The 9iar Chronicles - Season (not) Ten 197475 The Celtic Underground

The 9iar Chronicles - Season not the ten 1974/75
 
Two Cups - but no Ten-in-a-Row
League Position – 3rd - finishing 11pts behind Rangers who won the League and 4pts behind Hibernian
League Cup – Winners
Scottish Cup – Winners
Drybrough Cup - Winners
European Cup - First Round   Celtic were to miss out on a world record of ten consecutive League championships this season and had to be content with the two domestic cups and the Drybrough Cup in it's last year. This season saw the retirement of Billy McNeill and the departure on free transfers at the end of the season of the last true veterans of the golden age with the release of Jimmy Johnstone and Jim Brogan. The only remaining Lisbon Lion at the end of the season was Bobby Lennox.
 
Celtic did not travel abroad for any pre-season games this season but used the Drybrough Cup and domestic friendlies to sort the team out. There was an embarrassing one-off trip to West Germany to play Schalke 04 in Gelsenkirchen which ended in the joint highest defeat under Jock Stein so far. Interest in the Drybrough Cup was faintly raised when the final threw Rangers and Celtic together with the game ending in a draw and Celtic winning the rights to the Cup 4-2 on penalties. This was the last season this Cup would be played though it would return in 1979. The performances were somewhat jaded and lacking in enthusiasm one normally expected from a Celtic team but this was put down to a short inter-season lay-off period with the World Cup and Scotland's involvement in that also taking place during the shut down. Added to this would be that Danny McGrain had returned from the World Cup having been diagnosed diabetic.
 
The League Cup saw Celtic in Group 4 with Motherwell, Dundee Utd and Ayr Utd. The format had been changed with one team qualifying from each group for the Quarter finals and the rather silly offside rule used in the Drybrough - only being offside beyond the 18 yard box - persisted with even though it was disliked by all. In the second game Celtic received a shock losing to Ayr Utd. The jaded performances were for real and Jock Stein found himself with three immediate problems :- a goalkeeping crisis, a vulnerable defense and the strike force misfiring. These all needed to be addressed. None could be addressed with immediate effect. Celtic, however, duly put the results together to qualify for the quarter finals with a game in hand in the Group Satge and were drawn against Hamilton Academicals managed by ex-Celt Eric Smith. A 2-0 win at home followed by a 4-2 away win saw them comfortably through to face Airdrie in the semi final. This was a turgid affair settled by a single goal from Stevie Murray in the second half. Hibernian had also made it through all the way and the final was a classic Celtic performance with Dixie Deans scoring a hatrick as well as Joe Harper also getting a hatrick and ending on the losing side.
 
That was one Cup in the bag done and dusted by the end of October. Already Celtic had seen George Connelly walk out and state that he was quitting football. He did relent and returned to train and eventually win a starting place again in November and December. But the assessment of the team had seen Jimmy Quinn, Vic Davidson, Jimmy Bone and Andy Lynch all told that they could leave on frees. Also by this time Celtic found themselves out of the European Cup at the first hurdle. A 1-1 draw at home achieved after the sending off of an Olympiakos player was not enough and in the flare and smoke of the Athens game Celtic went down 2-0.Olympiakos were an unfancied side and they duly made their own exit at the next round. Was this an indication of European fragility? The side that had won the big cup, made the semi final twice and had been described as European attack masters looked woefully out of sorts.
 
What happened in the League to lose the tenth successive title is really a continuation of the faul