Jock Stein

My late Dad was a leading Horse Tipster back in the day for The Scottish Daily Express and used to give Tips to big Jock, had a quite a good few Cracking wee chats with the Great Man

 

Who is this guy? His name rings a bell but I cant place it

 

38 yrs ago today he left us.
RIP

 

There will never be another like him. He truly was a magnificent human being. RIP

 

He is a Mega Celtic and Football Legend, my heart soars higher than high whenever i see footage of him. RIP

 

LEGEND

 

* Bless

 

An iconic figure in our history you can see he had an aura about him , a real father figure to his players who he seemed to give them the Confidence to express themselves on the field ,it goes to show how 1 man can make all the difference in football , a real leader of men.

 

The greatest manager in history, Rip big man.

 

He was born John Stein 101 years ago today on October 5, 1922, but would become known throughout the world as Jock, and then acknowledged as the finest manager Scotland has ever produced.

It was Celtic’s good fortune that he forged his reputation in the East End of Glasgow, and it’s difficult to imagine how the club would have developed, or not, without the arrival of Stein as manager in 1965.

However, at that juncture he was merely coming home to a club he had unexpectedly joined as a player 14 years previously.

By 1965, he had already established himself as a manager of considerable promise, having guided Dunfermline Athletic to a Scottish Cup triumph in 1961, when they beat Celtic, before moving to Hibernian.

But it was at Celtic Park that he truly made his reputation while, in turn, helping to make the modern-day Celtic.

He was born in 1922 in Earnock amid the surrounding coalfields of Lanarkshire and, as was the way, he was almost immediately earmarked as part of yet more future fodder for the unwelcoming mines that criss-crossed the bleak landscape.

He grew to serve his time as a young boy down the pits and those years helped mould the man he would become, but there was something that made him stand out slightly from the rest of the miners who hacked away at the coal seams.

He was skilful with a football – not overly so, he wouldn’t be the greatest footballer the pit-fields of Lanarkshire ever produced, but he would certainly become the greatest ever manager to emerge from that environment.

He had a rather plain, even mundane, playing career – at one point swapping the minefields of Lanarkshire and the majesty of Albion Rovers for the coalfaces of Wales and the splendour of Llanelly.

That is, it was mundane until Celtic assistant trainer Jimmy Gribben, on the lookout for a mature player to help bring on the reserves, remembered ‘something’ about this cumbersome centre-half.

He signed for Celtic in 1951, basically as fourth-choice centre-half and fate intervened when Jock Stein suddenly found himself in the first team.

Not only did he keep his place but Lady Luck smiled on Celtic again when Sean Fallon suggested Stein be made captain – and so the mould was set.

Silverware followed in the shape of the Coronation Cup in 1953 and the league and Scottish Cup double the following year but fortune blew through Celtic Park once more when Stein was injured against, of all teams, Rangers.

That injury arrived on August 31, 1955 – just four days later on September 4, the very first European Cup game ever was played when the green and white hooped Sporting Lisbon took on Partizan Belgrade at the Estadio Nacional in Lisbon. You just couldn’t make this stuff up.

Return from the ankle injury proved impossible and he turned to coaching the reserves – and this was true ‘coaching’, not mere training.

He persuaded the club to purchase the Barrowfield training ground and set about coaching the youngsters – many of whom would come to fruition 10 years later in Lisbon.

The restraints of reserve football couldn’t hold him though. He took up the hot-seat at Dunfermline, with whom he beat Celtic in the Scottish Cup final in 1961, and then Hibernian before the call came from Celtic Park once more in 1965.


What followed would have been deemed ‘Fantasy Football’ by the long-suffering Celtic support who faithfully stood by the men on the field during the barren years…

No fewer than TEN championships, nine of them all in a row, eight Scottish Cups and six League Cups, but perhaps the most significant facet of Stein’s Celtic was that they were feared throughout the length and breadth of Europe.

That was marked by the pinnacle of all that success when the Celts beat Inter Milan 2-1 in the European Cup final of May 25, 1967 in Lisbon.

The success was as astonishing as it was unexpected and still stands as the greatest period in the club’s history.

There are three definitive eras in Celtic’s history – the success-strewn decades of the early days, the years of decline and the return to glory – if it weren’t for Jock Stein we could still very well be in the second phase and not knowing if we were ever going to get out of it.

Stein’s impact on Celtic is still being felt and it is right and fitting that a permanent memorial to Jock Stein should stand outside the front entrance of Celtic Park.

The statue, of Jock holding the ‘big cup’, also records the incredible success he enjoyed as Celtic manager, and will be a reminder to future generations of Celtic supporters of the greatest manager the club has ever had.

There have already been tributes to the Celtic greats, and outside Paradise, pride of place is now taken by a tribute to the man who made them great.

 

He died before I was born but I’ve always loved reading and hearing the stories about him. Good to reflect on what he achieved for the club.

 

Early in 1965, the news broke that Jock Stein would be leaving the management seat at Easter Road to take up the post at his former club and become Celtic’s fourth manager... it was at that moment that the tide started to turn in Scottish football

And exactly 60 years ago today, on March 10, 1965, Jock Stein took charge of his first match as Celtic manager, with his team duly delivering an emphatic 6-0 away win with Bertie Auld scoring FIVE of the goals.

On the anniversary of that match, which was the start of something truly special for Celtic, we take a look back to 1965, when the Hoops finished eighth in the league but still lifted their first piece of silverware under their new manager…

On January 30, 1965, Celtic played Aberdeen in a league match. It was a crushing victory for the Hoops as they recorded an 8-0 victory. John 'Yogi' Hughes scored five of those goals, with Bertie Auld, Bobby Murdoch and Bobby Lennox scoring the other three.

The following day the club announced that a new manager was to be appointed. Jock Stein, the former Celtic captain and now manager of Hibernian, would take over at Celtic Park, with his former team-mate Sean Fallon as his assistant.

Jimmy McGrory, who had been manager since 1945, was about the Public Relations Officer. The appointment was not immediate.

Indeed, Stein stayed on as boss at Easter Road until March that year, helping Hibernian knock Rangers out of the Scottish Cup in the process.

It's unlikely that the announcement was accompanied by any media fanfare. After all, it is only with the benefit of hindsight that one can acknowledge the enormity of what Robert Kelly and the Celtic board had done. The results would be quickly apparent but certainly not so in season 1964/65.

The Celtic team played St Mirren on two consecutive Saturdays at Love Street following the news of Stein's appointment. On February 6, they won 3-0 in a Scottish Cup tie - a not insignificant result as it turned out - and they followed that up with a 5-1 victory in the league.

A Bobby Lennox goal gave the Hoops victory in the second round of the Scottish Cup over Queen's Park, before another double triumph - this time against Kilmarnock.

A 2-0 home win in the league was followed by a 3-2 victory at Celtic Park saw Celtic into the semi-final of the Scottish Cup.

That cup game was to be Jimmy McGrory's last in charge of the team. He had been appointed in July 1945 and after a period of almost 20 years, he was stepping aside.

The greatest striker ever to have worn the Hoops had not quite managed to replicate his playing achievements on the managerial front, although there had been notable triumphs along the way.

The Coronation Cup victory in 1953, the league and Scottish Cup double of 1953/54 and the incredible 7-1 League Cup final win of 1957 stood out amidst the under-achievement and mediocrity of the post-war years.

The new managerial team took its place for the first time on March 10, 1965, when the Hoops played Airdrie at Broomfield.




It was to be an impressive start for Stein, with Celtic winning 6-0. John Hughes opened the scoring on 25 minutes, but it was Bertie Auld who stole the show that day, scoring five goals in a superb Celtic performance.

The Celtic team on March 10, 1965 was: Fallon; Young, Gemmell, Clark, McNeill, Brogan, Chalmers, Murdoch, Hughes, Lennox, Auld.

It's interesting to note that seven of that team were in the starting line-up two years later when Celtic won the European Cup in Lisbon.

Of the remaining four, Jimmy Johnstone was already a regular in the first-team squad, Ronnie Simpson had joined the previous year, having been sold from Hibernian to Celtic by Stein, Jim Craig had joined the club in January 1965, while Willie Wallace was signed from Hearts in December 1966 – the only Lisbon Lion bought by Stein.

Celtic's league form for the remainder of 1964/65 was erratic to say the least. Jock Stein was in charge for eight games – he won two, drew one and lost five, including an almost unbelievable 6-2 defeat at Brockville against Falkirk.

It was to be the Scottish Cup which was to prove the first glimmer of hope for long-suffering Celtic fans that things were about to get better.

The Hoops met Motherwell in the semi-final of the competition at Hampden on March 27 and the game ended in a 2-2 draw. Bobby Lennox and Bertie Auld from the penalty spot scored the goals for Celtic, while a young striker called Joe McBride gabbed both of Motherwell's goals. He would become a Celtic player at the end of that season.

In the replay, Celtic overwhelmed their opponents, with Stevie Chalmers, John Hughes and Bobby Lennox getting the goals in a 3-0 win.

The final saw Stein face one of his former sides. He had led Dunfermline Athletic to victory in the Scottish Cup when they beat Celtic 2-0 in a replay after a 0-0 draw.

Now he was in the other dug-out, in charge of the Hoops, and twice he saw Celtic go behind, only for Bertie Auld to equalise.

And with only nine minutes left, Billy McNeill rose to head home a Charlie Gallagher corner-kick to bring the trophy back to Celtic Park.

It was a wonderful day for the Celtic support but merely a foretaste of what was to come under Jock Stein – 10 league championships, including the famous nine-in-a-row, eight Scottish Cups, six League Cups and, of course, the European Cup triumph of 1967.

In addition, there was another European Cup final appearance in 1970, two European Cup semi-finals and a European Cup-Winners’ Cup semi-final appearance in 1966.

Bill Shankly is famously quoted as telling Jock Stein immediately after the European Cup final victory in Lisbon, ‘John, now you're immortal.’ Never has a truer phrase been spoken.

Jock Stein as Celtic Manager
(March 1965 – May 1978)
HONOURS
Championships: 10
Scottish Cups: 8
League Cups: 6
European Cup (1967)

GAMES
Played: 687
Won: 482
Drawn: 111
Lost: 94
For: 1,787
Against: 655

* Sean Fallon took charge of team for season 1975/76 while Jock Stein recovered from serious car crash injuries.