| l'articolo di qualche giorno fa che celebra il 48° anniversario della nascita del Celtic View, ripreso dal blog di Not the View.
Happy birthday to the Celtic View, fathered by Jack McGinn and born on 11th August 1965, 48 years young today.
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The View began life as a four page broadsheet. On the front page of its first issue the editor described one of its aims as, “… We shall provide information and talking points that the national press cannot give because of the much greater demands on their space.” The big talking point of the first issue was the appointment of Jock Stein to take charge of the Scotland national team for the World Cup qualifying campaign. Jock had been in charge of the squad for two ties the previous May, against Poland (a 1:1 draw in Chorzow) and Finland (a 2:1 victory in Helsinki. Initially this was to be the extent of Jock’s involvement, but the SFA asked for his term as manager to be extended as long as Scotland still had a chance of qualifying for the finals in England and the club agreed.
Chairman Bob Kelly took the opportunity through the pages of the View to let the fans know that, “The most important aspect of our new agreement is that the SFA were willing to meet all our conditions if they could get their man. We feel we have reached an ideal compromise… if there is any conflict between the club’s fixtures and those of the association Mr. Stein will remain with his club.” Jock Stein is quoted by ‘Kerrydale’ as saying: “Naturally I am pleased with the honour but I want all Celtic fans to know that my interest will always be first and foremost Celtic’s interests. It was my football ambition to return to Celtic. Everyone can rest assured that I wouldn’t do anything likely to harm Celtic.”
The pictures on the front page were of the Scottish Cup winning team of 1965 and new signing Joe McBride who expressed his delight at joining the club from Motherwell.
Another new player had a small feature on page 2. “The youngest player on the staff is sixteen year-old George Connelly who joined us from Tulliallan and hails from Dunfermline.” Compare the modern day hype of any player with the litotes of, “For a very tall lad he is a skilful manipulator of the ball.”
The rest of the page was given over to a report on the very first Scottish Football Writers’ Player of the Year ceremony, an award won by Billy McNeill, a ‘Where Are They Now?’ column focusing on ex-Celt John McAlindon, at that time working on the groundstaff at Celtic Park, a puff for the Celtic Supporters Association and a quiz for younger readers. The accompanying text to the questions and the instructions for enetering reads like a Higher Mathematics exam paper. “In order that you younger readers will show carefulness as well as knowledge of your subject we shall look for correct spelling in all of your answers… You must write your answers in the order corresponding to the questions (1, 2, 3, 4). Then give your full name, date of birth, school and class number and home address…” The six prize winners (strictly confined to those under the age of 15) would receive a guinea. The board were obviously not going to part with them without a fight.
The View’s page 3 stunner was a large picture of “some of the trophies which adorn the sideboard in the boardroom,” and fans were informed that Stevie Chalmers shot a 77 at Milltown Golf Club in Ireland while over in Ireland for the Shamrock Rovers game, “very creditable as Steve had never seen the course before.”
The very first letters to the View appeared on page 3 as well. One was signed “Hopeful” of Glasgow who was allowed to air a grievance; he wanted some of the Pools money to be used to create a tarmac road on the approach to the turnstiles, fed up as he was of having to “wade through a sea of mud” to get to them. “And if this isn’t asking too much dare I suggest some improvement to the primitive toilet facilities.” By the time “Hopeful” got his wished for pissoir he had probably changed his name to “Despairing”, like the rest of us. The other letter was congratulating the Celtic View on starting up, the first of many congratulatory messages received on behalf of either the board or the View over the years. Yes folks, the seeds of Pravda had already been well and truly sown.
The back page message from Jock Stein looks forward optimistically to the start of the new season and there endeth the text, because the rest of the page is mostly given over to the August Celtic Pools winners and how much dosh they got. Very dull, unless you want to scan through it to see which of your neighbours you could tap money from that week.
Advertisements included one from Roberts Stores in Trongate offering a junior football pack of jersey, shorts and socks for 22/6- (That’s one pound and twenty five pence for post-decimal babies) and car dealer W.F. Kivlichan was offering a year-old Mini (one careful owner) for £410 (cost you £14,000 today… Not for the same Mini obviously, for the equivalent).
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