STV: The Football Years 1973-74. BBC 4 Top of the Pops 60s-70s.

The Football Years was interesting not only because it was mainly about Celtic’s double winning team and the European Cup semi final against ‘The Butchers of Bilbao, Athletic Madrid, which they lost, but because I remember bits and pieces of it and I was, in effect reliving my past. Similarly, the soundtrack of my young life The Jackson Five (a cartoon on Saturday morning), The Bay City Rollers posters splattered across my sister's walls and later Shawaddawaddy, Mud, T Rex, David Bowie, and of course Abba. I fancied the blonde one, but not always, sometimes I felt sorry for the brunette and fancied her instead. Brotherhood of Man, were an embarrassment, even then, but I think I quite liked their song. But I was young then It was, however, Celtic, that dominated my thoughts and feelings.

I thought Kenny Dalgish was a fanny-dancer, because my dad did. Similarly, I loved Harry Hood because my Uncle John liked him. It also helped that he scored hat trick after hat trick, usually in Cup Finals against Hibs. This is the end of the 9 in a Row era. I must have been to Parkhead because I can remember the 9 flags flying along the stand roof (or was it the Jungle?)

Perhaps the most poignant part is my dad was in the 1970s in his 50s and still fit as a fiddle. I’m more or less the same age he was then. He’d five children, well seven, if you counted the two that died and was an autocrat, but now I can understand that he kept to his back bedroom, napped and read books to give himself space. I never liked him, but I can see now that I’d be the same. Even the way that he perked up every Saturday in following the Celts, although he ostensibly not that bothered is similar. We could never support anybody else. And it hurt when Rangers beat us. Some things never change. It all seems so stupid, but that’s the way we are.

I’ve got a memory of him coming in from work and flinging his dinner up to the ceiling in delight when Celtic scored. That must have been the European Cup Final in 1967, but memory is a funny thing. Little did we know that after that 1973-74 season Celtic would never reach another European Cup semi final and with each year that passes the prospect becomes more remote. There was more chance of getting a hug off my dad.