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Celtic v Racing Club of Argentina – 1967

Daniel McDonagh

Tuesday, September 18th, 2007

1 Leave a comment on verse 1 0 Game 1
Celtic 1 v Racing Club 0

2 Leave a comment on verse 2 0 In October of 1967
Racing Club of Argentina came to Hampden
To face the mighty Glasgow Celtic
For football’s World Club Championship.
The South American Champions
Brought their antics and their tactics
That the dictionary of football
Describes their skill of kick, punch and spit.

3 Leave a comment on verse 3 0 But as the Celtic players discovered
And as Hampden Park witnessed,
The Argentine’s lacked Latin charm
As they callously attacked each Celtic man.
Encouraged by the Hampden roar,
From a corner kick the Celts did score,
Big Billy McNeill met the ball
As his header flew into the Racing Club goal.

4 Leave a comment on verse 4 0 Game2
Racing Club 2 v Celtic 1

5 Leave a comment on verse 5 0 A team of muggers and villains,
A team of treacherous cheats,
The Celts flew out to Buenos Aires
Again, against Racing Club they would meet.
The uneventful second leg
Of this World Championship series
Would be fought once more on foreign soil,
In the Avellanede Stadium trenches.

6 Leave a comment on verse 6 0 As the team and fans made the 7,000 mile trip
They were escorted by police past the ghettoes and shacks,
Drums and rockets were a cacophony of noise
As a bedlam of fanatics welcomed the Bhoys.
During the warm-up, Ronnie Simpson took a fall,
Struck on the head by a piece of metal,
Celtic went down by a score of 2-1
How their 106 fans wished to go home.

7 Leave a comment on verse 7 0 Game 3
Racing Club 1 v Celtic 0

8 Leave a comment on verse 8 0 The playoff game in Montevideo
Was not a game for the heart & soul,
As Racing Club took to an act of war,
Were the referee lost, all control.
The game started of quite smoothly
Until Jimmy Johnstone got the ball
And the Uruguayans, who sat as neutrals,
Saw attempted murder in every tackle.

9 Leave a comment on verse 9 0 Racing Club knew every trick
As Celtic learned from every kick,
A frustrated Johnstone took an early bath
Using his elbow as a weapon, he received the red card.
Then Bobby Lennox got his marching orders
That the referee could not explain,
And then the dismissal of big John Hughes
Left Celtic to play with just eight men.

10 Leave a comment on verse 10 0 Big Tommy Gemmell, who scored in Lisbon,
A man who played with pride,
Lost control and chased a Racing player
And put his boot up the Latin player’s backside.
A 1-0 game was won by Racing
With Cardenas scoring the winner,
The Argentine’s drank cheap wine
And celebrated in Buenos Aires.

11 Leave a comment on verse 11 0 The Celtic squad returned back home
Their pride was black and blue
A fine was imposed on the red card offenders
Who took part in the Montevideo duel,
But as the headline later read
From the magazine, Miroir du Football
It proclaimed “Racing Club of Buenos Aires,
Champions of Violence, Treachery and Theatricals.”

Source: http://footballpoets.org/poems/celtic-v-racing-club-of-argentina-1967/