By David Herd
1963 RANGERS 3 CELTIC 0 (AFTER A 1-1 DRAW)
As season 1962/63 dawned, Rangers were smarting from throwing away the league title the previous season to an excellent Dundee side, and although both domestic cups were to be found in the Ibrox trophy room, Scot Symon’s men felt that there was a wrong to be righted. This was a team reaching the peak of their powers, with a blend of youth and experience and of silk and steel, and who are revered decades later as one of the very best to ever wear the club colours. Their hunger for silverware was nowhere near satisfied. They didn’t manage to retain the League Cup, however, a surprise defeat by Willie Waddell’s Kilmarnock in the semi-final ending dreams of three-in-a-row in the competition.
The league campaign started very impressively, and by New Year the Rangers support were enjoying the view from the top of the table, and had won the Old Firm matches home and away without conceding a goal. The January 1st match at Ibrox starkly demonstrated the gulf between both halves of Glasgow, when strikes from Harold Davis, Jimmy Millar, John Greig and Davie Wilson gave the home team a crushing 4-0 win in front of 55,000 at a freezing cold stadium. Scotland was about to be hit by what felt like a second Ice Age, a deep freeze that lasted for weeks on end. It would be the last competitive match Rangers played until March 9th.
When things had thawed out enough to allow football to resume, there was a massive fixture backlog for every club in the country. In the Scottish Cup, the first round tie between Airdrie and Stranraer at Broomfield was finally played after a record 33 postponements. By the time the teams finally took to the field to play the match, Rangers fans had found an interest in it. The winners would play Rangers at home in round two. The home team would win 3-0, no surprise given they operated in the top league against lower division opponents. Their game finally went ahead on Monday 11 March, and given the need to get the backlog cleared, the visit of Rangers was then scheduled for the Wednesday evening.
It would be a historic occasion for all devotees of Rangers history. Not for the scoreline, Rangers running out handsome 6-0 winners with goals from a Ralph Brand penalty and Willie Henderson joined by a Wilson hat-trick and an unfortunate own goal. The near-18,000 crowd witnessed the only ever Scottish Cup tie where Rangers fielded their iconic line-up that still trips off the tongue to this day: Ritchie, Shearer, Caldow, Greig, McKinnon, Baxter, Henderson, McMillan, Millar, Brand, Wilson.
This legendary team actually only started in five competitive matches for the club, for a variety of reasons. But they lived up to their aura of invincibility in Lanarkshire, swatting aside an Airdrie side who would end the season safely in mid-table in the top flight. With the need to get games played quickly, it was already known that Second Division East Stirling would be the opposition in round three. They were to visit Ibrox the following midweek on the Wednesday, and again Rangers knew who they would face if they were to win as expected. They had been drawn away to either champions Dundee or Hibs in the glamour tie of the fourth round, provided East Stirling couldn’t provide the shock of the century.
They couldn’t. The Ibrox crowd at the weekend had seen their team steamroller Dundee United 5-0 in the league to tighten their grip as probable champions. Centre forward Jimmy Millar had scored four of them, and when East Stirling provided the Ibrox opposition four days later, a decent attendance of 35,000 saw another four-goal haul. Ralph Brand was the man to go home with the match ball this time, as Rangers battered the minnows 7-2. Millar did grab a goal, as did Wilson and recent signing George McLean. The big inside forward, a recent arrival from St Mirren, had started in the cup final against Rangers for the Paisley men the previous season, and was making his debut in the competition for the club. The win had set up the tie that all of Scottish football wanted to see, the battle between the reigning league champions and the team who looked odds-on to take the crown from them.
The competition had belatedly started for Rangers in the month of March, and it still wasn’t yet April when they faced up to their third Scottish Cup opponent. In the first Saturday match of the Rangers cup run so far, 37,000 packed into Dens Park to witness a battle royal, and it was as close and as competitive as they had expected. It was also a game that ended in huge controversy. Rangers took to the pitch in confident mood, they had gone to another tough away ground in midweek and won 5-0 at Tynecastle. The home team had long given up hopes of retaining their title, sitting a massive seventeen points behind their in-form visitors, but they harboured hopes of European Cup glory, having recently qualified for the semi-finals of Europe’s premier club competition by beating Anderlecht home and away in the last eight.
In their change strip of blue and white vertical stripes, Rangers had most of the play in a tense opening half, one which saw referee Mr Barclay of Kirkaldy take centre stage with two big penalty decisions. Midway through the half he adjudged Millar to have impeded home centre half Ian Ure in the Dundee area when the majority inside Dens saw it as a foul the other way. Then, with 45 minutes almost up, he did point to the spot, but at the other end. It did look the right call, skilful inside forward Andy Penman tripped by Ronnie McKinnon as he tried to get past the Rangers stopper. Those two would end up as Ibrox teammates later in the decade, but Penman was very much a Dundee player in March 1963, and he buried the spot kick expertly to send the big home support into half-time with broad smiles on their faces.
The cup holders and favourites were in trouble, and they responded superbly when hostilities resumed. Goalkeeper Bert Slater was the hero for Dundee, much like the future final the following year, with a string of impressive stops. McLean in particular saw his efforts to get on the scoresheet thwarted, although the Rangers man really should have done better on a couple of occasions. But a goal had to come, and Mr Barclay gave Rangers the perfect opportunity to equalise when full back Alex Hamilton handled a Henderson shot with the penalty decision inevitable. Brand was the man entrusted with penalty responsibilities at the time, and he nervelessly beat Slater from twelve yards.
Then, with just two minutes left and the match seemingly destined to end 1-1, came the controversy. Henderson cut inside and fired a ferocious shot at the Dundee goal, which Slater did well to stop. But the ball squirmed away from the goalkeeper and dribbled over the line, with McLean and a Dundee defender both in close attendance. The referee signalled a goal, and the away fans erupted. But the home players were incensed, and angrily surrounded the referee with the reason for their protests unclear. They persuaded the official to consult his linesman, and then to the utter disbelief of all of a Rangers persuasion inside the ground, the goal was disallowed. With referees at the time under strict instructions not to speak to the press after matches, the reason for this decision was never properly explained. At the time, many Rangers players were incandescent, with Baxter particularly angry and having to be dragged away from Mr Nisbet before he found himself in hot water. Some reports in the press afterwards suggested that the linesman had given Henderson offside then put his flag back down. But as the Dundee free kick was awarded almost on the goal line, it may have been a foul by McLean as the defender tried to get back to clear. Whatever the reason, the match had ended in a draw and a replay was required.
Four days later, the Ibrox terraces were jam-packed for the rematch between the teams. The official attendance of 81,190 was the biggest Ibrox crowd of the season, eclipsing the number who attended the European Cup-Winner’s Cup battle of Britain defeat by Tottenham, and easily more than the New Year win over Celtic. Many fans who were part of the heaving mass of people would say in later years that the actual attendance was far more than the number declared. There were thousands left outside when the turnstiles were locked and the stadium declared as full. For those who managed to get a decent view of the action, they witnessed a classic.
It was Rangers who had the enormous home support cheering after just a quarter of an hour when they took the lead. And it was another calamity for Alex Hamilton, the Dundee defender who had conceded the penalty that meant this replay was needed. Under pressure from Wilson, the hapless full back headed a cross past his own goalkeeper as he tried to steer the ball out for a corner. It was a stroke of luck that Rangers would have hoped to capitalise on, but for much of the next hour, they were outplayed by a Dundee team who looked back to the title-winning form of twelve months earlier. Their most impressive forward was Alan Gilzean, a striker who would go on to enjoy a superb career south of the border with Spurs.
The big forward had given notice of the danger he posed when twice coming close to finding the Rangers net, but the home defence didn’t heed the warnings and they paid the price either side of the interval. With ten minutes left before the half-time break, Gilzean struck with a fine header from a pinpoint free kick flighted in by Bobby Wishart. The 1-1 scoreline at the break was the least Dundee deserved, and it took them less than 60 seconds after referee Mr Barclay had resumed proceedings to go in front. A sublime pass by the great inside forward Gordon Smith, by now a veteran of 38 years old, left Gilzean clear on goal as Ronnie McKinnon vainly claimed for offside. Billy Ritchie raced from his goal to confront the Dundee man, but Gilzean stayed composed to slide the ball past him and into the net.
The huge crowd were now nervous, and as the clock ticked towards the last quarter of the match, the visitors were holding on quite comfortably. Then, with just sixteen minutes left to rescue the game, Rangers got another big break thanks to the unfortunate Hamilton. The full back’s attempt to halt Davie Wilson’s surging run into the penalty area was badly mistimed, Wilson was sent crashing to the turf, and Rangers had their second penalty of the tie. Ralph Brand had been the man to convert the first kick in the Dens Park draw, and he was again entrusted with the responsibility. 81,000 sets of fingernails were being bitten, but Ralph remained the calmest man inside the stadium, and his penalty easily beat Slater.
There was now the prospect of extra-time, but both sides went on the attack to try to find a winner before the need for another thirty minutes. With just two minutes remaining in normal time, the winner arrived. Henderson cut the ball back from the byeline, there was indecision at the heart of the Dundee defence, and there was Brand to smash the ball home from eight yards. The crescendo of joy inside Ibrox was ear-splitting as over 80,000 voices roared their delight. Victory had been snatched from the jaws of defeat, Rangers were into the last four, and there they would play the other team in the City of Discovery.
With the draw pairing Rangers with Dundee United and Celtic against relegation-threatened Raith Rovers, the entire country expected an Old Firm final, which would be the first since the classic “hoodoo buster” meeting in 1928. But a player who wouldn’t get the chance to take part in any of the remaining Scottish Cup matches would be the Rangers and Scotland left back Eric Caldow. That defeat of Dundee would be his last Rangers appearance of the season, as on the following Saturday he suffered a broken leg at Wembley in a memorable 2-1 win for Scotland. Caldow, one of the greatest full backs of any era in Scottish football, was the victim of a shocking tackle by Bobby Smith of Spurs in the opening minutes, with ten-man Scotland winning thanks to two goals by his Rangers teammate Jim Baxter, and a remarkable stand-in performance by Davie Wilson who moved back to left back from his usual attacking berth on the wing. A third Ranger also played his part, young Willie Henderson terrorising the English down the right.
By the time the three Wembley heroes were due to play at Hampden in the semi-final against United, Scot Symon had solved his selection problem at left back by promoting 22-year-old Davie Provan from the reserves. Provan had made his first team debut four years earlier, and had been seen infrequently covering both full back positions since. But he had found it difficult to break into the team on any regular basis with Rangers possessing full backs of such consistency as Shearer and Caldow. His chance had now arrived.
On Saturday 13 April, Celtic defeated Raith Rovers 5-2 in front of just under 36,000 at Ibrox to reach their second final in three seasons, their last appearance being in the 2-0 replay loss to a Dunfermline team managed by their former player Jock Stein in 1961. They were hoping for a first triumph in the competition since 1954, their last three appearances in the showpiece occasion ending in defeat. Their Ibrox win was in marked contrast to their embarrassing semi-final defeat to St Mirren twelve months before, when their fans shamed the club by invading the pitch to look to get the match abandoned when three goals down. All the headlines prior to that game had been about an Old Firm final. Once Rangers walked off the Hampden pitch in the other semi-final, the headlines had simply been a year early.
Almost 57,000 were inside the stadium to see United play their first-ever Scottish Cup semi-final. The underdogs were given little chance by most, but they were the only team to have defeated Rangers in the league with a shock 2-1 success at Tannadice back in November, and this gave their band of travelling fans some glimmer of hope. They almost enjoyed a dream start, Ritchie pulling off an excellent save to deny Dennis Gillespie. There were chances galore in the opening twenty minutes, with Wilson hitting the United crossbar, Brand having a goal ruled out for offside, and Ritchie again impressing to keep dangerman Gillespie’s name off the scoresheet. Then, all of a sudden, there was a goal frenzy as six goals were scored in just 24 minutes.
Jimmy Millar started things off with a fantastic solo goal, and within two minutes he had claimed a second after electric wing play from Henderson had created the chance. If United were expected to then collapse, they did the opposite. Gillespie got third-time lucky when his shot from the edge of the box flew in, and the Rangers supporters were stunned when teenager Ian Mitchell beat Ritchie after excellent work by full back Tommy Millar. It was a real family occasion as Millar was the brother of the scorer of the two Rangers goals!
Briefly, Rangers had been thrown off their stride, and there were signs of frustration on the terraces at this unexpected turn of events. But United then shot themselves in the foot just as they had given themselves a chance of an upset. Defender Doug Smith dallied in possession and was robbed by the razor-sharp Brand. The deadly Rangers forward punished the mistake by coolly running in on goalkeeper Sandy Davie and scoring. It looked like a 3-2 interval lead, but right on 45 minutes came a fatal blow to the Taysiders. Millar completed his hat-trick when heading home the rebound after a McLean effort had hit the woodwork. With a two-goal interval lead, and the strong wind at their backs in the second half, Rangers could now relax and ease themselves into another final. They played within themselves, seemingly content that the contest was over, but nobody told George McLean. With just a few minutes left of a totally forgettable second period, the big ex-St Mirren man scored a quite unforgettable goal. Picking the ball up a good 35 yards out, he took a stride forward, decided not to waste more energy by running any further, and launched a ferocious and unstoppable shot that raged past the despairing dive of Davie. The 5-2 win matched the final result of the other semi-final, and the Old Firm final showdown was confirmed.
Rangers went into the final on Saturday 04 May needing just one more win to clinch the club’s 33rd league title, and they still had an incredible seven more league matches to find that single victory. A double was on their minds, as Hampden’s turnstiles welcomed 129,527 paying spectators. Scot Symon elected to make just one change from a midweek draw with Motherwell, bringing back Jimmy Millar after teenage centre forward Jim Forrest had worn the number nine shirt against the Fir Park team.
Billy Ritchie, Bobby Shearer, Davie Provan, John Greig, Ronnie McKinnon, Jim Baxter, Willie Henderson, George McLean, Jimmy Millar, Ralph Brand, Davie Wilson.
It was a match that Rangers were hot favourites to win, and they would have done but for a superb goalkeeping display by goalkeeper Frank Haffey. The Celtic custodian, the butt of countless jokes after conceding nine goals at Wembley for Scotland two years earlier, gave a near-perfect performance getting in the way of almost everything Rangers threw at him. The first of his many saves came in the twentieth minute, when after a cagey opening period, George McLean broke forward and hit a fierce twenty-yarder that looked a scorer. But as McLean started to think of his goal celebration, he was left open-mouthed when he saw Haffey spring upwards and somehow tip the ball over the bar. Brand was the next to be denied, when less than a minute after seeing a header cleared off the line by a defender, he watched on in disbelief as another netbound header was saved acrobatically by the inspired Celtic goalkeeper. Jimmy Millar then finally beat the goalkeeper with a header, but the ball agonisingly slipped just wide of the post.
It looked as if half-time would be reached without any goals, then two came along in the last sixty seconds of the opening period. First, Rangers finally got the better of Haffey in the 44th minute. Some Millar-Brand interplay sent the quicksilver Henderson racing down the wing, and when his low centre arrowed into the penalty area, there was the inrushing Brand to flick the ball beyond Haffey and into the net. It seemed a killer blow had been delivered at a killer time, but incredibly, Celtic were level almost immediately. Bobby Murdoch sent centre forward John Hughes clear, but his shot was blocked on the line by Shearer with Ritchie beaten. Murdoch had kept running in support of his forward, and he got his reward as the ball ran free to him just a couple of yards from an open goal and he couldn’t miss.
The second half was another tale of mainly Rangers pressure, and of missed chances and fine saves. But Celtic created openings of their own as well, especially after McLean picked up an injury and limped through the last half hour. He was a passenger, with Millar forced to drop back from his centre forward role to play in McLean’s position and Rangers now seriously handicapped. Celtic had the ball in the net when Jimmy Johnstone shot home after escaping the clutches of Provan for the only time all afternoon, but the referee’s whistle had sounded well before the winger touched the ball after Hughes had been flagged offside in the build-up. It was the ten fit men who ended the match in the ascendancy again, with Haffey producing another incredible save to keep out a Brand shot before Baxter’s drive was also stopped by the goalkeeper. In the dying moments, Davie Wilson had a golden chance to win the cup when he found himself unmarked just six yards out, but he held his head in his hands as he tamely shot straight at Haffey, the Celtic hero enjoying one last glory moment.
The game ended 1-1, and it meant a replay ten days later. By then, Rangers had won 2-0 at Broomfield to tie up a title that was never in any doubt, and they suffered their second league defeat in a match at Kilmarnock where several key players were rested to keep them fresh for the replay.
On Wednesday 15 May, Hampden saw another huge crowd, with 120,263 there to witness round two of the Glasgow heavyweight contest. This time, there would be a clear winner, and by an early knockout. George McLean was still ruled out with the injury sustained in the first match, meaning veteran Ian McMillan resumed his midfield partnership with Baxter, to many Rangers fans as good a combination in the Rangers engine room as there has ever been. The remaining ten players were the same as the first game, with Celtic manager Jimmy McGrory opting to make two alterations to his eleven. Both wingers from the first match were dropped, with Bobby Craig replacing Jimmy Johnstone on the right, and John Hughes moving from the centre to the left wing, meaning no place for Frank Brogan at number eleven and a start for Steve Chalmers at number nine.
In truth, it wouldn’t have mattered what forward line McGrory had picked, It was night when one of the best Rangers teams of all-time clicked into gear and simply destroyed their rivals. It took just seven minutes for the destiny of the Cup to be decided, as Rangers tore through Celtic with stunning and ruthless efficiency. Millar’s pinpoint pass inside full back Kennedy was perfection for the speed of Henderson. Wee Willie scorched past his marker, then looked up and delivered an equally perfect low cross across the face of the Celtic six yard box. That wonderful predator Brand had anticipated exactly what his winger would do, and he arrived at exactly the right time to connect with the ball and send it past Haffey in front of the heaving mass in the Rangers end of Hampden.
From that early moment, it was a case of how many. With McMillan and Baxter imperious in the middle, and wingers Henderson and Wilson torturing their full backs, the Celtic end grew increasingly quiet as they watched their team being brushed aside with ease bordering on contempt. Celtic captain Billy McNeill manfully tried to plug the gaps that were appearing all around him, as blue shirts broke past their markers almost at will. He and Haffey were two Celtic men above criticism, but it was an impossible task for them to turn the tide. It was bordering on a miracle that the match entered the last minute of the first half with still just one goal separating the sides. Then just as McNeill and Haffey must have been thinking of a welcome respite from their labours, their resistance was broken.
Millar got in behind half back John McNamee and Celtic were again in trouble. The wily centre forward strode forward before slipping the ball to Brand. With a goal in both matches already to his name, Ralph fancied even more glory, and as full back Duncan MacKay raced over to put in a desperate tackle, Brand hit a firm, low shot that was kept out by the diving Haffey. The goalkeeper needed a bit of luck where the ball would then go, and his luck was out. First to react was that wonderful goalscoring winger Davie Wilson, and his smile was as wide as the River Clyde as he gleefully smacked in the rebound. Two goals up and 45 minutes more to add to the lead, it felt like the final score would be whatever Rangers decided would suit them.
There were many in the vast uncovered Celtic end who must have wondered the wisdom of staying around to endure more torture. The majority of them lasted till midway through the second half. They saw their team enjoy a brief flurry of possession, albeit without creating anything that could be described as a chance to score. This short spell seemed to coincide with the recalled McMillan taking a breather, but when the veteran got his second wind and rejoined the fray fully recharged, the first half pattern was restored. After 66 minutes, the last remote hope amongst the Parkhead faithful of an unlikely comeback was extinguished. Perhaps cruelly, the third goal was a disaster for Haffey, after so many heroics. Brand let fly with a decent dipping shot from 25 yards, but it should have been a relatively straightforward save. But the goalkeeper allowed the ball to bounce just in front of him, and it popped over his outstretched arms and into the net, accompanied by an enormous roar of triumph from the blue half of Hampden.
At 3-0, two things then happened. The terraces in the Celtic areas of the ground started emptying at a quite rapid rate, vast empty spaces appearing and growing every minute. Meanwhile, the talk in the other end was of revenge. Many Rangers supporters inside the stadium had endured the humiliating pain of a League Cup final embarrassment at Celtic’s hands just six years earlier. This was surely now the time to right that wrong and to score a few more goals. The on-field conductor of the Ibrox orchestra had other ideas, however. Jim Baxter was a man who thoroughly enjoyed “taking the Mickey”, and this was a chance just too good for him to ignore. Goals were no longer his priority, he wanted to inflict torture.
So rather than getting forward and testing the Celtic backline in the hunt for further goals, Baxter’s Rangers then played keep ball, toying with their hapless and outclassed opponents in hoops, letting them understand how a captured mouse feels at the mercy of a cat. Despite the frustrations of many who were watching on from the Rangers end, this taunting on the pitch still represented hugely enjoyable entertainment. And it sparked off a chant that every supporter still enjoys to hear when their team is coasting to victory over their biggest foe. “Easy Easy” was the chant of choice ringing in the ears of the few remaining Celtic fans as they eventually made their way towards the exits.
Referee Mr Wharton finally brought this mismatch to an end, the record books showing a 3-0 Rangers win while all who saw it remember a scoreline that only scratched the surface of expressing the absolute domination Rangers enjoyed. Baxter’s impudent evening had one more trick left, he smuggled the match ball off the pitch at the end inside his shirt, wanting the ball as a souvenir for his great friend and teammate McMillan, who would soon be departing Ibrox after a wonderful career in blue. Unfortunately, the SFA didn’t possess Baxter’s humour or his class, the governing body insisting afterwards that Rangers retrieve the ball and return it to Park Gardens rather than it adorning a display case in the McMillan home.
Bobby Shearer lifted the Scottish Cup, the captain of a team who were by far the best in the land, and who would go on to add a treble the following season to the double they had just enjoyed. Rangers were the masters of Scottish football, and that team of the early 1960s will forever be remembered and idolised. And there was no match they played that better summed up their magnificence, and their dominance, than the Scottish Cup final of 1963.
