Infamous 1967 World Club Championship play-off match involving Celtic

[theonlywayisup]

Apologies - can't bring up the NHC on my device but title should be clue what it's about.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/scotland/41863003

Amazing scenes - anyone recall anything similar involving Hibs?

[Hibbyradge]

You don't need to say NHC, but that's an amazing video.

The Argentine players seemed to get away with murder in the first 2 games.

It goes to show how good a team Celtic were in those days.

[Forza Fred]

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Apologies - can't bring up the NHC on my device but title should be clue what it's about.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/scotland/41863003

Amazing scenes - anyone recall anything similar involving Hibs?

Guess the Barcelona players behaviour when we beat them 3-2 was the closest.

[Blackfordhibby]

If I remember there was a wee bit of bad feeling between South American countries ie Uruguay,Argentina and Britain. This stemmed from the year before at the 66 World Cup. Police had to escort red carded players from the pitch, they were used to escort the ref from the pitch at full time, in one game. Think one of the games was a West Germany afair and possibly the other an England. I think that the British Embassy in both South American countries were victims of protest/attack. Hence players,fans,and possibly a continent had a score to settle? But there again maybe my memory isn't quite what it used to be.

[HIBERNIAN-0762]

Bristol City in the Texaco Cup?

Cormack and Hunter sent off, thuggery like I have never seen before at ER

[Hibernia&Alba]

Perhaps an even more notorious game for Celtic was the 1974 European Cup semi-final in which Atletico Madrid were determined to stop Celtic playing at ALL costs.

[heretoday]

The Celtic players were not entirely innocent themselves.

[Kato]

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Apologies - can't bring up the NHC on my device but title should be clue what it's about.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/scotland/41863003

Amazing scenes - anyone recall anything similar involving Hibs?

Hibs played a friendly in Haiti in the early 80's. A hack-fest that boiled over into mass brawls. Bertie Auld took the players off the park and refused to continue the game.

[Hi Heid Yin]

Argentinian football clubs and the national side deservedly were labelled "animals"
Maradona himself was a cheat, if a brilliant one, and so the contempt for this South American country runs deep, and is still felt today by many who witnessed their brutality and cynicism.
This is why I could never bring myself to cheer or will them onto victory against any nation, especially any of our British nations in major competitions.

[--------]

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Argentinian football clubs and the national side deservedly were labelled "animals"
Maradona himself was a cheat, if a brilliant one, and so the contempt for this South American country runs deep, and is still felt today by many who witnessed their brutality and cynicism.
This is why I could never bring myself to cheer or will them onto victory against any nation, especially any of our British nations in major competitions.

I think you have it the wrong way round.

Argentina and South American teams generally saw the 1966 World Cup as well and truly stitched up by the then FIFA President Stanley Rous.

The four South American qualifiers sent representatives to be present at the draw, but when they arrived (at the place specified and the time specified) they were told by Rous that the draw had already taken place, witnessed by representatives of 2 African non-qualifiers, West Germany, and England. It couldn't be re-drawn, said Rous, because it had already been sent to the press (who weren't present either). Nothing iffy about that, then.

Brazil were kicked out of the competition by Portugal - neither Pele nor Garrincha were anything like fit for their second group match against Hungary after an English referee allowed them to be hacked down at every opportunity - if you think Estudiantes were bad against Celtic, some of the stuff handed out to the Brazilians was worse. But that was just honest, manly English-type football. Then the quarter-finals ....

England-Argentina refereed by a West German who didn't speak Spanish. West Germany-Uruguay refereed by an Englishman who didn't speak Spanish. Two sides (one from each match) ended up playing with ten men. Guess which teams? Clue - they both came from South America. And both sendings-off were iffy (to say the least).

And both games ended up entirely out of control.

After the match Ramsey called the Argentina players 'animals' - which was rich coming from a manager who had Nobby Stiles and Jack Charlton ever-present in his own team. Stiles was bad enough against Argentina; his assaults on Eusebio in the semi were disgraceful. He should have walked in that game.

And the final - are you aware that when the Soviet linesman was asked on Soviet TV whether he could see that the ball had clearly crossed the line, he said 'no'. "Why did you give the goal?" he was asked. "Stalingrad."

Celtic were unfortunate in that the Argentina fans and players assumed that any team from the UK must be 'English' and decided to get their own back in '67 for what they saw as blatant cheating in '66. I believe Billy McNeill actually asked one of the Estudiantes players WTF was going on and was told, 'This is comeback for your guys cheating in the WC last year.' McNeill tried to explain that (a) Celtic were Scottish, not English, and (b) as Scots they were just as pee'd off at the English winning the thing as the Argentines and Brazilians were. The guy wouldn't believe him.

If they'd only waited a year, they could have had a go at some of the England WC team themselves. Oh. wait - they did. There were an awful lot of Scottish fans who took a huge delight in watching the World Club Championship match in Buenos Aires the following year. Independiente got Stiles himself playing for Man Utd and kicked the wee so-an-so to whatsit. If I were a Buddhist, I'd say, 'Ain't Karma a bugger, boys?'

Argentina aren't normally a violent team.

Ramsey was a racist - next-door neighbour to Alf Garnett in a lot of things he said - and Argentina weren't the only Hispanic American country to get the worst of him. On at least one occasion he publicly referred to Mexicans as 'Dagoes'; how he referred to opposition teams in the dressing room one can only guess. At Hampden, after England had beaten us 1-0 in the last game before heading off to Mexico in 1970, John Rafferty, head football writer of 'The Scotsman',formally wished him and his team the best of luck in defending the trophy. Ramsey's gracious response to what was from Rafferty sincere good wishes was, "Are you ****ing joking?" before walking out of the room.

Sralf would be s-o-o-o proud of you.