Ronnietheranger
Well-Known Member
After reading Mo_Tx_TruBlu’s excellent (as usual) ‘Eddie Rutherford’ tribute last week in which he mentions the subject, it got me thinking about where I had read about it before & spurred me on to digging into it a little more.
In 1989, BBC sports commentator Archie MacPherson published a book titled ‘Blue & Green, A Personal Look at the Glasgow Derby’. Each chapter addresses a particular match that MacPherson sees as significant for one reason or another. The first chapter in the book, ‘Peace In Our Time’ deals with the league cup match played at Ibrox on August 27th 1949, which is mostly remembered it seems for THAT Cox/Tully incident. Many of the quotes that follow are taken from this book, which I picked up many years ago and where I first heard about this clash.
According to the Glasgow Herald of Monday August 29th, the temperature in Glasgow as the teams took the field at Ibrox 2 days earlier in front of 95,000 supporters was a sizzling 75 degrees, not your average west of Scotland summer’s day! Those old woolen jersey’s worn by the players in those days must have been a real joy to play in that particular Saturday.
The line-ups were as follows:
Rangers
Brown, Young, Shaw, Cox, Woodburn, Rae, Waddell, Findlay, Thornton, Duncanson, Rutherford
Celtic
Miller, Mallan, Baillie, Evans, Boden, McAuley, Collins, McPhail, Johnston, Tully, Haughney
Referee
A.B. Gebbie of Hamilton
The Rangers line-up had a bit of a different look to it that day with the news that Sammy Cox was at right half & not playing in his usual left half role. This put him in direct opposition to Charlie Tully, the Celtic inside left who seemingly had given Ian McColl a torrid time of it in the first match in the east end 2 weeks earlier, which had ended in a surprise 3-2 victory for Celtic. After the days events at Ibrox had unfolded, cynics would suggest that Cox was put there as a ‘deterrent’ to Tully and to try to intimidate the Celtic man. Clearly a reaction of a more innocent time as such a line up change in today’s game for whatever reason would raise few eyebrows. However the real circumstances of the change were much more innocent than the cynics would suggest, as Sammy Cox himself later recalled, ‘An hour before kick off Ian McColl walked into the dressing room wearing a big heavy coat and a muffler round his neck. Remember this was August & the weather was marvelous. He announced he had a terrible cold & wasn’t fit enough to play. He hadn’t even phoned in to warn us about it. We couldn’t believe it. Mr. Struth took one look at me and said “Sam, move over to right half & get Willie Rae out of the stand in your position.” Now we all knew that Willie, realizing earlier he wasn’t going to be playing, had something like a 16 course meal at The Ivy restaurant before the match, so you can imagine he was in a right good condition for it! But it had to be done. That’s how I came to be playing right half that day.’
The Herald’s coverage of the game, was penned by someone known simply as ‘Our Football Correspondent’, but who’s reporting of the game seems tinged with some bias towards the visitors. He reports that ‘Celtic looked much more likely to lead’ and ‘a McGrory type leader would have reveled in the chances supplied’. This despite not giving many examples of these ‘chances supplied’ and the fact that the Celtic keeper Miller had made a ‘magnificent double save from Findlay’. Then, after about 30 minutes came the clash between Cox & Tully, that some claim changed the game.
The Herald refers to the incident as ‘a foul by Cox’ and goes on later to say that ‘There is no doubt at all as to what caused the (crowd) trouble – the foul committed by Cox, Rangers right half-back on Tully, the Celtic inside left, after 30 minutes play and the astonishing attitude of the referee in ignoring the offence & actually waving play on.’ The article then goes on to cite previous crowd violence by Celtic fans at a previous OF game which resulted in their stadium being closed as punitive action by the SFA. It then shamefully ends with this gem, ‘So far as Saturday is concerned neutral members among Scottish football legislators should have no trouble in apportioning the responsibility for the trouble.’ So, it’s not the fault of the drunken louts on the west terracing but the referee, or worse Sammy Cox himself?
In MacPherson’s book, there are several accounts and opinions of the incident. Charlie Tully had unfortunately passed at the time this book was published, however Sammy Cox gave his recollection, ‘I went for the ball & turned, wanting to push it out of the penalty area. I knew Tully was close by me and I was certainly determined not to give him the freedom that Ian McColl had at Celtic Park. But as I kicked it, I felt this sharp dig on my ankle and knew it was Charlie. I turned and kicked him. I admit that. I kicked him just above the shin-guard and said “Don’t do that to me again”. It was a jab with the toe more than anything else and I was surprised to see him rolling around on the ground as if I had booted him in the family jewels. Then I knew the crowd had reacted.’
React they did, bottles came raining down from the back of the west terracing where the Celtic support stood and this led to hordes of fans at the front, many of them young spilling over onto the track. Fights broke out amongst the Celtic support and the police had to wade in and make arrests before restoring order as the players milled around on the park watching it all from a safe distance. The game was held up for about four minutes before resuming it’s run towards half time which saw Willie Findlay find the net for Rangers in the 39th minute, pouncing on a rebounded effort from Eddie Rutherford and giving the Gers the lead at the break.
cont/
In 1989, BBC sports commentator Archie MacPherson published a book titled ‘Blue & Green, A Personal Look at the Glasgow Derby’. Each chapter addresses a particular match that MacPherson sees as significant for one reason or another. The first chapter in the book, ‘Peace In Our Time’ deals with the league cup match played at Ibrox on August 27th 1949, which is mostly remembered it seems for THAT Cox/Tully incident. Many of the quotes that follow are taken from this book, which I picked up many years ago and where I first heard about this clash.
According to the Glasgow Herald of Monday August 29th, the temperature in Glasgow as the teams took the field at Ibrox 2 days earlier in front of 95,000 supporters was a sizzling 75 degrees, not your average west of Scotland summer’s day! Those old woolen jersey’s worn by the players in those days must have been a real joy to play in that particular Saturday.
The line-ups were as follows:
Rangers
Brown, Young, Shaw, Cox, Woodburn, Rae, Waddell, Findlay, Thornton, Duncanson, Rutherford
Celtic
Miller, Mallan, Baillie, Evans, Boden, McAuley, Collins, McPhail, Johnston, Tully, Haughney
Referee
A.B. Gebbie of Hamilton
The Rangers line-up had a bit of a different look to it that day with the news that Sammy Cox was at right half & not playing in his usual left half role. This put him in direct opposition to Charlie Tully, the Celtic inside left who seemingly had given Ian McColl a torrid time of it in the first match in the east end 2 weeks earlier, which had ended in a surprise 3-2 victory for Celtic. After the days events at Ibrox had unfolded, cynics would suggest that Cox was put there as a ‘deterrent’ to Tully and to try to intimidate the Celtic man. Clearly a reaction of a more innocent time as such a line up change in today’s game for whatever reason would raise few eyebrows. However the real circumstances of the change were much more innocent than the cynics would suggest, as Sammy Cox himself later recalled, ‘An hour before kick off Ian McColl walked into the dressing room wearing a big heavy coat and a muffler round his neck. Remember this was August & the weather was marvelous. He announced he had a terrible cold & wasn’t fit enough to play. He hadn’t even phoned in to warn us about it. We couldn’t believe it. Mr. Struth took one look at me and said “Sam, move over to right half & get Willie Rae out of the stand in your position.” Now we all knew that Willie, realizing earlier he wasn’t going to be playing, had something like a 16 course meal at The Ivy restaurant before the match, so you can imagine he was in a right good condition for it! But it had to be done. That’s how I came to be playing right half that day.’
The Herald’s coverage of the game, was penned by someone known simply as ‘Our Football Correspondent’, but who’s reporting of the game seems tinged with some bias towards the visitors. He reports that ‘Celtic looked much more likely to lead’ and ‘a McGrory type leader would have reveled in the chances supplied’. This despite not giving many examples of these ‘chances supplied’ and the fact that the Celtic keeper Miller had made a ‘magnificent double save from Findlay’. Then, after about 30 minutes came the clash between Cox & Tully, that some claim changed the game.
The Herald refers to the incident as ‘a foul by Cox’ and goes on later to say that ‘There is no doubt at all as to what caused the (crowd) trouble – the foul committed by Cox, Rangers right half-back on Tully, the Celtic inside left, after 30 minutes play and the astonishing attitude of the referee in ignoring the offence & actually waving play on.’ The article then goes on to cite previous crowd violence by Celtic fans at a previous OF game which resulted in their stadium being closed as punitive action by the SFA. It then shamefully ends with this gem, ‘So far as Saturday is concerned neutral members among Scottish football legislators should have no trouble in apportioning the responsibility for the trouble.’ So, it’s not the fault of the drunken louts on the west terracing but the referee, or worse Sammy Cox himself?
In MacPherson’s book, there are several accounts and opinions of the incident. Charlie Tully had unfortunately passed at the time this book was published, however Sammy Cox gave his recollection, ‘I went for the ball & turned, wanting to push it out of the penalty area. I knew Tully was close by me and I was certainly determined not to give him the freedom that Ian McColl had at Celtic Park. But as I kicked it, I felt this sharp dig on my ankle and knew it was Charlie. I turned and kicked him. I admit that. I kicked him just above the shin-guard and said “Don’t do that to me again”. It was a jab with the toe more than anything else and I was surprised to see him rolling around on the ground as if I had booted him in the family jewels. Then I knew the crowd had reacted.’
React they did, bottles came raining down from the back of the west terracing where the Celtic support stood and this led to hordes of fans at the front, many of them young spilling over onto the track. Fights broke out amongst the Celtic support and the police had to wade in and make arrests before restoring order as the players milled around on the park watching it all from a safe distance. The game was held up for about four minutes before resuming it’s run towards half time which saw Willie Findlay find the net for Rangers in the 39th minute, pouncing on a rebounded effort from Eddie Rutherford and giving the Gers the lead at the break.
cont/
