On This Day – 9th March
It was on this day in 1965, Celtic hired their first Protestant manager. His name has gone down in the club’s history and in world football.
The manager is of course, Jock Stein. Six weeks before, it was announced that Stein would leave his club Hibernian at the end of the 1964/65 season.
However, he left Easter Road a couple of months early and moved to Celtic, a club who weren’t performing all that well. They hadn’t won a major trophy in eight years.
Stein guided Celtic to the Scottish FA Cup Final in his first couple of months in charge at Parkhead and they faced Dunfermline Athletic in the final.
Twice Celtic went behind and both times they came back before Billy McNeill scored the winner. It was Celtic’s first FA Cup in eleven years.
His crowning achievement would come in 1967 as he guided a team full of Glaswegians to the European Cup Final. The Final was to be played against Inter Milan in Lisbon.
Celtic came from a goal down and won 2-1, becoming the first British club to lift the biggest prize in European football. The team became known as the Lisbon Lions.
In his time at Celtic, Stein won 10 League Championships, 8 Scottish Cups, 6 Scottish League Cups and the previously mentioned European Cup.
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