Battle of Montevideo: Celtic Under Seige

By Brian Belton

The 1967 World Club Championship decider between Celtic and Racing Club of Buenos Aires was one of the most violent and controversial matches of all time. Three Celtic players and two from Racing Club were sent off in total. A fourth Celtic player was dismissed but amid the chaos got away with staying on. The game descended into farce, with the Uruguayan police forced to take to the pitch with batons to separate the brawling players. Pictures released of the match met with shock worldwide, but while an embarrassed Jock Stein fined his players, those from Racing Club were rewarded with new cars. This book tells the story of a real clash of soccer cultures when a group of young British men journeyed into the unknown.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Apr 23, 2008
• ISBN: 9780750956765

Book preview

Cup.

INTRODUCTION

‘The artist cannot attain to mastery in his art, unless he is endowed in the highest degree with the faculty of invention’ – Charles Rennie Mackintosh, architect, born 70 Parson Street, St Rollox, Glasgow

INTERCONTINENTAL CUP – FIRST LEG:

The Celtic and Racing Club captains shake hands before the kick-off of the first leg in Glasgow, 18 October 1967.

Jimmy Johnstone, a Celtic legend.

Official match programme from the Celtic v. Racing Club match at Hampden Park on 18 October 1967.

The game began the way it would continue to the end. In the eighth minute, the home side made what looked like a justified appeal for a penalty. Well inside the box, Basile had scythed down Johnstone. However, Señor Gardeazábal gave a free-kick, inexplicably on the edge of the penalty area. A few minutes after this, Racing Club’s goalkeeper provoked a huge bellow of anger and contempt from the crowd. He thrashed about in seemingly excruciating pain on the six-yard line following a challenge by McNeill after the clearance of a corner kick. Only seconds later Cejas denied Auld with a fine save executed with great theatrics, demonstrating phenomenal healing powers from the apparently near-fatal damage he had experienced an instant before.

The referee was also an early victim of Racing. He awarded a sequence of free-kicks to the home side but appeared taciturn when it came to imposing more stern discipline on the visiting side as they upped the physical level of their game to toxic proportions that more than a few times warranted the offender’s dismissal. It was clear that the Racing players were taking turns of duty to target and effectively mug the Celtic men. This gave Señor Gardeazábal a difficult challenge as far as isolating individual perpetrators of wrongdoing. This being the case, the South Americans aggravated the Scots by fragmenting any attack directly at its foundation, dislocating potential progression of play and/or preventing Celtic from developing an effective pattern of forward movement.

The game had its ups and downs in South America.

This showed that Racing had fears that they lacked the character to face Celtic in open, flowing play but it produced a match that faltered between fractured events, created by blatant time-wasting, consistent fouling, hold-ups for the treatment of ‘injury’ and arguments about refereeing decisions. All this resulted in Celtic being frustrated and therefore distracted.

Racing Club’s defence and midfield seemed to know no bounds in their aggression. There was fifteen minutes of the first half left to go when Bobby Murdoch was the victim of first one and then another atrocious, purposeful foul. He was hurt and his effectiveness had plainly been diminished. This was more than unusual, as Bob was noted for his power, resilience and intelligent application. However, he was an obvious target as the pivot of Celtic’s frontline; slow or stop him and you would hit his team hard. It was pretty obvious that the Argentines knew that.

Over five-dozen fouls were acted on by the referee, most were for infringements against Celtic. Johnstone got the worse of it, although he hurdled over mad tackles aimed at him like missiles and dodged a hail of swiping kicks, but of course more than a few of his assailants hit their target. This demonstrated that Jinky scared the South Americans to death and, despite the concerted attack on him, he showed himself as the master of the combined assassination force and he was a constant source of anxiety for the visitors.

Johnstone, Lennox, Murdoch and O’Neill at the Victoria Plaza hotel, Montevideo.

Rubén Díaz had been given the daunting assignment of shadowing Johnstone, a huge responsibility given that Jimmy was seen as Celtic’s most potent weapon by the Argentines. An accomplished man-marker on the left, Díaz was tough but also intelligent and versatile, being able to play almost anywhere in defence. As such he was quite a significant figure in the Racing side. Born in Buenos Aires on 1 January 1964, Rubén Oswaldo Díaz Figueras was nicknamed Panadero (baker) as his father was the owner of a bakery, and he began his professional career with Racing in 1965. He was a member of the side that claimed the Argentinian League Championship in 1966 and the team that were victorious in the Copa Libertadores the following year.

However, although Díaz followed the Celtic winger wherever he went, the defender was totally outclassed by ‘Wee Jimmy’. He was consistently reduced to try and tackle Johnstone prior to him receiving the ball, or lurk until the final fraction of a second in order to assess whether to plough into his target or allow one of his colleagues to bushwhack the ‘Viewpark Wizard’ (none of whom were better at stopping James Connolly Johnstone than Rubén the Ripper).

While Johnstone’s treatment was the cause of much outrage amongst the Celtic fans, a specific episode incensed the watching Glaswegians. Jimmy had coaxed the ball to the right touchline and tore beyond Juan Carlos Rulli, but in a moment that mixed anxiety with brutality in the South American, he dived into the Celtic winger with the latest of late tackles. Before Jimmy hit the ground Oscar Martín was on him, executing a sickening plunge with feet and knees that made contact with Johnstone at waist height.

Playing for Scotland against England, Jimmy Johnstone demonstrates the skills that led to him being targeted by Racing Club.

As a consequence of this double broadside on the Celtic flankman, a colossal scrum ensued between the players of both teams. This proved to be a great distracting tactic that allowed Martín to make himself scarce immediately after making contact with his prey. While the fracas continued, Jimmy lay motionless. The only punishment for the bullying malevolence was a warning for Rulli.

Throughout the first half Billy McNeill – taking a prominent role in set-pieces – had been a consistent threat. Ten minutes into the second half it was he who so nearly broke the stalemate. He made contact with Auld’s free-kick and almost gave his team a well-deserved lead, flicking a snappy header goalward, only to be denied by the post.

But the home skipper was up for the corner kick from the right with twenty minutes of the game to play. John Hughes dug in a towering but penetrative cross and it was sweetly met by Parkhead’s very own Caesar. He soared imperially to make a lengthy, arching header. The goal was just reward for Billy, as every time he had moved in on a set piece he had been hampered, bumped, buffeted, held, pushed, and generally obstructed. McNeill was overjoyed. As the ball rolled around at the rear of the net he was gesturing jubilantly in the direction of Basile. The Racing defender was also subject to some Glasgow vernacular that he probably didn’t totally understand but certainly gathered the meaning of. The motivation for this was evident when McNeill came off the park at the end of the game with a corking black eye by way of an Argentinian elbow that he had picked up as he prepared for the Hughes corner.

Ronnie Simpson still asleep at breakfast? Buenos Aires, October 1967.

Celtic did all they knew to find a second goal but on eighty minutes the Argentines began to risk an offensive. The way they went about this contradicted everything they had done up to that point. Their passing was immaculate and for the first time they posed the Celtic defence some real problems. In a hectic five minutes Celtic’s defence was twice breached. Basile, fortunate to still be in the game given his unrelenting foul play, sent a fierce drive over the bar when he might have scored and in the final sixty seconds Rodríguez, from close range, struck the ball straight at Ronnie Simpson. The keeper did well to spread himself to stop the shot. But in the end, Racing ran out of time.

As an exhibition of sporting competition the first Intercontinental Cup game between Celtic and Racing Club had some worth. However, as an example of what a football match might be – especially a game that was for a world crown – to call it less than distinguished would be overstating its merit. For the most part, the Argentines sent the ball everywhere and anywhere with ruthless desperation, although on a few occasions they did manage to work the ball out of defence with commendable technique and notable skill.

The Celtic defence, although hardly tested before the dying moments of the game, could not be faulted. They held fast when they might have been drawn into running at their opponents’ goal in frustration. They concentrated on vigilant and sensible marking, occasionally allowing McNeill to add his weight to the attack for corner kicks.

The inability of the referee to get to grips with the situation, together with the cynical attitude of the South Americans, destroyed any chance of making the encounter one to remember in terms of its aesthetic excellence. Racing appeared ready to go to any lengths just to stop Celtic and grab the advantage for the fixture back in Avellaneda. This attitude had much in common with most Argentinian football teams, both in the domestic leagues and the national side. The will to win, even by means that push the boundaries of acceptable sporting behaviour, is ingrained. The Argentine professional is brought up with this and there is no need for a manager to pursue players to adopt this attitude; by the time they have broken into first-class football they have infused the directive as part of the game’s culture in Argentina. To British and probably European eyes, the type and level of fouling can seem pusillanimous, indeed against everything that football is about. But, to judge anything through the lens of cultural norms is to express a bias. However, sometimes a bias is needed as the severe absence of the same in itself creates an alternative prejudice.

According to Ronnie Simpson, the Celtic goalkeeper in that game:

They were scared of us. Teams play dirty mostly because they can’t play, but that wasn’t the case with them. They could play well. The other reason why a team will play dirty is because they are frightened that the other team are better than them and they think the only way they can win is by cheating. I think that’s how they were thinking.

Even before the match they looked nervous. They either stared at you or couldn’t look you in the eye. I think they were scared before they got to Glasgow and even more frightened at Hampden Park. But that is what killed the game as entertainment. It was all very annoying. They were annoying.

During the whole course of the match, the Racing forwards hardly got within shooting distance of Simpson. Close to eighty minutes of the game was taken up with furious assaults on the Racing half. The few moments of what passed for Racing attrition (within the laws of the game) were pallid in comparison. This made Celtic look as if they were in total control, but of course, the South Americans did what they had set out to do and, with luck on their side, limited the home team to a single goal.

The Celtic fans left with mixed emotions. They were of course delighted to see their team win but were understandably worried that one goal would not be enough to take to Los Estadio Juan Domingo Perón. But many would also have been left perplexed by what they had seen. Racing had shown they were a side capable of footballing beauty but had chosen to lower themselves into a mire of viciousness. If this was what they were like away from their homeland, what would they be capable of in their own backyard?

After the match, the grey-haired Racing coach Juan Pizzuti declared: ‘We can do better than that. But that game is over now; it is completely finished and in the past.’

I started writing this book just over forty years ago now. It was inspired by the extraordinary events in a city far away and of course, long ago. And it does seem now like a legend or a myth, but one I lived, although looking back it has a dream-like quality. The notes I originally wrote have disintegrated – although they have been transcribed on almost every generation of computer – and others are barely comprehensible, written on cigarette packets from the 1970s, a bus ticket from the 1980s and beermats with a history too disjointed to put any definite dates to. I have school exercise books full of scibblings and pads of every description bought in places as far apart as Glasgow W.H. Smiths and the Hong Kong University. They were written on every habitable continent on the face of the Earth and at