Celtic 1970: European Cup Final v Feyenoord – The Dream Ends

Tom Brogan rounds up his three part series on Celtic’s often overlooked 1970 European Cup adventure

Having disposed of Leeds United in the semi-final Celtic were immediately installed as heavy favourites for the final. Their Dutch opponents, Feyenoord hadn?t endured quite as many tough matches as Celtic in the earlier rounds, although they still had their significant triumphs.

They began their campaign comfortably enough, thumping KR Reykjavik of Iceland by a record 12-2 in their first round first leg match. Ove Kindvall scored a hat-trick and Ruud Geels bagged four. That result was followed up by a 4-0 win away from home.

Their reward was a second round tie with reigning champions AC Milan. In the San Siro, Milan triumphed with a 1-0 win thanks to a 9th minute goal from Nestor Combin.

The Feyenoord fans queued overnight for tickets for the return match. They had their reward as the Dutch champions levelled things on aggregate after only 6 minutes. Goalkeeper Cudicini left a Wim Jansen shot that he thought was going wide, only to watch in horror as it hit the post and went in. With less than ten minutes remaining Willem van Hanegem headed the winner.

A quarter final tie against East German champions Vorwarts Berlin awaited. Despite a one goal defeat in the first leg, the Dutchmen progressed thanks to goals in the second leg from Kindvall and Wery. They had matched their achievement of 1962/63 by reaching the semi-final.

It was to Poland and Warsaw for the first leg of the semi-final leg match with Legia. In a downpour and on a sodden pitch Feyenoord came away with a goalless draw. They finished the job in the second leg, as a third minute header from van Hanegem and a 20 yard drive from Hasil after 32 minutes gave them a 2-0 aggregate win.

This ensured that for the first time in the competition’s 15-year history, two sides from northern Europe would contest the final of the European Champion Clubs’ Cup.

Celtic?s final league match of the season was on Saturday April 18th against St. Mirren at Love Street. Feyenoord coach Ernst Happel flew in to watch the match. Although Celtic were missing Gemmell, McNeill, Johnstone, Lennox and Hughes, Happel was still impressed by what he saw in the 3-2 Celtic win. ?It will be very, very difficult for us,? he commented afterwards.

?Celtic had better not under estimate us. We are a good team and we believe we can win in Milan,? he continued. ?Our team are playing very well and we are afraid of no one. Of course we know all about Celtic. All Europe knows about their two victories over Leeds United and their win in Lisbon.? However, Happel was keen to assert that his side would not be in awe of the Scottish champions. ?But although it will be had those victories do not make us afraid of them. We have fine players in our team too and we are looking forward to the final.?

An Austrian, Ernst Happel joined Rapid Vienna as a 13-year-old in 1938, making his debut in the first team 3 years later. Between 1954 and 1956 he had a spell at Racing Club of Paris before returning to Rapid, where in total he won 7 Austrian championships. He played for his country at the 1954 World Cup finals as they made it through to the semi-finals. He would return to the finals as a player in 1958.

In the 1956/57 European Cup first round, Happel, a centre back, scored a hat-trick in a 3-1 win against Real Madrid as Rapid came back from a 4-2 first leg defeat. They would ultimately lose out in a third game in Madrid.

His first club as a coach was ADO Den Haag in Holland, who he took over in 1962, taking them to the 1968 Dutch Cup. In September 1969 he was appointed manager of Feyenoord.

On Sunday the 19th of April Feyenoord drew 0-0 with NEX in a league match as they tried to make ground on Ajax at the top of the Dutch Eredivisie.

The following day, Celtic defender Tommy Gemmell, was involved in a car crash. At around 4.15 in the afternoon his car mounted a grass verge, struck a signpost and overturned about 400 yards from his home in Kirkintilloch. Passing motorists administered first aid after Gemmell crawled out from under the wreckage. A doctor put 3 stitches into a wound in his head and Scotland physiotherapist Jimmy Steel stayed at Gemmell?s home that night to give him treatment for a thigh bruise he picked up in the crash.

Gemmell would be fit enough to play at Hampden Park on the 25th of April as 137, 438 spectators saw Scotland draw 0-0 with England. Johnstone and Hay were the other Celtic players involved in the match.

In Holland, Feyenoord drew 3-3 with Ajax. This meant that they stayed 5 points behind their rivals from Amsterdam in the race for the title. 23-year-old keeper Eddy Treytel was deemed to have been at fault for all three goals. Jock Stein and assistant Sean Fallon were at the game.

Stein said afterwards, ?I could not have chosen a better game to watch Feyenoord play in. It was vital for them and they went after a victory. I saw a lot of football from them which was impressive. Their big centre forward Kindvall will be a big danger to us. There were two more players we will have to find a method to deal with…but I?m not naming them. I don?t want to give away too much.?

Assistant Manager Sean Fallon spoke to Malcolm Munro of the Evening Times after he returned from Holland.

?A first rate team in every way,? he said of their Dutch opponents. ?We couldn?t spot any weaknesses. Did you know that they haven?t been beaten [in the league] this season? They?ll take a bit of watching in Milan.?

Feyenoord?s general manager Guus Brox gave an interview to Ken Gallacher of the Daily Record in the week before the final.

?The days of Feyenoord being a part-time team are long gone. I am certain that the wages that we pay are as good as what Celtic pay or any of the other Scottish teams. Our players are earning an average of around ?5,000 a year without any bonus payments being added.?

The Feyenoord players were on ?1,000 a man to beat Celtic.

?For the game against Celtic we have decided to pay the players the biggest bonus that they have ever earned from the club,? said Brox. ?In fact probably the biggest that any Dutch club has been offered…we are determined that we will win.?

Dutch football had only turned professional in 1954, despite organised football being played there for 50 years previously. Many clubs, however, remained primarily staffed with amateur and part-time players. As a result their outlook was amateur also. Brox was keen to emphasis that these days were long gone and that Feyenoord were a professional side.

?There was a time when most of our footballers were part-time. Today at Feyenoord we have just two part-time men in our first team pool ? the two right-backs Piet Romeyns and Guus Haak, who both work in offices. We are professionals.?

At the time Feyenoord?s average home attendance was 51,000 and Brox went on to highlight the club?s loyal following.

?Originally we asked the European Union for 15,000 tickets for the game. They have ordered another 5,000 tickets. I am certain that we will be able to outnumber the Celtic fans, even after what we have heard about the amazing support the Scots gave their team in the final against Inter Milan in Lisbon. I honestly think this will be almost the same as a home game for us.?

The Feyenoord players went into a recording studio and recorded a song for the final. Titled, ?The Feyenoord Song?, it was played round the clock in Rotterdam?s bars and on the radio.
Back in Scotland, on Tuesday the 28th of April, Celtic were preparing for the final by travelling up to Fraserburgh to play in an exhibition match in aid of the Fraserburgh Lifeboat Disaster Fund.

In January of 1970, while on service to the Danish fishing vessel Opal, the Fraserburgh lifeboat The Duchess of Kent capsized with the loss of five of her crew of six.

The little northern fishing port was buzzing with the arrival of the European finalists. Jock Stein was adamant that this was a proper game for the Glasgow side.

?This will not just be a training spin for us. We know the game is expected to be a sell out and we want to show the spectators good football.?

6,500 fans turned out at Bellslea Park for the match in which a full strength Celtic romped to a 7-0 victory. An own goal by Broch captain Doug Milne started the rout and goals followed by Wallace, Auld, Hood, Lisbon Lion Jim Craig and a brace from John Hughes.

Some local children watched the game from the chute, roundabouts and swings of a playground at one end of the field and from a garage at the other.

Hundreds of locals invaded the pitch at the final whistle to acclaim the Celtic players. The match raised ?2,000 for the appeal.

With thousands of Celtic fans planning their trip to Milan there was some good news for stay at home supporters.

Glasgow pubs were allocated a licence to serve alcohol until 11.15pm on the night of the match. There were however two conditions. The first was that publicans must apply to the Chief Constable and the Town Clerk for permission. The second condition was that the pub must have a television set.

Ernst Happel spoke to Ken Gallacher about Celtic?s strengths, as he highlighted Tommy Gemmell, Davie Hay and Jimmy Johnstone as the men his team needed to be wary of most.

?They attack. And they attack better than any other team.?

To combat this attacking strength there could be little better in Europe than Feyenoord?s mean defence. They had conceded only 14 goals in 28 league games that season. Happel was keen to deflect criticism that they were in essence a defensive side.

?We will try to play offensive football in Milan. But we would be silly if we put everything into attacking moves. We do not play stupidly. We play with some caution and clearly that is needed against a team of Celtic?s calibre.?

Even in Holland, Celtic were being touted as strong favourites. Happel dismissed this projection, suggesting that over one match it was wrong to make anyone favourites and reminded his interviewer that Celtic had already been shocked in one final that season.

?On one game though, it is different for us. After all, we can look back to Aberdeen?s result against Celtic in the Scottish Cup final. It was one game and I think they were bigger outsiders than we are for Milan.?

With the Rotterdam side?s next league game Happel made a shock team selection. For the match against DOS Utrecht Eddy Treytel lost his place in goal. Taking over the number one jersey was 36 year old Eddy Pieters-Graafland, who had already announced that he would retire at the end of the season. His inclusion was something of a surprise, as he had not played a competitive first team game since the 11th of June the previous year.

Although a chance to finish his career in the European Cup final had come his way, Peiters-Graafland couldn?t help but feel inconvenienced by it.

?This has taken me by surprise and I must try to sharpen up my reflexes,? the Dutch international said. ?It is not so good after you have played in the reserves to come back suddenly in this way. It has really surprised me. I have watched as Teytel failed before, but Happel has done nothing. Now suddenly he returns to me.?

Treytel was more succinct. ?I am bitterly disappointed,? he said.

The game ended in a one-all draw.

Celtic fans were planning their descent on Milan by any means available to them. A return flight from Glasgow or Prestwick was ?35. Fans would also travel by car, van, bike and rail. There were even supporters set to hitch-hike the 925 miles to Milan. Some Celtic fans were already in Milan by the First of May, five days before the game. When they arrived they discovered that the city was in the middle of industrial action. There was a national strike by Post Office workers and telephone operators. In addition local municipal workers and hotel workers were also on strike.

That night Celtic beat Stenhousemuir 8-0 at Parkhead in front of a 5,500 crowd. Bobby Lennox with a double, Billy McNeill, Willie Wallace, Bertie Auld, another double from John Hughes and Bobby Murdoch were the scorers.

On Sunday the Third of May the match was suddenly thrown into doubt. In addition to the workers already taking industrial action, two new strikes were announced. Staff at the San Siro stadium said that they would walk out and refuse to work the turnstiles.

Police who handled the traffic and controlled the stadium crowds announced a week long strike to start on Tuesday. After day long talks UEFA gave the Italians an ultimatum. ?Get the chaos cleared up by noon tomorrow ? or we?ll postpone the game and play it elsewhere.?

A senior UEFA official was quoted as saying, ?If the game cannot be played in Milan on Wednesday a new day will be fixed. But the venue will not be in Italy ? the match will go on in some other European city.?

A move to switch the game to Rome was turned down as there was not enough time to make the necessary arrangements.

The strikes, which were over more pay and shorter hours, would affect 30 stadium staff and 250 traffic police all employed by Milan Corporation who owned the football ground.

The Corporation ?s Director of Sport and Tourism, Signor Gianfranco Crespi said, ?The stadium strike is the real threat. It would make it impossible to stage the game on Wednesday.?

Two vital meetings were set to take place on Monday in a bid to save the game. The Corporation would meet the men?s union and backed by a personal plea from the mayor Signor Aldo Aniasi urge the men to work at least until Wednesday. The Corporation officials would then travel the 50 miles to Lake Como to update UEFA bosses on their progress.

Celtic secretary Desmond White said, ?Celtic can do nothing. The only people who can say if the game will not go on in Milan are the European or Italian Associations.?

The Celtic side had made their familiar trip down to Troon, to stay at the Marine Hotel before flying out to Italy from Prestwick on Monday the 4th of May.

The entire playing staff of 30 would be flying out. Jock Stein explained why so many players made up the travelling party.

?The reason I?m taking all my players is to let youngsters such as Dalglish, Davidson, McGrain and Gorman find out what it?s all about.? He continued, ?The earlier they absorb this type of atmosphere, while they?re not actually involved, the easier it will be for them when called on.?

Also on board Celtic?s plane would be 31 journalists, the biggest contingent of pressmen ever to accompany a Scottish team abroad. Scotland team manager Bobby Brown and Scottish League Chairman James Aitken were also official Celtic guests.

Celtic would be based in the Palace Hotel, situated on a hilltop in Verese, a small town near the lakes, 30 miles to the north of Milan.

?We will not go into Milan at all,? Jock Stein said of Celtic?s pre-match preparation. ?We have been to the San Siro stadium before, little more than a year ago, and we know all about it.?

Celtic had drawn 0-0 with AC Milan at the San Siro in the quarter-finals of the 1968/69 European Cup.

?In that sense, the ground is not going to make too much difference to the game,? Stein continued. ?What could affect the players is too much attention from the supporters.?

?We would like to have peace and we would like to have rest for the players before the game. That is why we are living well out of the city. To go to the San Siro before the game could upset our build up.?

Ernst Happel switched his side?s Headquarters, on the banks of Lake Como, for the same reason.

?It is impossible to keep up their concentration when the fans arrive,? he said of the players. ?It is not good for the players and we have been forced to move.?

?Originally we thought that we would be able to keep our hotel a secret,? he added. ?But the name leaked out in Holland and so we have had to change. It is the only way for us.?

Feyenoord and Celtic had an estimated 25,000 fans each in Milan. Both sets of fans sang in the main square at Piazza Dumo, as the Italian police looked on smiling.

Glasgow?s banks reported that they had run out of lire as Celtic fans exchanged their cash for the Italian currency. The Bank of Scotland on St Vincent Street exchanged one million lire (?700).

The Milanese mayor won the police over early on in the crucial meeting on Monday. They agreed to be on duty at the stadium. The matter of who would attend to the floodlights would be ironed out later in the day as talks went on.

With Manchester City having won the European Cup Winners? Cup and Arsenal defeating Anderlecht in the two-legged final of the Fairs Cup, pressure was on Celtic to complete a British clean sweep of European trophies.

At their hotel they received a telegraph from the British Prime Minister. It read:

?Best wishes for your success in Milan. Make it a European hat-trick for British football. Harold Wilson, Downing Street.?

Celtic Chairman Sir Robert Kelly spoke to the media before the game about his side?s chances.

?If we play to our best form then we will win all right. I know this. But footballers are not like pieces of machinery for other businesses. We have to beat them as individuals. They are human beings and are not infallible.

I said long ago that Celtic would be likelier than any other side from Britain to win the European Cup and I was laughed at.

Others made the mistake of trying to copy the Continentals? style of play. We decided that if we were to succeed it would be on our own terms.?

At a meeting in Milan before the game, UEFA voted to scrap the practice of tossing a coin to decide the outcome of a tied match. Drawn ties would now be settled by a penalty shoot out.

Celtic, who had contacted UEFA to protest about this method of settling drawn European ties after their win over Benfica, welcomed the move. Jock Stein said, ?Penalty kicks are a part of the game. There is skill involved in taking penalty kicks, and surely it is better to have skills winning than sheer luck. As a club we welcome this.?

In conversation with Malcolm Munro on the eve of the final Jock Stein was quietly confident of a second European Cup for Celtic.

?I?ll know after ten minutes if we are going to beat Feyenoord tomorrow night. I?ll know by the way the defence has settled, how the middle of the field is faring and how the runners are going. That?s all I?ll need ? ten minutes.?

The position Celtic found themselves in of being favourites didn?t sit well with Stein.

?You know I have the feeling we are being overrated and the Dutch underrated. That?s dangerous. I don?t like it. It?s 1967 in reverse. Then we went to Lisbon starry-eyed, the underdogs not expected to win. Now Feyenoord are in that position and we are the fastest gun in the West. We are the target everyone wants to see knocked over.?

On Celtic?s chances of winning the trophy Stein added, ?I?d like to win ? if we deserve to win. I?d like to win in style.?

The pre-match betting had Celtic 3-1 on and Feyenoord 4-1 against.

Before he turned in for the day Stein said, ?Our only fear in this final is fear of ourselves, not of Feyenoord who we feel we can beat.?

The European Cup Final, San Siro Stadium, Milan, 6 May 1970, att 53,000

Feyenoord (1) 2 Celtic (1) 1 AET

29′ 0-1: Gemmell

31′ 1-1: Isra?l
117′ 2-1: Kindvall

Feyenoord (trainer Ernst Happel)
Eddy Pieters-Graafland; Piet Romeijn (Guus Haak 107), Theo Laseroms, Rinus Isra?l (captain), Theo Van Duivenbode;
Franz Hasil, Wim Jansen; Willem Van Hanegem, Henk Wery, Ove Kindvall, Coen Moulijn

Celtic (manager Jock Stein)
Evan Williams; Davie Hay, Jim Brogan, Billy McNeill (captain), Tommy Gemmell; Bobby Murdoch, Bertie Auld (George Connelly 77);
Jimmy Johnstone, Bobby Lennox, Willie Wallace, John Hughes

Celtic?s line up included seven men who had played in Lisbon in 1967. Bertie Auld was actually playing in his third European final having been part of the Birmingham City side who lost to Roma in the Fairs Cup final of 1961.

Stein?s team talk began by reminding his Celtic players that 12 months earlier Ajax had slumped to a 4-1 defeat to AC Milan in the final. Five of the Dutch players had virtually collapsed with nerves Stein told his team.

?These Dutch players will be shitting themselves,? he said of Feyenoord. Van Hanegem was dismissed as being ?a slower Jim Baxter, with a right foot just for standing on.?

The game would be refereed by Concetto Lo Bello, the Italian who had taken charge of Celtic?s game with Benfica earlier in the tournament.

On the History of Football series of DVDs, Van Hanegem recalled lining up for the final and looking across at the Celtic players.

?They were almost arrogant,? he says. ?But that?s trivial. It?s the way they were standing around, very full of themselves, doing a bit of warming up in a little circle. Besides the fact that we were motivated already, that gave us an extra push.?

Ernst Happel had seen Celtic himself along with his scouts and he was in no doubt where the danger lay in Celtic?s side. Jimmy Johnstone. Happel ordered that he be double marked.

After the death of Jimmy Johnstone in March 2006, Willem van Hanegem wrote in the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad of how Feyenoord effectively stifled Celtic?s biggest attacking threat that night.

?[Our scouts?] reports did not fill us with confidence,? he wrote. ?They said that there were no flaws in the Celtic team and that Johnstone was the playmaker. He was unstoppable they said.

?Well, we?ll see about that? we thought. We had an excellent left full back, Theo van Duivenbode, but he could not be expected to stop ?the Flea? by himself. We tried to isolate him – Coen Moulijn prevented the supply of ball from David Hay, I blocked Bobby Murdoch, and their number ten, Bertie Auld, was also tied up.

Even after we had cut off the supply to Johnstone we followed him everywhere. He didn?t get a chance to attack van Duivenbode, which was just as well because you had no chance when confronted by his control and movement. If he got going, he could easily leave three or four men in his wake.?

Whenever Celtic got the ball there were almost always three Feyenoord men around Johnstone.

Murdoch, Connelly and Auld had bossed the midfield in both matches against Leeds, but on this occasion they were second best to Hasil, van Hanegem and Jansen.

Jock Stein had told Jim Brogan that he would be Celtic?s secret weapon. When they had to defend he would drop back, but in attack he would race upfield to join in. He would be the last player Feyenoord would expect in the attack.

Unfortunately in the very first attack Brogan picked up a knock that proved to be a chipped ankle bone. Playing the rest of the game with a limp he was unable to provide Billy McNeill with adequate cover in defence to deal with the pace of Kindvall and Moulijn, though he gave everything he had.

Bobby Lennox had the ball in the net after 18 minutes, but it was disallowed for offside.

Franz Hasil was the main danger to Celtic throughout the match and his influence spread right through the Feyenoord team.

Yet it was Celtic who took the lead on the half-hour. Willie Wallace was fouled 20 yards out. Murdoch back-heeled the ball at the free-kick and Gemmell fired home one of the low shots he had become famed for. The goalkeeper could claim to have been unsighted by the referee, who had to jump out of the way of Gemmell?s blistering shot.

The lead only lasted two minutes, however, as Celtic failed to clear their lines at a free kick. As the ball bounced around the penalty area Rinus Isra?l, the 28 year old Feyenoord captain, eventually headed it home.

Van Hanegem then slowed the game to a walking pace, knowing full well that Celtic?s tactics were to go full steam ahead.

Evan Williams was in sensational form in goal for Celtic, pulling off several inspired saves to keep the Glasgow side in contention. Celtic were also rescued by the post and the crossbar on occasion.

The game stayed one-all at the end of 90 minutes and entered extra-time. If the match remained level after 120 minutes there would be a replay two days later.

John Hughes had made up for a poor first-half by putting in a lively shift after the interval. He had a great chance to score in the first minutes of extra-time, as he went through on the keeper, but Pieters-Graafland pulled off an exemplary save.

?I honestly believe that my career effectively came to an end at that moment,? Hughes said later of his miss. ?I was never really forgiven.?

With only three minutes remaining Billy McNeill misjudged a long free-kick hoisted into the Celtic penalty box. He lost his balance and as he was falling he threw his hands up to stop the ball, the only time he can remember taking such action during his career.

Lo Bello failed to blow for a penalty as Ove Kindvall took possession of the ball. He took it round a defender and lobbed it over Williams to make it 2-1 Feyenoord. The referee would later claim he had played the advantage rule.

There was no time for a shell-shocked Celtic to get back into the match. The European Cup was on its way to Holland for the first time.

After the match Jock Stein had this to say, ?We played badly. That sums it up. They won and they deserved to win.?

He went on to remark, ?You can carry a team with two, or even three of the players off form. We had too many out there who were just not with it.?

As the Dutch team celebrated in the dressing room next door Stein gave his assessment of the match. ?They played as a team without a weakness. Unfortunately we had too many players off form, too many bad players tonight. But I don?t want to take anything away from Feyenoord. They played well, better than us. Naturally I am disappointed.?

The press were eager to discover from Stein the reason why his players had performed so poorly in one of the most important games of their career so far. But Stein refused to comment. ?I know the reasons. But they remain between myself and my players. I am not going to criticise them publicly.?

As Celtic?s players sat in stunned silence in their dressing room their counterparts from Rotterdam were in a raucous mood. Van Hanegem was even wearing a Celtic supporter?s tammy.

Winning goalscorer Kindvall spoke to Ken Gallacher in the dressing room showers.

?I could see that McNeill was not going to reach the ball in the air when the free kick was sent in,? he said of his winner. ?I moved round him and got to the ball just ahead of the keeper. I was surprised that the Celtic defence were not harder. I felt that I got more room to play than I had expected?but their goalkeeper was magnificent.?

Ersnt Happel has this to say, ?I felt we deserved to win. We made more chances. I was very pleased with the way Mr. Stein accepted defeat. He was one of the first to congratulate me. This is sportsmanship.?

Van Hanegem, again in Algemeen Dagblad, told of Jimmy Johnstone?s reaction at the final whistle.

?What I will always remember is that he came up to me at the end of the match, a tough battle it had been, and he told me that we deserved to win and wished us all the best. You are a big man if you can react like that immediately after losing a European Cup final.?

In Glasgow, police were called to a bar at Hospital Street in the Gorbals at 11.20pm. As a customer, 19 year old John Knotts, chose that moment to shout and swear at the pub?s TV set as he watched Kindvall?s winner drop into the net. The following day at Glasgow Central Police Court he was jailed for 60 days. When asked to explain his conduct, he replied, ?Because Celtic got beaten on the final whistle.?

There were plenty of theories as to why Celtic had lost. John Hughes told Archie MacPherson that the answer lies at the end of the Leeds United match at Hampden. ?I think that?s when it all started to go astray,? he said. ?For I think that night Jock Stein thought he had won the European Cup itself. If ever a man got it wrong from that moment on, it was him.?

Stein?s assessment of Wim Jansen before the game was that he ?could only play for 20 minutes before disappearing and he wouldn?t be seen again.?

?Jock was right enough about that,? said Bertie Auld. ?I never did see Jansen after that. He got faster as we seemed to get slower. He was just too good for me.?

In his autobiography ?Lion Heart? Tommy Gemmell suggested that Celtic?s preparation wasn?t as sharp as it could have been. ?We were maybe a wee bit over-confident,? he writes. ?I would say we probably under-estimated Feyenoord as we were the hot favourites to win. The team talk and the information that we got from Jock about Feyenoord weren?t up to the usual high standard. He played it a bit too low-key I felt and never really built us up in the way you would expect before a European Final.?

He said in an interview with The Scotsman in 2003, “There was a fatal underestimation of Feyenoord, and I mean from top to bottom, at Celtic. That kind of complacency is not a good thing to take into a European Cup final. When we saw them knocking the ball about even in the early stages, we thought, ?Aye, aye, what have we got here??

“Looking back, you wonder how we could have got it so wrong. I mean, Feyenoord already had Dutch internationalists such as Wim van Hanagem, Wim Jansen and Rinus Israel, as well as the Swedish striker, Ove Kindvall. In time, I believe the rest of them won caps, too, so they had some terrific players.

Gemmell could not deny that they were played off the park by a superior footballing side on the night.

?They hardly ever wasted a pass,? he said of Feyenoord in ?Lion Heart?. ?Every one of them could use the ball, keep it, control it and pass it again. Several of their players were Dutch internationals so it was no disgrace to be beaten by them. It was a disgrace the way we played though because it was totally out of character for us. Normally we would control most of a match but we couldn?t get the ball off Feyenoord and they ended up dominating the game.?

Bobby Lennox was another to put their poor performance down to the wins over Leeds. He told Eugene MacBride in his book ?Talking with Celtic?, ?I think, probably at the back of our minds, we thought ?we?ve beaten Leeds, that?s us!? But to be fair, Feyenoord on the night, Feyenoord were brilliant.?

Lennox was once asked by the Evening Times about the worst moment of his career.

?After the final whistle in Milan,? he answered. ?Standing watching the group of lads from Feyenoord celebrating and parading the cup.?

In ?Hail Cesar? Billy McNeill said, ?In truth they slaughtered us on the night. Feyenoord were by far the better team.?

In Graham McColl?s book ?The Head Bhoys?, Davie Hay said of Stein, ?The only one time when he probably failed in all his time ? and we played our part in that ? was the European Cup final against Feyenoord, where I think we all underestimated the opposition after doing so well against Leeds United. Strangely enough, despite the fact that we didn?t play well, we could almost have won that game ? not that we would have deserved it. I think we were all to blame for losing that game. It was maybe the one error in his long career.?

Hay elaborated on his feelings about that night in an interview with the Sunday Mirror in August of 2006.

?Strangely, I really believe we should have won the European Cup that season. We beat Leeds United home and away in the semi-finals and probably thought that was the job done.

My old pal George Connelly was in midfield in both those games…and I thought he should have played in the final.

Jock Stein didn’t often get it wrong, but I think he did that night in the San Siro in Milan as we prepared to face Feyenoord who, to be honest, were a bit of an unknown quantity. He dropped George who had been so influential in the games against Leeds.

I hate to admit this, but probably we under-estimated the Dutch side. Leeds had been hailed as the best club side in Europe until we took them apart.

They might as well have just given us the trophy that night after we beat them 2-1 with goals from John Hughes and Bobby Murdoch.

Feyenoord were there for the taking and we should have seen them off.

It didn’t help us that we took the lead…that further enhanced the notion that we just had to turn up to win.

In truth, we were overwhelmed by the Dutch as they stormed forward and we actually gifted them the winning goal in extra-time.

I remember gentleman Bobby Murdoch throwing the ball to an opponent after the referee awarded them a free-kick just yards into our own half.

The Dutch guy placed the ball on the turf and immediately fired it into our penalty area. Billy McNeill didn’t have a chance to position himself properly and palmed the ball into the air. Before the ref could give a penalty kick, Ove Kindvall latched onto the ball and fired it beyond the helpless Evan Williams.?

Practically the only player who didn?t think the blame lay with Stein was Jimmy Johnstone. He told Archie MacPherson, ?No one can say a word about Jock on this game. We just didn?t play well. If we had played to our strengths we would have won that game.?

But was defeat down to underestimating their opposition? Was it simply that they had been outplayed by a superior side on the night? Or was there another explanation? There were suggestions that the team were caught up in a dispute about bonuses. The players had been told that they missed out on commercial benefits from their 1967 European Cup win and should not make the same mistake twice.

Players were also allegedly dissatisfied with the win bonus on offer from the Celtic board and squabbled amongst themselves about how the cash was to be shared out.

Some rumours through the years suggest that players were arguing with Stein in the dressing room before kick-off and even that they were willing to stay in there and forfeit the game if the expected bonuses were not forthcoming.

Theses suggestions have always been denied by the players.

Tommy Gemmell angrily refuted such allegations in an interview with The Scotsman from 2003.

“A lot of nonsense was talked and written about that,” Gemmell said. “Do you know what our so-called commercial exploitation amounted to? We did a team picture, for which we received the hefty sum of 50 quid each. That was it, nothing else. The reports that there was unrest in our camp as we tried to cash in on our achievements were garbage.

“As for the other story, that we were squabbling with the club over our supposed win bonus, let me tell you something. In my entire career at Celtic Park – and I was there ten years – we were never once told what our bonus would be for winning a cup-tie, either at home or in Europe.

“We knew what the league bonuses were, because we picked them up every week. But for the cups, we were never told, and that applied in Lisbon, as well. I think big Dessie [Desmond White the club secretary] waited to see who we had drawn in the next round and calculated what it would be worth before our bonus was determined.”

Billy McNeill said in ?Hail Cesar?, ?There was no squabbling over the share out of cash, because there was no cash to share out.

For reasons best known to himself Jock astonished us by employing the services of a Glasgow journalist, Ian Peebles, to act as an agent on the squad?s behalf.

Even if Ian Peebles had managed to generate a bit of cash, money would never have been more important than winning.?

Archie MacPherson was one of the journalists with the Celtic squad at the time.

He felt that Stein?s usual authoritative manner had deserted him. In its place was a much more relaxed approach, allowing players to socialise with journalists, to lounge in the sun and allowing Peebles, who had written a book about the 1967 European Cup win called ?Celtic Triumphant?, to advise the players.

MacPherson elaborates in his book Jock Stein – The Definitive Biography.

?Players were carrying on their negotiations about money and sponsorship deals helped by a journalist, Ian Peebles, who certainly had leanings towards Ibrox. That in itself, given Stein?s sensitivity and full awareness of journalistic allegiances, was surprising. All this was being played out in front of and with the permission of the manager.?

The day after the defeat Ian Peebles announced a new syndicate involving Celtic?s first team pool.

He said the players had formed the syndicate 24 hours after the win over Leeds United in the semi-final. Peebles reckoned that despite the defeat Celtic were still the biggest name in British football. Collectively, he said, Celtic?s first team pool could make between ?50,000 and ?70,000 a year from interests outside football.

?There?s nothing sinister about this,? Peebles said. ?The syndicate had the blessing of Jock Stein who appreciated that there was extra money to be picked up commercially.?

The Celtic players and fans? misery didn?t end when they left the San Siro. Malpensa Airport saw more than 3,000 fans from both Celtic and Feyenoord all struggling to get a flight home. Some fans who had went to the airport straight from the stadium were still stuck there 18 hours later.

Workers at the airport, situated 25 miles outside the city, had gone on a lighting strike and no planes were being allowed permission to land. Phone clerks went out on strike too, so Scottish fans could not get calls back to home. Fans, officials, players and their wives were all delayed amid chaos as airport staff failed to take control.

One airport official said, ?The traffic is far more than we expected. We simply can?t cope.?

In five hours only five planes took off, as airport authorities refused to get fans onto planes. The British Council intervened to help those stranded.

A Celtic fan commented, ?It has been realty terrible at the airport. We could take defeat, but not the way we?ve been treated here. You?d think a bomb had hit the place.?

The following season Feyenoord went on to win the World Club Championship beating Estudiantes de la Plata of Argentina 3-2 over two legs. Feyenoord?s European Cup win ushered in the era of Dutch dominance as their rivals Ajax won the next three European Cups.

The 1970 match was not to be Ernst Happel?s last engagement with a European Cup final. Eight years later he took the Belgian side Club Brugge to Wembley where they lost to Liverpool. In 1983 Happel led SV Hamburg to victory over Juventus to become the first man to manage two different teams to European Cup victories. Happel also managed the Austrian and Dutch national teams, taking Holland to the 1978 World Cup final.

Sadly he died of cancer in November of 1992 at the age of 66. After his death the Praterstadion in Vienna, home to the Austrian national team, was renamed Ernst Happel Stadion.

Celtic 1970 European Cup Photo Gallery