Part 1
In the spring of 1946, the Scottish Football Association organised a tournament to be entitled “The Victory Cup” to celebrate the end of wartime Scottish football competition and the imminent return to a normal Scottish football season. A similar Victory Cup competition had taken place in 1919 to mark the end of WW1, with St Mirren being the surprise winners.
The authorities decided the tournament would be a national one, unlike the regional set-up that had been used out of necessity for most of the conflict. The Southern League Cup competition, which Rangers had won 4 times during the war years, was reaching a conclusion at the time, and it was decided that the same trophy would be used and that the Victory Cup winners would keep the trophy permanently.
In an open draw, the 32 teams in the competition would play a first round over 2 legs, with all rounds thereafter being straight knockout. Rangers opponents were lowly Stenhousemuir, with the tie of the round seeing Hibs take on Dundee. Just 4,900 spectators saw the first leg at Ochilview on Saturday April 20th, Rangers having little trouble in a comfortable 4-1 win thanks to doubles by Jimmy Duncanson and South African forward Billy Arnison. Just 2 days later, the tie was completed with another 4-1 win at Ibrox, Arnison grabbing two more. The other goals were scored by WW2 veteran “Sailor” Billy Williamson and wartime Rangers regular Charlie Johnston. Virtually all of the country’s major teams safely progressed into round 2, with Hibs prevailing 3-2 on aggregate in their clash with Dundee, after winning the first leg at Easter Road 3-0. The second round draw sent Rangers to Broomfield to take on Airdrie.
The match took place on May 4th, just a week before Rangers were due to play Aberdeen in the Southern League Cup final at Hampden. The attraction of post war football was obvious, with a very healthy crowd of 21,600 inside Broomfield for a match that had a straightforward outcome but contained two landmarks of Rangers history. Rangers cruised to a 4-0 win, with legendary post war figures Willie Waddell and Willie Thornton sharing 3 of the goals. The other was scored by the greatest pre war goalscorer at the club, the great Jimmy Smith. This would be Smith’s 381st and final goal for Rangers, scoring in what proved to be his last ever competitive start in Royal Blue. As well as marking the end of a great Ibrox career, the match also saw the beginning of another. In the Rangers goal making his debut was Bobby Brown, signed from Queens Park and the man who would be the last line of defence for many years as part of the legendary post-war Iron Curtain.
Rangers slipped to defeat to Aberdeen at Hampden the following weekend, losing 3-2 in the Southern League Cup final in front of an incredible 135,000 people. But there was still the chance to reclaim the trophy and keep it forever, with Falkirk awaiting them in the Victory Cup quarter finals. Brockville was a tough place to visit, Rangers Hall of Fame star of the 1920s and 1930s Tully Craig an astute manager. Craig gave a debut to his most recent signing in the match, held on May 18th before 20,000 fans. In goal for the home side would be Craig’s old Rangers teammate and the Prince of Goalkeepers who had been a virtual ever-present for Rangers in the previous decade, Jerry Dawson.
Dawson was now 36 years old, but he showed he had lost little of his famous reflexes in a memorable display, keeping out his old teammates time and again. The match ended 1-1, Torry Gillick the only Ranger able to get the ball past the Ibrox legend in the Falkirk goal. The replay at Ibrox took place a week later, with 61,000 fans acclaiming their old goalkeeping hero. This time, even Jerry Dawson couldn’t stop a rampant Rangers team, who created countless chances in a 2-0 win that could have been many more. Gillick was again on the scoresheet, with the other goal scored by future manager Scot Symon. The semi-final draw had already been made by this time, the winners of the replay were to face Celtic in the last 4.
Rangers must have gone into this latest Old Firm clash full of confidence. They had beaten the Parkhead men in both Southern League encounters earlier in the season, scoring 6 goals in the process, and had also enjoyed a comfortable 3-1 win over them in the Glasgow Cup. The teams met at Hampden on June 1st 1946, and 90,000 fans watched Rangers dominate virtually the entire 90 minutes. Celtic goalkeeper Willie Miller was a man inspired, earning his team a 0-0 draw and a midweek replay. Just under 50,000 returned to Hampden on the Wednesday to see if the sides could be separated at the second attempt, with Rangers naming an unchanged team:
Brown, Cox, Shaw; Watkins, Young, Symon; Waddell, Gillick, Thornton, Duncanson, Caskie.
It would be a bruising and highly controversial game, with referee Mr Dale of Glasgow becoming briefly famous. The opening 15 minutes set the tone for the match, with some highly robust challenges from both teams. Then Rangers stepped up the pace, and were in front thanks to a wonderful goal by Willie Waddell. Celtic’s frustration at the match slipping away from them saw them question every decision against them, and the match became increasingly littered with stoppages. The Parkhead team needed a bit of luck to turn the tide, but the opposite happened as their forwards Jackie Gallacher and Jimmy Sirrell were both injured and struggling to continue.
Both players were eventually forced to retire from the field in the second half, allowing Rangers the luxury of facing only 9 opponents. A second goal seemed inevitable, and in 70 minutes, referee Dale awarded a penalty when Willie Thornton was hauled to the ground when darting into the box between 2 defenders. Any discipline Celtic still had was then lost. Captain George Paterson refused to hand the ball over to the referee to allow the kick to be taken, and after a short and angry exchange with the official, he was sent from the field. Full back Jimmy Mallan, meanwhile, had been scrubbing the penalty spot with his boot, obliterating the marking and making it impossible to see where the kick should be taken. When Mr Dale eventually placed the ball where the spot should have been, Mallan then ran into the penalty area and booted the ball into the running track. The beleaguered referee had no option but to also send him off.
The carnage on the field was now translating into trouble on the terraces. As the Celtic players again surrounded the referee to protest at being reduced to just 7 players, a Celtic fan ran onto the pitch and tried to hit the referee with a bottle. Luckily, he was wrestled to the ground before he could succeed. It took 10 minutes for the penalty to finally be taken, as police struggled to regain order in the Celtic end. George Young somehow remained focussed on the job in hand, and he coolly dispatched the ball into the Celtic net to finish the contest.
Perhaps wisely, Rangers elected to simply retain possession for the rest of the game, and were happy to get back to the dressing room when Mr Dale blew the final whistle. Unsurprisingly, the SFA carried out an investigation into the shameful scenes. Celtic’s defence included a claim that the referee had been intoxicated, and one of their players had reported smelling alcohol on his breath during the match. They suggested Dale had at one stage fallen over, and that his drunkenness had made him both incapable of refereeing and it had made his natural bias towards Rangers worse. The committee could find no evidence for this claim, and it seems incredible that anyone could seriously suggest a referee could have kept up with the pace of play between 2 top professional clubs if he had been in such a state.
Celtic were fined £50 and ordered to post warning notices at their ground on the consequences of any further crowd misbehaviour. Both Paterson and Mallan were given 3 month suspensions from football, and another player Matt Lynch was given a 1 month ban. This third suspension prompted Rangers forward Jimmy Duncanson to write to Lynch expressing his disagreement with the sentence, as he had seen nothing to warrant Lynch being punished (he never wrote to the other 2 banned players). It is maybe telling, however, that the Celtic player and his club decided not to appeal.
In the spring of 1946, the Scottish Football Association organised a tournament to be entitled “The Victory Cup” to celebrate the end of wartime Scottish football competition and the imminent return to a normal Scottish football season. A similar Victory Cup competition had taken place in 1919 to mark the end of WW1, with St Mirren being the surprise winners.
The authorities decided the tournament would be a national one, unlike the regional set-up that had been used out of necessity for most of the conflict. The Southern League Cup competition, which Rangers had won 4 times during the war years, was reaching a conclusion at the time, and it was decided that the same trophy would be used and that the Victory Cup winners would keep the trophy permanently.
In an open draw, the 32 teams in the competition would play a first round over 2 legs, with all rounds thereafter being straight knockout. Rangers opponents were lowly Stenhousemuir, with the tie of the round seeing Hibs take on Dundee. Just 4,900 spectators saw the first leg at Ochilview on Saturday April 20th, Rangers having little trouble in a comfortable 4-1 win thanks to doubles by Jimmy Duncanson and South African forward Billy Arnison. Just 2 days later, the tie was completed with another 4-1 win at Ibrox, Arnison grabbing two more. The other goals were scored by WW2 veteran “Sailor” Billy Williamson and wartime Rangers regular Charlie Johnston. Virtually all of the country’s major teams safely progressed into round 2, with Hibs prevailing 3-2 on aggregate in their clash with Dundee, after winning the first leg at Easter Road 3-0. The second round draw sent Rangers to Broomfield to take on Airdrie.
The match took place on May 4th, just a week before Rangers were due to play Aberdeen in the Southern League Cup final at Hampden. The attraction of post war football was obvious, with a very healthy crowd of 21,600 inside Broomfield for a match that had a straightforward outcome but contained two landmarks of Rangers history. Rangers cruised to a 4-0 win, with legendary post war figures Willie Waddell and Willie Thornton sharing 3 of the goals. The other was scored by the greatest pre war goalscorer at the club, the great Jimmy Smith. This would be Smith’s 381st and final goal for Rangers, scoring in what proved to be his last ever competitive start in Royal Blue. As well as marking the end of a great Ibrox career, the match also saw the beginning of another. In the Rangers goal making his debut was Bobby Brown, signed from Queens Park and the man who would be the last line of defence for many years as part of the legendary post-war Iron Curtain.
Rangers slipped to defeat to Aberdeen at Hampden the following weekend, losing 3-2 in the Southern League Cup final in front of an incredible 135,000 people. But there was still the chance to reclaim the trophy and keep it forever, with Falkirk awaiting them in the Victory Cup quarter finals. Brockville was a tough place to visit, Rangers Hall of Fame star of the 1920s and 1930s Tully Craig an astute manager. Craig gave a debut to his most recent signing in the match, held on May 18th before 20,000 fans. In goal for the home side would be Craig’s old Rangers teammate and the Prince of Goalkeepers who had been a virtual ever-present for Rangers in the previous decade, Jerry Dawson.
Dawson was now 36 years old, but he showed he had lost little of his famous reflexes in a memorable display, keeping out his old teammates time and again. The match ended 1-1, Torry Gillick the only Ranger able to get the ball past the Ibrox legend in the Falkirk goal. The replay at Ibrox took place a week later, with 61,000 fans acclaiming their old goalkeeping hero. This time, even Jerry Dawson couldn’t stop a rampant Rangers team, who created countless chances in a 2-0 win that could have been many more. Gillick was again on the scoresheet, with the other goal scored by future manager Scot Symon. The semi-final draw had already been made by this time, the winners of the replay were to face Celtic in the last 4.
Rangers must have gone into this latest Old Firm clash full of confidence. They had beaten the Parkhead men in both Southern League encounters earlier in the season, scoring 6 goals in the process, and had also enjoyed a comfortable 3-1 win over them in the Glasgow Cup. The teams met at Hampden on June 1st 1946, and 90,000 fans watched Rangers dominate virtually the entire 90 minutes. Celtic goalkeeper Willie Miller was a man inspired, earning his team a 0-0 draw and a midweek replay. Just under 50,000 returned to Hampden on the Wednesday to see if the sides could be separated at the second attempt, with Rangers naming an unchanged team:
Brown, Cox, Shaw; Watkins, Young, Symon; Waddell, Gillick, Thornton, Duncanson, Caskie.
It would be a bruising and highly controversial game, with referee Mr Dale of Glasgow becoming briefly famous. The opening 15 minutes set the tone for the match, with some highly robust challenges from both teams. Then Rangers stepped up the pace, and were in front thanks to a wonderful goal by Willie Waddell. Celtic’s frustration at the match slipping away from them saw them question every decision against them, and the match became increasingly littered with stoppages. The Parkhead team needed a bit of luck to turn the tide, but the opposite happened as their forwards Jackie Gallacher and Jimmy Sirrell were both injured and struggling to continue.
Both players were eventually forced to retire from the field in the second half, allowing Rangers the luxury of facing only 9 opponents. A second goal seemed inevitable, and in 70 minutes, referee Dale awarded a penalty when Willie Thornton was hauled to the ground when darting into the box between 2 defenders. Any discipline Celtic still had was then lost. Captain George Paterson refused to hand the ball over to the referee to allow the kick to be taken, and after a short and angry exchange with the official, he was sent from the field. Full back Jimmy Mallan, meanwhile, had been scrubbing the penalty spot with his boot, obliterating the marking and making it impossible to see where the kick should be taken. When Mr Dale eventually placed the ball where the spot should have been, Mallan then ran into the penalty area and booted the ball into the running track. The beleaguered referee had no option but to also send him off.
The carnage on the field was now translating into trouble on the terraces. As the Celtic players again surrounded the referee to protest at being reduced to just 7 players, a Celtic fan ran onto the pitch and tried to hit the referee with a bottle. Luckily, he was wrestled to the ground before he could succeed. It took 10 minutes for the penalty to finally be taken, as police struggled to regain order in the Celtic end. George Young somehow remained focussed on the job in hand, and he coolly dispatched the ball into the Celtic net to finish the contest.
Perhaps wisely, Rangers elected to simply retain possession for the rest of the game, and were happy to get back to the dressing room when Mr Dale blew the final whistle. Unsurprisingly, the SFA carried out an investigation into the shameful scenes. Celtic’s defence included a claim that the referee had been intoxicated, and one of their players had reported smelling alcohol on his breath during the match. They suggested Dale had at one stage fallen over, and that his drunkenness had made him both incapable of refereeing and it had made his natural bias towards Rangers worse. The committee could find no evidence for this claim, and it seems incredible that anyone could seriously suggest a referee could have kept up with the pace of play between 2 top professional clubs if he had been in such a state.
Celtic were fined £50 and ordered to post warning notices at their ground on the consequences of any further crowd misbehaviour. Both Paterson and Mallan were given 3 month suspensions from football, and another player Matt Lynch was given a 1 month ban. This third suspension prompted Rangers forward Jimmy Duncanson to write to Lynch expressing his disagreement with the sentence, as he had seen nothing to warrant Lynch being punished (he never wrote to the other 2 banned players). It is maybe telling, however, that the Celtic player and his club decided not to appeal.
