{"id":14659,"date":"2019-10-22T13:00:44","date_gmt":"2019-10-22T12:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/etims.net\/?p=14659"},"modified":"2019-10-22T07:06:31","modified_gmt":"2019-10-22T06:06:31","slug":"lazio-again-tom-campbell-remembers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/etims.net\/?p=14659","title":{"rendered":"Lazio Again..Tom Campbell Remembers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom Campbell reflects on a previous encounter between Celtic and Lazio in Glasgow. It was raining.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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LAZIO,\u00a0 AGAIN<\/span><\/p>\n

During World War 11 (and for some years afterwards) a popular song by Vera Lynn (\u2018the Forces\u2019 Sweetheart’, and apparently still alive at more than 100) contained these words:\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ll meet again, Don\u2019t know where, Don\u2019t know when \u2026 but I know we\u2019ll meet again, Some sunny day \u2026\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, the last time we played Lazio was on September 4,\u00a0<\/sup>1950 \u2026.\u00a0 and it was a miserable dreich day in Glasgow, rain falling steadily all day long \u2026 but it could not stop a crowd estimated at 47,000 turning up at Celtic Park to see Lazio, the first Italian club to play a match in Scotland.<\/span><\/p>\n

Celtic\u2019s team lined up:\u00a0 Bonnar; Haughney and Milne; Evans, McGrory and Baillie; Collins and Fernie; McPhail; Peacock and Tully, (and, sad to retate, all of those Celts are now dead).\u00a0 Lazio looked a stylish side, wearing sky-blue jerseys (similar to Manchester City), \u00a0and\u00a0 started off playing attractive one-touch football) \u2026 but eventually they were over-powered by a hard-hitting Celtic, revelling in the Glasgow rain.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Celtic latterly swept aside their Italian opponents to win by 4-0 \u2026 and all four goals were scored by \u2018Big John\u2019 McPhail There was a pleasing symmetry about the goals rhat buried Lazio: two goals in each half, a matching header and penalty kick (awarded correctly by Scottish referee George Mitchell). \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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John McPhail, only recently given an extended run at centre-forward, was a man with something to prove and turned in a remarkable performance.\u00a0 \u00a0What had Celtic\u2019s captain to prove?\u00a0 After several seasons as Celtic\u2019s most versatile player (with appearances at right and left-half (even long before his heroics in the 1953 Coronation Cup of 1953), and innings at all three inside-forward positions \u2026 at last, he had been given the time to establish himself as Celtic\u2019s centre-forward (arguably a problem position for Celtic to fll since the heady days of Johnny Crum back in 1938).\u00a0 And John seized that opportunity (eventually leading Celtic to the Scottish Cup of 1951).<\/span><\/p>\n

But that was not his only motivation in September 1950.<\/span><\/p>\n

Back in May, Bob Kelly had decided to award his players with a trip to Rome after the 1949\/50 season.\u00a0 It was a Holy Year and Celtic could see the historic sights of \u2018the Eternal City\u2019, would be given an audience with the Pope \u2026 and play \u2018a friendly\u2019 with Lazio, based in Rome and celebrating their 50th<\/sup>\u00a0anniversary.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, it was not much of \u2018a friendly\u2019.\u00a0 Bobby Collins, who in a long career in Scotland and England proved himself a fierce competitor, described the match as \u2018the most vicious of them all\u2019 \u2026 The Italian referee awarded more than forty free-kicks and ordered off John McPhail and his immediate opponent.<\/span><\/p>\n

An urban myth has grown about John McPhail\u2019s\u00a0 dismissal.\u00a0 According to John, the referee dismissed his marker for a series of fouls (and a scuffle with him) but then turned to Celtic\u2019s captain and told him to leave the field \u201cto calm down the crowd\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t quite ring true, that account.\u00a0 Almost certainly (judging by the number of fouls\u00a0<\/span>awarded by a capable referee who apparently performed well later as a World Cup official)\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0and the rarity of matches between Scottish and Italian sides), this must have been a difficult match\u00a0 to referee.\u00a0 Certainly, there would have been a culture-clash on the pitch.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, in 1950 Celtic managed a 0-0 draw in Rome, and a 4-0 win in Glasgow.\u00a0 In 2019 I would settle for a repeat performance.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom Campbell reflects on a previous encounter between Celtic and Lazio in Glasgow. It was raining.\u00a0 LAZIO,\u00a0 AGAIN During World War 11 (and for some…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":11945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/etims.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/676036296d56b3ac71892acdc257f000.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2J7If-3Or","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14659"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14659"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14660,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14659\/revisions\/14660"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etims.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}