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Celtic’s Lisbon Lions Have Been Voted The Best Club Side Of All Time In A BBC Poll.

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Just weeks after some of our clownish media made the ludicrous suggestion that Celtic’s achievement in Lisbon might be overshadowed if Ibrox’s rag-bag side had won the Europa League, the Lions have been voted the greatest club side of all time in a BBC poll.

The result wasn’t even close; the Lions won the poll with 34% of the vote, putting them a full 10 percentage points in front of their closest challengers, the Barcelona side of 2011.

Even accounting for a serious online social media campaign, it is a huge achievement and clearly reflects a greater understanding of the accomplishment than exists here at home.

Celtic’s Lisbon team was famously comprised of only home-grown footballers.

Those who claim that Group Stages and other tweaks to the tournaments have made them harder to win are overlooking just how good that team was … they reached two European Cup Finals, two semi-finals and two quarter-finals in short order and would have been amongst the favourites whatever the format of the competitions had been.

We were as good as anybody.

There have been a few European sides who have tried – and failed – to do what the Lions did; we did the clean sweep that year.

Liverpool were the latest club to think that they could achieve that momentous goal … and they fell short both in the league and in the European Cup itself. This just goes to show how incredible it was.

Every one of the clubs which was named on the list was worthy of being there.

Know who wasn’t there, and wouldn’t have been there even if they had “achieved the impossible?” The Ibrox side of 2021-22. Those who think they would have come even close to Lisbon were deluded flat-earth pro-Sevco nutters.

What that team did stands alone … above all their contemporaries, above all challengers, above and beyond even what the great sides from other nations achieved.

It will never be equalled, far less beaten.

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  • Tony says:

    Its funny that the results have disappeared from the BBC website within 2 hours, they probably dont want to upset the mob..!!

  • Heather Bank says:

    While Celtic, have deservedly gone down in history as the greatest club side to win this hallowed trophy, we undermine our claims by comparing it to the toilet drinkers from the west and referring to them in such derogatory terms. I do feel sorry that they could only get their hands on the porcelain, while we drank from the silver cup.

  • king murdy says:

    would be interesting to see a geographical breakdown of the voters….
    i hate to be a party pooper….i am old enough, and was fortunate enough to be at the 4 home legs of the european run that year….think we are kidding ourselves if we REALLY think that the lions were the best club side ever….the 60’s real madrid team ?…cruyff’s 70’s ajax ?…paisley’s 70’s/80’s liverpool team..?..the 90’s AC milan team ?….and the 2010 barca team ?..the team i think were the best that this pair of eyes have seen-breathtaking side !….in fact, i always thought that the 69/70 tic team were a better all-round team than the lions…the only good thing about the poll is that it will wind up the huns….but please lads….get a grip ffs !

    • MarkE says:

      All great teams, and all deserving recognition, but only one won everything they competed for in the respective seasons in question, a record that still stands today, which puts them head and shoulders above the rest in that respect!

      …and they done it with a team made up entirely of local players!

      I’m sure you, like the rest of us, have seen many great club teams over the years.

      The Real Madrid team who won this season’s Champions League(a watered down version of the original European Cup built to serve tv companies and advertisers more than football) looked to me like a near perfect team.

      Their defence is rock solid (bar some gaps in the middle caused by themselves nullifying Liverpool on the wings, that Liverpool either failed to see or didn’t have the personnel to exploit) combined with lethality in their attacking passing moves thats up there with the best in footballing history, ensured they won the big one this season, but did they do anything groundbreaking, something that’d separate them from previous winners of the tournament or even from previous generations of Real Madrid?

      On Real Madrid, and Spain in general, when they saw Celtic and in particular Jimmy Johnstone play at the Bernabeu in the Madrid legend Alfredo Di Stefano’s testimonial match two weeks after Celtic had won the European Cup, it was like seeing football in a new light for the first time, due to the innovative style of attacking flair play and the mazy running dribbles of Johnstone, something the systematic Spanish game was not accustomed to, and they, their supporters, their media etc loved it; it changed the way they saw and played the game, them and many others; it was groundbreaking!

      Its not just about winning, or flair, its about doing something that no-one else has done and possibly never will, and doing it with a style that has even your opponents praising and imitating you!

      The Celtic 1966/67 team had all of that, and more; they did it playing pure beautiful, inventive football.

      • king murdy says:

        i agree mark in everything you say re the lions….
        i simply do not for a minute delude myself into agreeing with the poll, that they were the best club side ever….
        remember, steau bucharest became the first side from behind the “iron curtain” to win european cup…all romanian squad and coaches…from admittedly larger country and population…they went on a similar run to the lions…another cup final and semi’s etc….
        am sure any steau fans would argue with the poll…..
        i just think that we tims shouldn’t take the poll seriously…and instead of looking back, we should be urging the club to look forward…
        i envied the huns at their final last month….that is where celtic should be aiming for…
        hail hail mate.

  • Martin H. says:

    Celtic where the best team in this planet at that time, with all local lads, the ibrox club have never, and won’t ever reach such heights, even the cup winners cup, they got presented in the dressing room with, was the second rated competition at that time.

  • Nick66 says:

    A to poll that failed to produce the desired outcome. They more than likely believed one of the Spanish teams would be top of the tree. So sour grapes win the day, and due to circumstances beyond the hopes of the Peepul Celtic came out tops. We are the Champions.

  • Martin H. says:

    And we also forget, we won the Glasgow cup, that year, which at that time was a serious trophy, which means we won every competition we entered.

  • Peterbrady says:

    You can see the zombies implode on this they will be out with thre pitchforks and flaming torches to march on BBC neanderthal scum

  • Thomas M Daley says:

    My dad died at 47, April 10th 1967. He had collapsed at Celtic Park during a European qualifier with my elder brother.
    Later told I had passed the 11+ and were going to OLHS only one of the family to succeed.
    That year had sadness, joy and success, it changed the family and my life.
    I look at the Lisbon Lions, no one can come close especially a bunch of bigoted racists who brokerages, laws and the moral codes of the day

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