Murdo Macleod Scores A Scorcher From Outside The Box As Ten Men Win The League.
Aside from being the only goal on the list that isn’t a match winner, this is one of two goals on it that I never got to see for myself until later in life.
I was alive for this one, but way too young to remember it or to celebrate it as I did later last minute strikes, but for all that it’s part of the folklore I grew up with and which formed my life’s great love.
How could it not be?
A last minute goal, in a league decider with Rangers, when we only had ten men on the park?
Hell, what’s not to like?
The night was 21 May 1979. There has probably never been a Celtic – Rangers game so fraught with possibilities, both good and bad, or with so much at stake. The winner of this match would, quite literally, be champions. To call it massive doesn’t do it justice; this was everything you want from a derby match but deep down hope one will never be. The scars from such a night can wind up searing your soul; I am sure some of their fans still get sick at the thought of it.
All the more so, since they were 1-0 up at half time.
When Johnny Doyle was red-carded shortly after the break, for taking a kick at a prone McDonald, most Rangers fans were probably mentally (or literally) opening the champagne. But they reckoned without a Celtic team that simply refused to give in.
On 67 minutes, Roy Aitken equalised after a goal-mouth scramble. Eight minutes later, with just 15 left on the clock, Celtic Park was in delirium as George McCluskey put Celtic in front. Delirium lasted seconds; Rangers equalised whilst half the Celtic team was still trying to refocus. That was careless of them, but they didn’t let their heads go down.
With seven minutes to go we pressed forward, and McCluskey hit a cross into the box. The keeper came out and parried it away, but it hit Colin Jackson and wound up in the net. Celtic Park exploded in emotion, but it was a tense emotion, with no-one quite trusting that it was over.
With just a minute left on the clock, Murdo took the ball and from 35 yards ended all that in a split second. If there has ever been a greater outpouring of emotions; relief, joy, happiness, ecstasy, disbelief and despair, at Celtic Park I’ve never heard of it. Part of the ground was shell-shocked. Everyone else (the Good Guys) took from it a lifelong memory that no time will ever fade. Even those of us who weren’t there or even alive for it have that moment in our hearts.
“Ten men won the league …”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H64BOxqZh6Y
