Before the draw for the semi-final was made, Celtic had already decided to move their home leg from Celtic Park to Hampden in order to accommodate the large number of fans eager to see the game.

Jock Stein spoke about his hopes for the draw, ?Sure, I?d like to miss Leeds, for I feel an all-British final would be a terrific morale boost to our country.?

But he was not to get his wish, as the draw in Rome paired Celtic with Leeds United, with the first leg at United?s Elland Road ground.

Leeds had started their first European Cup campaign in style, disposing of Lyn Oslo 10-0 at home and 6-0 in Norway. In the second round they knocked out Ferencvaros of Hungary, the team they had beaten in the 1968 Fairs Cup Final, winning 3-0 both home and away.

In the quarter-finals they came up against Standard Liege, who had disposed of Real Madrid. They triumphed in Belgium thanks to a Peter Lorimer goal. The job was finished with an eightieth minute Johnny Giles penalty at Elland Road.

The 1969/70 season began for Leeds and Celtic with a friendly at Celtic Park. 65,000 turned out to see a thrill-a-minute 1-1 draw. Jock Stein said afterwards ?I?m as happy as if we had won 3-0.?

Just hours after the draw was made Leeds?s Secretary Keith Archer announced that Celtic would be allocated only 6,000 tickets for the first leg match. This was met with dismay from Celtic fans.

Celtic Supporters? Association Secretary Hugh Delaney said, ?I don?t think the allocation is at all fair to our fans. Leeds will be able to get many more tickets for the match at Hampden.?
20,000 fans were expected to want to travel down from Glasgow, so to be allocated less than a third of that number was a blow for the supporters.

?We have to consider our own fans,? said Archer. ?For these big games we can attract 48,000 fans and they are OUR fans. They have to come first so we simply couldn?t give away any more of our tickets to Celtic.? He continued, ?I know that Celtic could probably fill half the ground down here, but there?s nothing else we can do.?

Jock Stein began to get his head around what the draw had thrown up in a conversation with Ken Gallacher of the Daily Record.

?It would have been a wonderful final for British football if it had happened,? Stein said, “but it hasn?t and we have to carry on. It was because I was thinking that way, thinking about an all-British final that I hadn?t looked at the semi-final possibility. I honestly felt that we were destined to meet in Milan.?

?But now I have adjusted to the fact that we are drawn together in the semi-final and I can assure you that I can scarcely wait for the games to begin.?

He went on to outline just how much regard he had for Leeds United.

?We know Leeds and we respect them too, but we are not frightened of them. I think these will be great, great games.?

Down south the Leeds manager Don Revie didn?t appear to be too enamoured with the way the draw had went.

?It?s the draw that we didn?t want to face right now. We have a tremendous respect for Celtic and for Jock Stein and we would have been happier to meet in the final.?

The 47-year-old Stein, and Revie, five years younger, were good friends. They had attended the 1969 British Open at Royal Lytham and St Anne?s together, enjoying Tony Jacklin?s victory in a rare British win.

Leeds were no strangers to Scottish football either, having beaten Hibs, Kilmarnock, Rangers and Dundee in the Fairs Cup in recent years.

They also had a few Scots in their ranks, including Scotland captain Billy Bremner. ?I feel that it is in our favour to meet Celtic in the two games of the semi-final rather than in a one match final,? Bremner said. ?Our consistency can count for a lot in a two-leg tie. Celtic would have been more dangerous in the final.?

Bremner was a boyhood Celtic fan, as was winger Eddie Gray. In Gray?s autobiography ?Marching on Together ? My Life with Leeds United? he recalls that not everyone in the Leeds camp had such respect for the Glasgow side.

?When the draw was made,? Gray writes, ?I remember saying [to my team-mates] ?I wouldn?t get too carried away if I were you. This is going to be a more difficult hurdle for us than you might think?.?

At the same time as the European Cup draw, UEFA also made the draw for the qualifying groups of the European Championships. Scotland came out of the hat along with Belgium, Portugal and Denmark. With typical Scottish optimism, SFA Secretary Willie Allan said, ?It could have been worse.?

The Scottish press were bubbling with excitement about ?The Battle of Britain? and billed this, ?the greatest European tie of this or any other season.?

Maurice Lindley, Leeds United?s Assistant Manager travelled up to Glasgow to see Celtic in action against Ayr United on the Saturday. After the 3-0 Celtic win he said, ?I saw enough to realise that this match with Celtic will be the toughest we have ever had to play in almost 10 years of European competition.?

Tickets went on sale for both legs of the tie that weekend. Leeds had doubled the price of semi-final tickets compared to those for the quarter-final match against Standard Liege. That didn?t stop the large number of Celtic fans who travelled down to Elland Road to pick up tickets for the first leg match.

Eventually Leeds restricted ticket sales to season tickets and token holders only.
On the Sunday 25,000 Celtic fans queued at Parkhead for the 60,000 tickets that were on sale, many of them sleeping outside the ground overnight. A coach load of Leeds United fans were among the first 500 to snap up tickets. That first group of 500 supporters could purchase up to 4 tickets each. From then on fans were restricted to two tickets each.
Every ticket available for sale sold out, with thousands of stand tickets being held over for sale at an undisclosed home game.

?Those 60,000 tickets were just the start,? Jock Stein said. ?Now we will be giving out thousands of tickets to the various supporters? clubs throughout the country and the Association.?

The following night, Billy Bremner was named Player of the Year by the English Sportswriters? Association. Hours later Leeds played their FA Cup semi-final replay with Manchester United at Villa Park. The two sides battled out a pulsating 0-0 draw after extra time. A draw was exactly the result Celtic wanted. This meant that Leeds and their rivals from across the Pennines would have to replay again two nights later.

The fixtures were now beginning to pile up for Leeds. After the second FA Cup replay on Wednesday they would have Southampton to play on the Saturday, Derby County on Easter Monday, then Celtic on the 1st of April.

In midweek 33,000 watched Celtic slump to a 2-1 league defeat to Aberdeen. This meant that they would have to wait until the weekend to play Hearts at Tynecastle in order that they get the point they needed to win the title.

Jock Stein went down to Bolton to see Leeds break the deadlock in their FA Cup epic with Manchester United by winning 1-0 thanks to a Billy Bremner goal in the 9th minute. This would set them up for a final with Chelsea on 11th April.

There was good news for the Celtic support who couldn?t make it down to Yorkshire for the first leg. STV announced that a specially lengthened Scotsport, lasting 45 minutes, would feature highlights of the game as the main item.

On Saturday the 28th of March 1970 Celtic drew 0-0 with Hearts to clinch their 5th league title in a row. Billy McNeill, Bertie Auld and Jimmy Johnstone were rested. In England, Leeds, fielding six reserve players, lost 3-1 to Southampton, as they began to see their title challenge slip away.

In preparation for the big game Celtic went down to Troon, running on the beach on Sunday and putting on a practice match in the grounds of their hotel, to the great delight of the crowds of holidaymakers. They would take the Leeds train from Kilmarnock on the Tuesday, staying in Harrogate before the game.

In the Easter Monday match with Derby County, Don Revie fielded an entire team of reserves. They lost the match 4-1, practically ending their hopes of back-to-back titles.

The English League was now threatening an enquiry. Revie claimed, however, that there was nothing he could do. He told Ken Gallacher of the Daily Record, ?The first team players who played for me against Southampton on Saturday, have been ruled out by the club doctor. Five of these players, Jack Charlton, Eddie Gray, Peter Lorimer, Allan Clarke and Paul Madley were too tired, both mentally and physically to play in this game.?

He went on to say that the advice of the club doctor was paramount to him. ?The doctor examined the players and told me that they must have rest. Taking part in so many games recently had tired their bodies and their minds.?

Another seven players, including Billy Bremner and striker Mick Jones were at Elland Road having treatment for injuries.

Leeds claimed that they had asked Derby to postpone the match, only for Derby?s directors to refuse. However Alan Hardaker, Secretary of the Football League, stated later that he had presented Leeds with a variety of convenient dates to rearrange the fixtures, but that Leeds had rejected them all.

Despite being allocated only 6,000 tickets, 10,000 Celtic fans were travelling down to Leeds by any means available to them.

British Rail ran a ?Football Special? departing Glasgow at 12.31 on the afternoon of the match, arriving at Leeds 5 hours later. The price for a return ticket was 60/-.

A local travel agent had chartered a plane for 100 fans, flying down in the afternoon and returning to Glasgow after the game.

Of the Celtic fans? arrival The Yorkshire Post wrote, ?Nothing had happened quite like it in Yorkshire since the Roman legions left York.?

The entire Celtic support arriving from all parts of Britain was estimated at 13,000.
20 players were in the Celtic travelling party. In addition to those players who had a chance of playing, Lisbon Lions Ronnie Simpson, John Clark and Stevie Chalmers would also travel.

John Clark was the first of the Lions to lose his place in the team, as Jim Brogan broke through to claim a place in defence. Evan Williams was now Celtic?s first choice in the goal Simpson had kept so well for a number of years. Chalmers was still a first team player, but had suffered a leg break in the League Cup final the previous October. He would make a comeback in the reserves against Motherwell, a few days later.

On the train down to Leeds, Celtic had a special carriage all to themselves.

The popular Scottish comedian Lex McLean had managed to get a seat in that carriage as well. Lex was as famous a Rangers supporter as there was in that day. Among the many songs he wrote celebrating Celtic?s deadliest rivals was ?Every Other Saturday?, a song that is still sung at Ibrox to this day.

Despite his love for Rangers, he was travelling down to watch the match and entertained the squad with his bawdy humour. Tommy Gemmell wrote in his autobiography Lion Heart, ?Mclean made the journey from Glasgow to Leeds feel like 5 minutes. He was non stop, unbelievable.?
Jock Stein later repaid the compliment by appearing on McLean?s TV show, ?Lex?, playing the straight man in a sketch.

Don Revie was at the railway station to welcome the Celtic team as it arrived.

Revie told a press conference before the match, ?We must win this first leg game. A draw will be no use to us at Hampden. We must get either a 1-0 or a 2-0 victory at Elland Road.?
Tony Queen, a Glasgow bookmaker, gave odds for the first leg game as Leeds 4-6, Celtic 4-1 and the draw 5-2.

There was a conundrum for Celtic before the kick-off. As both teams normally wore white stockings the away team would have to change. Though Celtic claimed they thought Leeds had agreed to do so. This meant that Celtic did not have an adequate replacement with them, but never fear Leeds stepped in to offer them an alternative. They could wear blue or red.
?We?ll wear the red stockings,? said Jock Stein, sensing a little bit of gamesmanship from Leeds. ?Under their floodlights, they?ll show up more orange than red and our supporters will think that we?re wearing the colours of the Irish tricolour. That?ll please them.?

Semi-Final ? First Leg
1st April 1970, Elland Road (Att: 45,505)
Leeds United 0-1 Celtic
(Connelly 40 secs)
Leeds ? Sprake, Reaney, Cooper, Bremner, (Bates), Charlton, Madley, Lorimer, Clarke, Jones, Giles, Gray.
Celtic ? Williams, Hay, Gemmell, Murdoch, McNeill, Brogan, Johnstone, Connelly, (Hughes), Wallace, Lennox, Auld.

Celtic?s team cost ?44,000 to assemble, while the cost of the Leeds side was ?300,000, with striker Allan Clarke, then Britain?s most expensive player, costing ?165,000.

Despite all the problems Leeds had with their players? fitness the only first team regular missing was defender Norman Hunter.

The book ?Rhapsody in Green - Great Celtic Moments? by Tom Campbell and Pat Woods, quotes Stein discussing the anticipated clash between Jimmy Johnstone and Leeds left-back Terry Cooper with a friend. Stein said, ?They say this Cooper is a great attacking full back, but he?s never had this tricky wee dwarf running at him for 90 minutes.?

Leeds had not lost a goal in Europe all season. This record was to fall inside 40 seconds. A high ball bouncing through the middle was misjudged by Madley and fell to George Connelly who hit a shot that deflected off a Leeds defender and crept in at Gary Sprake?s left hand post.

Curiously this was the first away goal Celtic had scored in Europe throughout the campaign.
50 seconds into the second half Jimmy Johnstone swung over a cross and George Connelly again fired a low shot past Sprake. The goal would not stand, with the referee awarding a free kick outside the box. The decision was presumably for offside against Johnstone, though the crowd were baffled, as Terry Cooper appeared to play him onside.

This let off seemed to spur Leeds into action as they came at Celtic with Billy Bremner their driving force.

But their failure to combat Celtic in midfield, with Bobby Murdoch commanding, led them to resort to a long ball tactic. This bore no fruit as Billy McNeill and the rest of the defence continually out-jumped Jones, Clarke and Charlton.

In 68 minutes Billy Bremner went up for a high ball in the penalty box. As he came down he landed on his head, and he was taken off with concussion.

Mick Jones missed a great chance when Jim Brogan made an uncharacteristic error by slicing a clearance. The ball fell to the England international who, with the goal at his mercy, miss-hit his shot and watched as the ball spun harmlessly past the post.

It was Celtic?s night as Jimmy Johnstone ran and weaved all evening, taking the pressure off his defence at crucial moments.

After the game Jock Stein said, ?They have laughed at our football long enough down here. I?m not talking about Leeds United or Don Revie, they have respect for us. I?m talking about the critics and commentators who have rarely given credit to Scottish football. Maybe tonight?s result will stop them laughing.?

Despite the result Stein remained cautious adding, ?Remember this is only half time, we have another 90 minutes to play at Hampden.?

Don Revie commented ?Celtic played very well. They are a great side. It makes it very hard for us at Hampden, but nothing is impossible in football.?

Liverpool boss Bill Shankly, who was at the game, was impressed by Celtic?s performance. He said, ?Every manager in England should have been here tonight for an object lesson on how the game should be played.?

Even though he was still suffering from concussion Billy Bremner was the first Leeds player in the Celtic dressing room to congratulate them.

To rub salt into Leeds?s wounds they discovered that Everton had secured the victory they needed that night to take the English First Division title.

Although some publicans in Leeds feared trouble and closed their doors, there were only a handful of arrests mainly for supporters being drunk and disorderly. The most unusual perhaps was a 39-year-old Celtic fan from Methil in Fife. He approached a police officer on a horse, shouting and waving his arms, before making several attempts to jump on the back of the police horse. He was arrested and later fined ?10 for being drunk and disorderly.

Celtic were flooded by letters from those publicans and hotel proprietors who had dared to remain open, as well as members of the public in Leeds commending the fans.

The Scottish press went overboard the next day. Hugh Taylor wrote in the Daily Record, ?It was a victory?that should have been accompanied by the pipes of the Scots Guard, a roll of drums and a commentary by Olivier.?

On that Thursday afternoon 5,000 fans packed Glasgow Central train station to see Celtic return.

The station?s switchboard had been bombarded all day, with fans asking when the team?s train was arriving. British Rail had set up a special path, ringed by metal barriers to control the crowds.

As Celtic?s train pulled into the platform they burst into song. A tremendous roar erupted when Jock Stein emerged.

Jock Stein said, ?This is a tremendous reception. Once again the Celtic fans have proved how great they are.?

A bewildered George Connelly said, ?This homecoming is really something.?

Amazingly Leeds played in a league match that night, their 8th game in 16 days. The two-all draw with West Ham had a horrific outcome as defender Paul Reaney broke his leg. Not only did this put an end to his domestic season, Reaney, then the holder of a solitary England cap, had to pull out of Alf Ramsey?s 28-man squad for the Mexico World Cup.

Jimmy Johnstone was being hailed as a genius by the media on both sides of the border, all keen to suggest he was at least the equal of George Best. He spoke to Ken Gallacher of the Daily Record. ?They can put all the valuations they like on me,? he said. ?They can compare me with any player they like. I don?t care?I know people are saying I must be worth a quarter of a million pounds, but as far as I am concerned I am a Celtic player ? and I always will be a Celtic player.?

?It was my best game at European Cup or international standard. But the whole team played so well. We wanted to do it so much.?

On Saturday April the 11th both sides were involved in their national cup finals. Celtic suffered a shock defeat, going down 3-1 to Aberdeen. A result the Daily Record called ?probably the biggest upset in a final since the war?.

Leeds were held to a 2-2 draw with Chelsea in a game played on a heavy sand covered pitch, the Horse of the Year show having been at Wembley the previous week.

At Parkhead on Monday April 13th, while a few hundred people watched Celtic Reserves beat Partick Thistle Reserves 4-1 inside, 4,000 fans queued up outside for 5,000 extra tickets for the big match. Leeds had failed to shift their allocation of 10,000 and had advised Celtic that they would send up to them the unsold tickets.

The tickets were advertised as going on sale at 4 o?clock, but they failed to arrive and at 10pm a loudspeaker announced, ?Leeds have let us down very badly?. The dejected fans took the news well and trudged home.

Leeds claimed there had been a misunderstanding; they had still been selling tickets throughout the day. Secretary Keith Archer assured fans that, ?Five thousand five hundred 12 shilling tickets are now on their way to Celtic.?

The tickets arrived at Celtic Assistant Manager Sean Fallon?s house just after midnight. They went on sale at 7pm on the eve of the match.

Willie Wallace injured himself in training and was ruled out of the game. In addition Captain Billy McNeill was struggling to shake off an ankle knock.

In the day prior to the second leg the Leeds players relaxed by playing bingo and carpet bowls.

At Leeds?s East Kilbride hotel Revie said, ?We have been told that no team who are a goal down at home in a European Cup semi-final have ever reached the final of the tournament. But we won?t let that worry us because we are history makers, we are record breakers. And if ever a record can go, then this one can.?

Semi-Final - Second Leg
15th April 1970
Hampden Park, Glasgow (Att: 136,505)
Celtic 2 -1 Leeds United
(Hughes 47, Murdoch 51 - Bremner 14)
Celtic ? Williams, Hay, Gemmell, Murdoch, McNeill, Brogan, Johnstone, Connelly, Hughes, Auld, Lennox.
Leeds ? Sprake (Harvey), Madley, Cooper, Bremner, Charlton, Hunter, Lorimer, Clarke, Jones, Giles, Gray.

Leeds United, indeed no other side in Europe, had ever faced such a one-sided support as this one. With only 4,500 fans travelling up from Yorkshire, the support for Celtic was overwhelming. The attendance was a record for a European Cup match. It still stands to this day and is unlikely ever to be beaten.

The Scottish press suggested that for at least this match, bigotry in Glasgow had been forgotten, as many Rangers fans had gone to the game to support Celtic.

In Archie MacPherson?s book ?Jock Stein - The Definitive Biography? he describes Stein?s team talk. ?Revie?s shitting himself. I?ve never seen that man as nervous in all my life. He?s as white as a sheet. If he?s like that, what do you think his players are like? They are there for the taking, believe you me.?

John Hughes had missed the 1967 final and Stein, legendary for his unique ways of individually motivating his players, took him aside before this match.

?I know you were sick about missing the last final, but if you do well for me tonight and we reach the final, you?ll definitely play.?

Celtic forced six corners in the opening eight minutes as the Scots attacked right from the kick-off. Murdoch, Connelly and Auld took control of the midfield and created a succession of chances.

In 14 minutes, Leeds captain, Billy Bremner, edged forward with the ball before smashing in a shot from around 30 yards out that flew into the net off the angle of the post and the crossbar. Despite Celtic?s domination, the aggregate scores were now level at 1-1.

Bremner later recalled that after he had scored the massive crowd fell silent. He confessed to being disconcerted at the funeral atmosphere his goal had momentarily created. It was, however, the one moment during the match where his team-mates could hear him urging them on. He said, “The crowd then began chanting: ‘Celtic … Celtic’. It was the type of noise that made many an Englishman freeze in internationals.”

Cooper and Madeley would both clear the ball off the Leeds goal line in the first half as they hung on in the face of constant Celtic pressure.

It stayed one-nil Leeds until half-time. Were the game to remain this way, with the sides tied on aggregate at one-all, there would be no coin toss as there was earlier in the tournament. It was decided that a replay would take place at Hillsborough in Sheffield. The venue was decided after the toss of a coin between Stein and Revie at the end of the first match.
But that would prove to be unnecessary as within minutes of the restart, Celtic were well in command of the tie. On 47 minutes, Davie Hay took a short corner, Auld whipped the ball across goal and there was John Hughes to head into the net.

Moments later Gary Sprake, the Leeds goalkeeper, was carried off following a challenge from Hughes. On came future Scotland international David Harvey in his place. He was hardly on the pitch before it was 2-1 to Celtic. Bobby Murdoch played a one-two with Johnstone then lashed the ball past Harvey.

Jimmy Johnstone ran both Terry Cooper and Norman Hunter ragged. They had swapped positions after Hunter complained to Cooper about his ineffective marking of the winger. ?Kick him!? Hunter was said to have shouted to his colleague.

?You try and kick him!? was Cooper?s retort.

In ?Hail Cesar? Billy McNeill recalls meeting Terry Cooper on holiday years later. The 20 times capped England international reflected on his encounters with Jinky. ?I still have nightmares. I reckon I had good anticipation, but I could do nothing to take the ball off Johnstone.?
With Celtic holding a 3-1 aggregate lead, there was no way back for Leeds. Celtic were the first British team to make it to two European Cup finals.

Jock Stein resisted his players? attempts to hoist him onto their shoulders at full-time.
Bertie Auld procured a bowler hat from a fan and paraded the field wearing it. He recently told the Evening Times about the night. “Incredibly emotional,” he said. “We seemed to grow by the minute after they had taken the lead and to prove, home and away, that we were better than a much-vaunted Leeds was a lovely feeling.”

The crowd didn?t seem to want to go home and they stayed on the terraces after the game chanting Jock Stein?s name.

There was one man that Jock Stein wanted to acclaim. That man was trainer Bob Rooney. ?I don?t know how Billy McNeill was able to play tonight. It?s a miracle. And Bob Rooney is the man responsible for it. I don?t know how Bob did it. Really Billy played that game on one leg. It was a tremendous performance from him. In any other game I would not have risked him.?
After shaking hands with the many well wishers Stein retreated to a small back room in Hampden to wind down.

Hugh McIlvaney reported in The Observer that Stein turned to him in that room and said, ?What about that, then? What did you think of that? It wasn?t bad, was it? Eh??

A despondent Don Revie said, ?We lost our chance at Leeds. When we scored I thought we could do something, but Celtic are a very, very good side. I sincerely hope they win the European Cup again.?

The English press were now fulsome in their praise for Celtic. The Daily Telegraph wrote ?They may have only one world-class individual player, Jimmy Johnstone, in what is essentially a team. But what an individual! What a team!?

The Daily Express said, ?Britain couldn?t have a team of greater splendour to represent them than Celtic.?

And in The Guardian, ?Celtic last night were superior in every phase of the game. The midfield was theirs to dominate and exploit as Giles and Bremner gave best to Auld and Connelly. But the man of the match was again the tiny but wily Jimmy Johnstone.?

In Norman Hunter?s autobiography ?Biting Talk? he paid tribute to Celtic. ?I played in a lot of European games for Leeds United. That Celtic side was probably the best I played against.?
He wasn?t the only Leeds player in awe of Celtic. In David Saffer?s book ?Sniffer ? the Life and Times of Allan Clarke?, Clarke said, ?Looking back they were the better team over the two matches?there?s no doubt we were jaded?That said Jimmy Johnstone was magnificent.?

Tommy Gemmell had this to say in ?Lion Heart?, ?These games against Leeds were two of the easiest that I experienced in all the years I played in European football with Celtic.?

Celtic were in the final, the favourites beaten and the Scottish media in a frenzy. Before the Leeds match the great Helenio Herrera, then manager of AS Roma, tipped Celtic for the final, but added, ?Watch out for Feyenoord.?

Read Part 1: From Beginnings To The Quarter Finals

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