Celtic flowered in sunshine of 1967's summer of love

As with any period of that duration, however, some years will be much more memorable than others, largely because they have left enduring legacies. For millions of people, 1967 is made unforgettable by events like the release of the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper album and milestone movies such as The Graduate, In The Heat Of the Night and Bonnie and Clyde.

And, for Celtic supporters of a certain age, the world-renowned Summer of Love of that glorious year officially began in Lisbon on the night of 25 May.

Forty years to the day after the famous European Cup final victory over Internazionale, the Parkhead club are to hold a celebratory dinner at the ground that welcomed its European champions back from Portugal. They rode on a converted coal lorry, carrying the enormous new trophy - Celtic were the first winners, the original having been presented to Real Madrid on the occasion of their sixth triumph the previous year - around the perimeter of the pitch in front of a crowd that would represent five years' worth of attendances to a lower-division club.

The stadium is now unrecognisable from the one that reverberated to the acclaim of fans, but the faces, if not the physiques, of those who made history at the old Estadio Nacional remain instantly recognisable.

The most poignant moment tonight will be when the diners, as they surely will, pause to remember the four who did not live long enough to participate in this anniversary: Jock Stein, the inspired and inspirational manager, Ronnie Simpson, the revered goalkeeper, Bobby Murdoch, the comprehensively-gifted midfielder and Jimmy Johnstone, the unique 'Flying Flea', officially recognised by supporters as the greatest player in Celtic's 119-year history.

Jock himself might have considered the nostalgia-fest to be something of a fuss, but he would have summoned all of his blood-curdling rage against anyone who so much as hinted that it was a fuss over nothing.

Not given to bravado, Stein was nevertheless deeply, even movingly, proud of his own and his players' achievement in becoming the first British team to win the most coveted prize of all. His emotion was betrayed by his response to the comment made by the president of the Portuguese FA in the Celtic dressing room after the 2-1 victory over Inter.

"Mr Stein," he said, "your victory is a triumph for football. Celtic play the beautiful game as it should be played." Sitting in shirt sleeves and braces, one hand on the trophy, Stein turned to the crowd of pressmen in the room and said: "Imagine anybody saying that about a Scottish team."

And it was the Scottishness of the team that made the success almost miraculous. No European champions before or since has been able to boast 11 players and a manager all born within 30 miles of the club's home town.

Stein is, quite properly, universally acknowledged as the master manipulator of men without whom Celtic's unparalleled success in that golden age would have been possible. Examples of his astuteness would fill an encyclopedia, but one particular piece of string-pulling deserves highlighting for the dramatic transformation it had.

It was during the pre-season tour of North America in 1966, on the eve of the most productive season of all time, that Stein changed Bertie Auld from an orthodox left winger into a modern midfielder. He alone had seen in Auld - even the player himself had not realised this - the perceptiveness and skill that would make him, along with Murdoch, the generator of Celtic's surges of power.

But the manager was also ever ready to pay tribute to Billy McNeill, the field commander who had begun the years of plenty with the headed goal which beat Dunfermline in the 1965 Scottish Cup final and whose repeat of the feat in the last few seconds of the 1967 quarter-final against Vojvodina of Yugoslavia had taken Celtic past the most difficult opponents they would meet on their way to Lisbon. "We wouldn't have won half of what we did without our captain," said the manager.

For those Celtic supporters who shared the experience, no amount of LSD, the drug of the Sixties, could have induced such a high.

The legend of the Lisbon Lions remains undimmed . . . and it was never a penalty

WAS it really 40 years ago today? Using the most recent statistic for the life expectancy of the average Scottish male, that is half-a-lifetime. And the survivors from the team which won the European Cup in Lisbon that night are still dining out on the triumph. Long may it continue!

It almost goes without saying that life would have been markedly different for each of us without the moniker of "Lisbon Lion". Within hours of Celtic lifting the trophy in 1967, we were Lisbon Lions, a name coined anonymously by someone with a penchant for alliteration but also an appellation which the players accepted with alacrity. Mind you, in my darker moments, I wonder what it would have been like to lose in places like Berlin, Athens or Warsaw; I'm sure that suitable alliterative nouns could have been thought up fairly easily, involving parentage, body parts and . . . let's not go any further.

The nickname for that winning side has passed into common usage. When my son James started school, he came home complaining that the headteacher had given him a special nickname. "Dad, he called me a Lisbon Cub - what is that?". I tried to reassure him it was not a nasty designation, although I'm not sure he believed me. Then, many years later, when he ran out at Murrayfield for his first cap against Australia, his statistics shown on the huge screens round the ground were accompanied by a reference to his dad being a Lisbon Lion. And, two years ago, at half-time in a match between Australia and France in the Under-20 Rugby World Cup at New Anniesland, the announcer broke into the music being played to announce that there were two Lions in the ground, a British version in the form of John Beattie and a Lisbon one in myself.

Not everyone gets it right, though. My wife, who was a teacher, was talking to the school janitor one day when a youngish teenager loudly interrupted their conversation. "Hey, janny, see that Miss Craig you're talking tae, she's a fitballer's wife. She's married tae one o' thae Lesbian Lions!"

To have lived through the last four decades as a Lion of Lisbon has been quite memorable. Like my team-mates, I have received wonderful hospitality from Celtic fans in the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, plus various corners of Europe, England, Wales and Ireland, as well as most of Scotland. They all want to know what actually happened on that day.

Was the Celtic bus going the wrong way to the Estadio Nacional? Yes, somebody noticed the fans were all going in the other direction and the driver turned the bus round.

Did Bertie Auld actually break into the words of The Celtic Song as the players came up the steps to the pitch? Yes, and we all joined in ... if only to drown him out.

Why did several players run towards Ronnie Simpson's goal at the final whistle and grab his cap? Because those who had false teeth had left them in there.

Is it true that the players were not officially presented with their medals? Quite true. During the post-match banquet, a UEFA official came up and placed what looked like a shoebox in front of Jock Stein. On opening it, he found the winners' medals inside and duly passed them around.

Why did the players make their lap of honour round Celtic Park on the back of a coal lorry? Because the No 62 bus only went straight along London Road to Auchenshuggle. No detours. And, of course, the coal lorry had been cleaned up especially for the occasion.

And were all the players born within a 30-mile radius of Celtic Park? Well, it's Bobby Lennox, born in Saltcoats, who is responsible for that figure of 30. The rest were all born within 10 miles of Parkhead. Auld, Chalmers, Simpson and myself were Glaswegians; Gemmell, Murdoch, McNeill, Clark and Johnstone came from Lanarkshire; and Wallace was born in Kirkintilloch.

There is, however, one question invariably directed towards me. In the seventh minute of the final, I was judged by the West German referee Kurt Tschenscher to have fouled Inter's Renato Cappellini and the official awarded a penalty. It was one of the worst decisions in European and world football, ranking alongside the decision to send off that very pleasant guy, Rattin of Argentina, at Wembley in 1966 or the one when Maradona got away with his "Hand of God" goal in Mexico in 1986.

For 40 years, I have been asked by fans of all ages if I thought the decision was correct. Well, I've had enough. Even though I hope to go on for many years yet, the stonemason has been given his instructions. While not quite in the same category as Spike Milligan's "I told you I was ill", my own wording of "It was never a penalty!" should provide a definitive answer for future generations.

JIM CRAIG

'Hundreds invaded the field. Some knelt and kissed the turf, some took clods as souvenirs'

• How John Rafferty, The Scotsman football correspondent, reported from Lisbon in 1967

THERE were scenes unprecedented at such a match when Celtic won the European Cup in Lisbon yesterday, beating the Italian champions, Inter Milan 2-1. There was a crowd of 54,000, but so noisy and colourful were the 7,000 Celtic supporters who travelled across Europe by air and road that it seemed at times that it was a home match for them.

When the final whistle blew hundreds invaded the field. Some knelt down and kissed the turf, some took clods as souvenirs. And in the excitement the players were badly mauled by those who sought to congratulate them. When they were finally shepherded to the pavilion it was remembered that the cup had not been presented.

Billy McNeill had to be taken back through the crowd and up the terraces to the rostrum to receive the great trophy. Later he was seated on a motor car roof and the cup in that way was paraded before the crowd.

Scottish supporters pushed their way into the dressing room and were given sips of champagne from the cup. Twenty minutes after the finish excited supporters - some of them wearing the kilt - were still dancing about the field and falling full length to kiss the turf.

There had been tremendous traffic chaos before the match all round Lisbon and some had deserted cars and buses and set out on the five-mile walk to the stadium. Afterwards the cheering, singing supporters began the march into Lisbon, and the streets of the old town were noisy and excited. Towards midnight there were frantic efforts to round them up and get them to the airport in time for the planes which were flying out.

Jock Stein, the Celtic manager, said: "This was a triumph for attacking football against defensive methods. This victory by Celtic will be good for the game, because attacking soccer is what the fans want to see.

"Even before half-time, I thought Inter were slowing and when we went out in the second half we were confident we were going to win.

"After Gemmell had made it 1-1 Inter had nothing left. They didn't even fight back."

Helenio Herrera, the Inter coach, said: "It was impossible to stop the onslaught of Celtic. The better team won. But we were without Luis Suarez and Jair da Costa, and Sandro Mazzola was not fit."

The players' wives and sweethearts, who had been flown out in the morning, met the team later at a restaurant where Celtic had their own private celebration after the official banquet at which medals were presented. They have made a clean sweep of European and Scottish football and await a match with the South American champions for the championship of the world.

• This brief extract comes from reports filed by the late John Rafferty, and was originally published in The Scotsman on 26 May 1967.