I see from the club website that ex-player and manager Bertie Auld has died.

He played for us in the ‘C’ division days of 1954-55 scoring three times and again in Division 2 in 1956-57 (eight goals.) His spell as manager came in 1988 – not the most successful in our history but by no means the worst.

Bertie’s time with the Sons was not his most famous nor long-lasting football achievement. He is among that select band of immortals known as the Lisbon Lions who won the European Cup in 1967 in that annus mirabilis for Glasgow Celtic. For that alone he will be remembered in Scotland as a giant of the game.

In all as a player he won that European Cup (and had another appearance in the final in 1970,) 5 Scottish League Championships, 3 Scottish Cups and 4 Scottish League Cups. With Birmingham City he was in an Inter-Cities Fairs Cup final and won the football League Cup in 1962-3. Despite that pedigree he only ever gained three caps for Scotland (plus two more for the Scottish League.) As a manager he won the Scottish First Division twice; with Partick Thistle in 1975-6 and Hibernian in 1980-1.

His is a sad loss to Scottish football.

Robert (Bertie) Auld: 23/3/1938 – 14/11/2021. So it goes.

I was profoundly sad to read from the club’s website that the midfield inspiration of the Sons Second Division title winning team of 1971-72, the side which ended a fifty year absence from top flight football, Charlie Gallagher, has died. It is safe to say that without his promptings from midfield Sons may not have won promotion that year.

He was probably past his best when he joined the Sons from Celtic, with whom he’d been in the Lisbon Lions squad, mainly as an understudy to Bertie Auld, but was, according to the grey sage Bob Crampsey, much underrated. Nevertheless he gave that Sons team a creative midfield presence essential to its eventual success.

His displays included a magnificent performance in a 3-3 draw away at Partick Thistle in the League Cup quarter-final of 1970. We won the second leg 3-2. In the semi-final we drew 0-0 with Celtic (a team which had reached the European Cup final less than six months before) after extra time before losing the replay 4-3 in extra time after being 2-0 down in the 90 minutes. (In that extra time, at 2-2, one of their goals ought to have been disallowed for a crossed ball going out before coming back in. The linesman raised his flag but put it down again when the ball went in the net. After that goal they scored again and started to try to play keep ball. Once we got it back we did the same but then launched a counter attack up the left which ended with us scoring in a supreme get-it-up-ye moment.) Charlie played so well that it is said during the game Celtic’s manager Jock Stein told his team to “break that bastard’s legs.”

From that 71-72 promotion season I remember in particular Charlie’s free-kick against Alloa at Recreation Park – my first ever visit to the Recs. The goalie had lined up his wall and the ref was striding away towards his vantage point when Charlie carefully moved the ball aside about six inches. He then blasted it past the wall and the keeper for the only goal in a 1-0 win. (Vital at the end of the seaon, but all those wins were.)

This photo (taken from Pie and Bovril) shows Charlie about to score from a free-kick against Celtic in the Drybrough Cup (remember that?) Sons players also in frame are Johnny Graham and Kenny Wilson. Great days.

His skill from free kicks meant they were almost as good as penalties. In all Charlie scored 29 goals for the club.

He will forever be remembered as a club legend.

Charles Gallagher: 3/11/1940 – 11/7/2021. So it goes.

Barely a week after the sad demise of Billy McNeill comes news of the death of his Lisbon Lion teammate Stevie Chalmers.

But Chalmers wasn’t just a teammate. He was the scorer of that goal. Not the best, not the most spectacular, not the most intricate, but perhaps the most precious goal in the history of Scottish football. It was the foot of Chalmers that deflected the course of Bobby Murdoch’s shot into the Inter Milan net and so made sure that Celtic would become not only the first (and so far – and likely forever – the only) Scottish, but also the first British (and first North European) team to lift the European Cup.

Bill Shankly is reported to have said to Celtic’s manager that day, Jock Stein, when they won the trophy, “Jock, you’re immortal.” Well, so too is Chalmers; or at least his memory is.

Looking at his Wikipedia page I see Chalmers turned out for the Sons of the Rock (for one game; as a trialist. Looks like we missed a good one there.) Our loss was Celtic’s gain. He ended up the club’s fifth highest ever goalscorer.

Thomas Stephen (Stevie) Chalmers: 26/12/1935 – 29/3/2019. So it goes.

One of the Scottish footballing giants of my youth, Tommy Gemmell, has died.

Famous for that goal for Celtic in the 1967 European Cup Final which immortalised not only Jock Stein (as Bill Shankly said about the team’s manager) but the entire 11 as Lisbon Lions. It’s impossible to imagine a team composed of 11 players all born within thirty miles of their home stadium achieving anything similar these days. As it was nothing any of them did after that could ever surpass it.

Celtic did reach the European Cup Final again in 1970 and again Gemmell scored but Celtic lost that one in extra time.

Here’s some colour footage of the 1967 game along with interviews with the players from many years later:-

Thomas “Tommy” Gemmell: 16/10/1943 – 2/3/2017. So it goes.