacle course on the pitch, and the parading of Rubstic, who had become the first ever Scottish trained horse to win the Grand National a couple of months earlier.

After the match, my wee rosette was tucked safely out of the way into my schoolbag and we queued along the road for Mount Florida railway station. This is the part of the day that I CAN remember. VIVIDLY. We were queued up with what seemed like, to my young eyes, 10 miles of Huns in front of us and another 10 miles of them behind, all looking and behaving like some sort of nightmarish Bay City Rollers / Zombie Apocalypse crossover. I then heard a woman swearing for the first time in my life – I was shocked to my very core!!! Her partner drunkenly asked her; “Ur we gonnae hae a pairty the night, Darlin’?” and she replied, “F*****’ right, wur gonnae hae a pairty!!!” They looked as though they had already been partying since breakfast time. He then proceeded to ask her a series of questions which all, inevitably, drew the response “F*****’ right!!!”

My Dad thought that it would be good sport at this juncture to ask me if I didn’t want to get out my rosette and put it on. Needless to say I declined, as I was engaged in watching an elderly lady peering nervously from behind her twitching, living room curtains, out onto the sea of human detritus which was seeping down her street. This prompted a request from a particularly big, fat scary-looking Hun who bellowed across the road to her, “HEY MISSUS!!! GEEZ A PIECE ‘N’ JAM, YA AULD COW!!!”

After a seemingly interminable period of time, we eventually neared the station. A few rows in front of us in the queue were two Huns who had gamely been carrying their comatose friend all the way from Hampden, each taking one of his arms and supporting him over their shoulders as his toes dragged along the ground. Incidentally, drunks “oxtering” a compadre home in this manner was quite a common sight when I was a child in the 70’s, you never see it happening now. We were far less selfish as a society in those days. We had to go down a flight of stairs to reach the platform and the two saviours, sadly, fell at the final hurdle and dropped their mate, who proceeded to bounce down 10 steps, chin first. “He’s awright, he’s awright!” they claimed as they picked him back up off the deck, blood and teeth spilling from his mouth. He still didn’t wake up.

We didn’t go to either of the replays but, funnily enough, I have more memories of listening to us lose on the radio than I do of the original match.

Since that day, I have had an unhealthy, abiding hatred for all things Hunnish and Sevconian. And the Bay City Rollers.

[Green Reaper]

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I was 10, going on 11 at the time and I’d only been to a handful of league matches prior to the final because my Dad wasn’t keen on taking me due to the hooliganism prevalent at the time, as alluded to by other posters.

To be honest, I remember absolutely **** all about the game itself and my main memories are as follows. I badgered my Dad outside Hampden for ages to buy me a Green and White rosette with a wee tin-foil cup embossed on it from a street vendor and he eventually bought me one (he was worried about me attracting unsolicited and unwanted attention from the Bears). I remember going into “Temporary Urinals” outside Hampden, which was a large version of the red and white striped workmen’s tents that you used to see telephone engineers using when working on exchange boxes. It turned out that “Temporary Urinals” was a rather grandiose way of saying, “aluminium dustbins, already filled to the brim with pi$$”. When Dad asked if I could hold on until we got into the stadium, I concurred immediately.

After we got into the stadium and I had seen to my ablutions, we proceeded to find our seats in the old main stand and settled down to have our picnic, which I had carried to the match in my Adidas shoulder-strap schoolbag. We had a Thermos flask of tea and everything! A more civilised Age to the one we live in nowadays. As I said, I have absolutely no memory of the game whatsoever, all I can remember from being at the game is that there was a halftime “show” which consisted of some police dogs competing over an obstacle course on the pitch, and the parading of Rubstic, who had become the first ever Scottish trained horse to win the Grand National a couple of months earlier.

After the match, my wee rosette was tucked safely out of the way into my schoolbag and we queued along the road for Mount Florida railway station. This is the part of the day that I CAN remember. VIVIDLY. We were queued up with what seemed like, to my young eyes, 10 miles of Huns in front of us and another 10 miles of them behind, all looking and behaving like some sort of nightmarish Bay City Rollers / Zombie Apocalypse crossover. I then heard a woman swearing for the first time in my life – I was shocked to my very core!!! Her partner drunkenly asked her; “Ur we gonnae hae a pairty the night, Darlin’?” and she replied, “F*****’ right, wur gonnae hae a pairty!!!” They looked as though they had already been partying since breakfast time. He then proceeded to ask her a series of questions which all, inevitably, drew the resonse “F*****’ right!!!”

My Dad thought that it would be good sport at this juncture to ask me if I didn’t want to get out my rosette and put it on. Needless to say I declined, as I was engaged in watching an elderly lady peering nervously from behind her twitching, living room curtains, out onto the sea of human detritus which was seeping down her street. This prompted a request from a particularly big, fat scary-looking Hun who bellowed across the road to her, “HEY MISSUS!!! GEEZ A PIECE ‘N’ JAM, YA AULD COW!!!”

After a seemingly interminable period of time, we eventually neared the station. A few rows in front of us in the queue were two Huns who had gamely been carrying their comatose friend all the way from Hampden, each taking one of his arms and supporting him over their shoulders as his toes dragged along the ground. Incidentally, drunks “oxtering” a compadre home in this manner was quite a common sight when I was a child in the 70’s, you never see it happening now. We were far less selfish as a society in those days. We had to go down a flight of stairs to reach the platform and the two saviours, sadly, fell at the final hurdle and dropped their mate, who proceeded to bounce down 10 steps, chin first. “He’s awright, he’s awright!” they claimed as they picked him back up off the deck, blood and teeth spilling from his mouth. He still didn’t wake up.

We didn’t go to either of the replays but, funnily enough, I have more memories of listening to us lose on the radio than I do of the original match.

Since that day, I have had an unhealthy, abiding hatred for all things Hunnish and Sevconian. And the Bay City Rollers.

Superb read 10/10

[Golden Bear]

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The 1972 final, 50,000 Hibs tickets were sold, there was about 106,000 at the game. The Hibs fans [me included] were in the old covered section, with Celtic fans on both sides of us. The Celtic fans were throwing bottles up to the stantions and they were smashing with the broken glass raining down on us. In the next 7 month, in the Dryborough & League cup games, Hibs fans returned the complement.

It was a dreadful era for violence then & that's when they shut the shed [because of the full scale punch ups against the infirm and hearts], with the exception of the european games and basically killed the atmosphere in ER around that time.

Yip -I remember that well, it was absolute bedlam. There was just no place to escape the showers of jagged glass that rained down on us.

[ancient hibee]

Well done 7 hills.I have to say though that compared to the average Hun of those days you must have been mixed in with the equivalent of their Morningside Branch.

Re the penalty-to be honest if Colin Campbell had controlled the ball properly he could have rolled it past McCoy long before he was clattered.A very enthusiastic whole hearted player but unfortunately no Ally McLeod.

[Hibby Bairn]

Great social history lesson this thread. Now you know why Mrs Thatcher got in in 1979.

[Deansy]

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Most abiding memory is a blatant penalty being ruled out for Hibs in the last couple of minutes of the first final which would have put all this 1902 guff to bed years ago. Brian McGinlay reffed and Colin Campbell clearly fouled late in the game.

Was only at the last game where it rained heavily most of it and thought we were going to win when Tony Higgins scored early doors however not to be in end to end game with the winner unfortunately scored by our own Arfur.

Brian McGinlay, the 70's version of Craig Thomson (possibly the biological father of the c*** ??) !!. Campbell was right through and that Hun-ba**ard, McCloy, took the legs away from him and I remember thinking, how ironic because there was no way McGinlay couldn't do anything BUT award us a penalty against his beloved rangers - boy, was I wrong !!. I don't think we ever beat them when he was the ref - probably the reason the SFA made sure he reffed a lot of our games against them !!

[Waxy]

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Brian McGinlay, the 70's version of Craig Thomson (possibly the biological father of the c*** ??) !!. Campbell was right through and that Hun-ba**ard, McCloy, took the legs away from him and I remember thinking, how ironic because there was no way McGinlay couldn't do anything BUT award us a penalty against his beloved rangers - boy, was I wrong !!. I don't think we ever beat them when he was the ref - probably the reason the SFA made sure he reffed a lot of our games against them !!

I remember watching on telly as a 9 year old.Maybe the reason we never see much of the highlights is because it would show up exactly how bad the decision was.

[Lucius Apuleius]

Well said 7 hills. You remember a hell of a lot more than I do and I was 23! However, as previously stated it was just a few months before I was getting married so might have been having a bit of a blowout. 😇

[Hibrandenburg]

The clearest memory I have is of Hibs fans jumping from bus to bus through the broken windows on the motorway on the way home. It's a wonder nobody was killed.

[sahib]

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Well said 7 hills. You remember a hell of a lot more than I do and I was 23! However, as previously stated it was just a few months before I was getting married so might have been having a bit of a blowout. 

I can't even remember if I went to the first replay or not. I didn't go to the last game. I remember going to a party in a flat down on the shore when I got back from the first game. That's all I remember, apart from the feeling that we never going to win it, which is what I have felt every final before or since. I think I was traumatised, as a toddler, by my drunken father falling through the living room door in 1958 claiming "we wiz robbed". We couldn't even beat Clyde.

[emerald green]

My abiding memory of the 1978/9 final are two things:

1) Being denied a stonewaller of a penalty when Rangers goalie Peter McCloy took the legs away from Hibs Colin Campbell as he was going round McCloy in the box near the end of the match. I was behind that goal and was screaming for a penalty which, as usual, wasn't given. The referee saw it clear as day, but just would not give it. I still wonder why to this day, whenever this match comes up.

Funnily enough, fans were on this forum just the other night wondering why the referee didn't award Hibs a penalty at Castle Greyskull. It has always been like this, and it will never change IMO until club chairmen really start speaking up loud and clear on behalf of their respective clubs. I know that's not going to happen though, especially as far as Hibs is concerned, with Petrie looking to his SFA blazer.

2) The other thing I remember was the amount of drunken violence which took place, especially after the match. Heading from the ground to where the Hibs buses were parked was like a riot zone. Loads of buses had their windows tanned in. I saw one Hun getting kicking after he was caught by a few Hibs fans after he had thrown something at one of the buses.

I missed the second replay as I was not back from watching Scotland lose to England at Wembley.

PS: It was as a result of the rioting which took place after the following years Old Firm Scottish Cup final that led to alcohol being banned at sporting events in Scotland.

[Lucius Apuleius]

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The clearest memory I have is of Hibs fans jumping from bus to bus through the broken windows on the motorway on the way home. It's a wonder nobody was killed.

We're the mental Hibees baby we've got class. 😀

[Nomeancity]

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Brian McGinlay, the 70's version of Craig Thomson (possibly the biological father of the c*** ??) !!. Campbell was right through and that Hun-ba**ard, McCloy, took the legs away from him and I remember thinking, how ironic because there was no way McGinlay couldn't do anything BUT award us a penalty against his beloved rangers - boy, was I wrong !!. I don't think we ever beat them when he was the ref - probably the reason the SFA made sure he reffed a lot of our games against them !!

Are you and the couple of other posters sure this is how it happened. Had he really rounded mccloy. My memory was it was one of those when the forward knocks it past the keeper and is running to the byeline when the keeper dives and takes his feet away? Don't argue it was a stonewaller, but I can't remember it being a tap-in?
Like others I also remember the buses being panned at the end, we were in a car watching it all, you couldn't move in the traffic. Huns just casually walked up the bus queue throwing bricks as they went, seen lots of Hibbies jumping off the buses but it just led to huge gangs of huns charging them. I can also only remember just seeing Hibbies being arrested. My dad never took me to another game in Glasgow after that, he had seen enough. Next game he went to through there was the Skol cup win.

[Hiber-nation]

When we got back to Edinburgh after the 1st game we went to Leeries and the whole squad were in. Paul McGlinchey was good enough to get our programmes autographed by them all.

When big Mike McDonald was getting his pint some wee gadge says to him "watch and no drop that big man". Mike was not amused!

[emerald green]

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The 1972 final, 50,000 Hibs tickets were sold, there was about 106,000 at the game. The Hibs fans [me included] were in the old covered section, with Celtic fans on both sides of us. The Celtic fans were throwing bottles up to the stantions and they were smashing with the broken glass raining down on us. In the next 7 month, in the Dryborough & League cup games, Hibs fans returned the complement.

It was a dreadful era for violence then & that's when they shut the shed [because of the full scale punch ups against the infirm and hearts], with the exception of the european games and basically killed the atmosphere in ER around that time.

Another nightmare Scottish Cup final for all Hibs fans. I recall the violence that broke out near where I was standing and we had to walk round the track and out of the ground when the score was 4-1 I think.

IIRC there was something like 260 arrests at the match. Cannot imagine that these days.

[Golden Bear]

Mad times. One of my mates got slashed across the face with a steel comb and another was hit on the back of the head with a golf ball. And I'll never forget the hun hoardes trying to get on board the parked double decker hibs supporters buses - they didn't meet with much success thankfully.

Another guy in our bus had a bottle of vintage champagne which he vowed would never be opened until Hibs won the Scottish Cup. After we eventually succumbed, it was a case of enough was enough, the bottle was opened and finished in about two minutes flat!!

[Waxy]

Just youtube the 1980 scottish cup final for a taste of how bad things were through there.

[Phil D. Rolls]

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I was at the game at Easter Road against them earlier that season (Xmas 78) and it was unsegregated I remember, at half time the Rangers fans moved en mass to the upper tier of the east terracing and reigned bits of concrete, bottles and other missiles down on the lower tier for the rest of the match, unbelievable when you think about it now.

They were joined by Yams, whose game at Dunfermline was called off at the last minute. They seem to have come off worst when it kicked off at ER.

[Phil D. Rolls]

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Are you and the couple of other posters sure this is how it happened. Had he really rounded mccloy. My memory was it was one of those when the forward knocks it past the keeper and is running to the byeline when the keeper dives and takes his feet away? Don't argue it was a stonewaller, but I can't remember it being a tap-in?
Like others I also remember the buses being panned at the end, we were in a car watching it all, you couldn't move in the traffic. Huns just casually walked up the bus queue throwing bricks as they went, seen lots of Hibbies jumping off the buses but it just led to huge gangs of huns charging them. I can also only remember just seeing Hibbies being arrested. My dad never took me to another game in Glasgow after that, he had seen enough. Next game he went to through there was the Skol cup win.

IIRC McCoy grabbed Campells foot.

[Spike Mandela]

I was 13 and had been constantly badgering my Hearts supporting dad to take me to Hibs games as my Granda on my mothers side had made me a Hibs fan. To fob me off he said he would take me to the Scottish Cup Final if Hibs got there, probably safe in the knowledge that Hibs were so rubbish it would never happen.

Lo and behold we got there and if you've ever made a promise to your kids you know how hard it is to disappoint them. So, he spoke to some guy in his local, the Silver Wing at broomhouse, and got us a two tickets and a seat on an Eastern Scottish double decker cup special.

I was so excited it was amazing, the bus atmosphere was brilliant. Unfortunately at the ground my dad took us the wrong way and we had to walk through the Blue nose Hordes and the atmosphere was truly poisonous.

The game is a bit of a blur, I remember Rangers hitting the bar and remember the Colin Campbell miss at the end. However the game aftermath is etched on my memory.

It truly was a war zone. On the walk back to the bus my dad tried to hide me in the the front of his overcoat to protect me from missiles. The guy we were walking with resplendent in perm, pin stripe suit, high waisters, flares and platforms had a Rangers fan run up grab his hair and kneed him in the face. There was fighting everywhere, blood and snoughters everywhere.

Once back on the 'safety' of the bus the adults had to stand in the aisle and us kids had to get under the seats. Every window on the bus was panned in on the way out of Glasgow. My dad was raging. I remember him saying he'd been in the war and hadn't seen behaviour like that. He swore he would never take me to a game again and he never did.

A year later we had the famous Old Firm final with the riot and the police horses on the Hampden pitch. What a time we lived in!

Edited : Rangers didn't get a penalty. Mists of time, auld age and that!

[Boris]

I was at all 3 games. I was just turned 22 & helped to run the Musselburgh Hibs bus. Seem to recall we had around 4 buses at first game & they all had windows tanned in after the game in the war zone that was the big long road leading away from Hampden (where Asda is at bottom now). Polis turned a blind eye unless Hibbies retaliated. Violence at games was really bad then & getting bus windows tanned was a regular occurrence in Glasgow plus Killie & Ayr - a West of Scotland thing I suppose. Bigotry in the Glasgow Polis was bad then as well. Drink was obviously a big factor - no probs taking carryout on the buses or into the match itself - hard to believe now,

Defo a penalty game 1. Robbed. Cheated. Can't remember a lot about game 2 other than having a job to get a couple of buses off SMT cos of damage to windows game 1. Trouble no quite as bad after but mainly cos crowd far smaller.

Game 3. We just had one double decker at the game from Musselburgh. Sure it was a Monday night game. Few of us hasd just come off the train at Waverley after being at Wembley for the Scotland game. Got picked up in York Place. Crap crowd at Hampden. Beaten after Arthur's flying header of an OG. Gutted. Back to bus - thought we'd hidden our bags with our gear (from Wembley trip) out of sight but bus had been broken into & everything robbed. Just put the icing on the cake for us. Not.

Happy days.................

[MSK]

Travelled through in my mates Dads clapped out brownish/orangish Austin allegro ...the car was so bad he could have left it unlocked with the engine running outside hampden for 90 mins & it would have still been there when we came out ..the mates Dad thought all the rangers fans were laughing & pointing at us because we were hibbies ...I think it was perhaps because of the smoke coming out of the engine & sparks coming out of the exhaust as we kangaroo bounced down the road ...

As for the game, I don't remember much other than Campbell firing past the post ....& the stench of urine & stale beer as it flowed down the terrace & splashing my pvc wedger shoes ..

[Stantons Angel]

i too was at all three games and only because i wanted to support my team. The sheer and utter violence from the Hun thugs after both the previous games was enough to put anyone off going through to the "wild" west again!

The first game we went through on the infamous Maude's bus and of course it was not scarfs showing sit nice and quietly all the way through to Hampden.

Coming back along the road with Maude and her dear friend Mrs Currie two neanderthal huns started having a go at one of us and didnt like being ignored! The language and threatening behavior got a wee bit out of hand but they soon took off down the road on their heels after wee Mrs Currie got her brolly out and hit one of them on the back with it. His pals all thought this was hilarious as they all ran off!

Getting back to our bus we had to sit in a long queue of traffic and stones and bricks kept coming at us from the Rangers supporters around us. A wee man on a bus in front of us tried to get off the bus as he was scared and another red with and blue clad git literally swung around a lampost like a monkey and kicked the bus door in and debris fell on the old man!!!

The famous Glasgow Polis stood and laughed!!!

Cant mind much about the second game but going back again for the third time numbers dropped off and we only had a minibus to go through in to Hampden.

The police directed us into a car/coach park full of Huns baying for our blood!!!

I got out of the bus to ask if we could be let out as we were in the wrong area. I was rather unpolitley told to go away and not bother the nice policeman.

I asked him if he wanted to pay for my funeral then? What would i want to do that for he asked? we are HIBS supporters and you have trapped us right in the middle of a Rangers car/coach park!!

Only then did he take any notice of us! What the F..K are you doing in here you idiots? Because you directed us here, and wont now let us out to safety!

Well i have never seen a fat polis man move so fast!! he got the buses out the way and let us get out of there as quickly as possible!

So you can say that these are the lasting memories i have of the three games and none of them are about the football unfortunately!!

Just really dislike them with a passion!!!

[Golden Bear]

Ain't it sad that the bulk of our memories relate to the war zones outside Hampden rather than the games themselves.

[LaMotta]

When was extra time invented?

[Mr White]

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When was extra time invented?

Shortly after the big bang?

[LaMotta]

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Shortly after the big bang?

Seriously though did it exist in 1979, and the SFA hadn't adopted it yet, or was it yet to be thought of?

[ehf]

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Are you and the couple of other posters sure this is how it happened. Had he really rounded mccloy. My memory was it was one of those when the forward knocks it past the keeper and is running to the byeline when the keeper dives and takes his feet away? Don't argue it was a stonewaller, but I can't remember it being a tap-in?

I was right behind the goal and the picture is etched in my memory; Campbell was in a central position, near the penalty spot, knocked the ball deftly past McCloy, who promptly took the legs from him. The ultimate stonewalled, but no real surprise it wasn't given as we had suffered from McGinlay and his Masonic predecessors (Bobby Davidson et al) throughout the 70s.

[Phil D. Rolls]

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Seriously though did it exist in 1979, and the SFA hadn't adopted it yet, or was it yet to be thought of?

Was not used in finals at that time, hence the replay.

[Sprouleflyer]

Only went to the first game, my first cup final!

Can remember on the way through passing double decker buses with Hibby's in the bottom deck and huns in the top deck.

Picked up my 'Ally McLeod strikes faster than British Leyland' badge before the game...........still think I have that badge somewhere!

Can't remember much of the match, can't even remember Rangers missing a penalty as Spike mentions, what I do remember was the boo's ringing out from the Hibs end when the national anthem was played.

After the game, the adult I was with just said to me on the way out "don't even look at them". he was right, they were all looking for trouble and that day was the first time I heard the words Fenian *******s spoken!

Remember walking past all the parked buses and seeing so many of them with there windows smashed, must have cost LRT a pretty packet to replace.