Obscure old film clip is a reel find for football buffs

SSA staff were clearing out their storage area, trying to make space for the thousands of reels of old STV film footage they inherited from STV’s move across the Clyde, when they chanced upon a two-minute clip of black-and-white footage of a football match. There was no commentary, but they knew the game had taken place in the early 1950s, nothing else.

Cameron said: “This particular clip was, like much of our film stock, handed in to us in 1980, we checked it, catalogued it then it was put into storage, since we didn’t have a clue what it was or where it had come from.

“It was obviously professional quality, probably a bit of newsreel film, but we had no idea what match it covered or which company had shot it – so we put the clip on our monthly e-newsletter.

“I’ve had some 40 e-mails about it and we have now been able to definitely identify it as footage of the Manchester United v Rangers, Coronation Cup quarter-final, played at Hampden Park, on Wednesday, 13 May, 1953.

“We knew it was shot in the early 1950s; we knew it was shot at Hampden and somebody had suggested it might be a game between Rangers and Hearts, while somebody else thought it might be Scotland v Wales or Northern Ireland. But none of us here is a football expert, so we thought the best bet was to ask the general public and they came up trumps.

“We even had confirmation from Mark Wyllie, who is the curator of Manchester United’s club museum at Old Trafford, that it was United v Rangers, so that Coronation Cup tie it had to be, it was the only meeting of the clubs around that time,” Cameron added.

Mark Wyllie said: “This is a very rare piece of film and I was delighted to see it when I was forwarded a copy of the NLS e-mail. I was able to identify most of our players, such as Roger Byrne (the “Busby Babes” captain who was killed at Munich), who was wearing 11, while Denis Violett (who survived Munich) was wearing 7 and Stan Pearson was at inside left.”

Even in black-and-white and with no soundtrack, it is easy to pick-out the likes of George Young, captaining Rangers, Willie Woodburn and Willie Waddell from the film; while United legends such as Johnny Carey, John Aston and Allenby Chilton are very clearly shown.

Another talking point is the crowd, officially given as over 75,000, although some put the attendance as high as 90,000 – for a match played on a Wednesday afternoon.

The teams that day were:

Rangers: Niven, Young, Little, Dunlop, Woodburn, Pryde, Waddell, McMillan, Simpson, Prentice and Hubbard.

Manchester United: Crompton, Carey, Aston, Gibson, Chilton, Cockburn, Violett, Downie, Rowley, Pearson and Byrne.

Hunter McMillan scored the Rangers’ goal, Stan Pearson and Jack Rowley scored for United.

Richard McBrearty, curator of the Scottish Football Museum at Hampden Park was also interested to hear about the clip. He said: “We have access to the Pathe Newsreel archive, which is now owned by ITN, but even their exhaustive archive doesn’t cover everything, which can be partly explained by the fact that, as happens today, often newsreel companies would buy the rights to a specific game or tournament and if that company’s archive has been lost, so too has the record of the game.

“Particularly in the 1920s and 1930s a lot of small companies covered different games and a lot of footage from then has been lost, but we have been quite fortunate inasmuch as few important games have not been preserved.

“The 1947 Aberdeen v Hibernian Scottish Cup final is one game that has apparently been lost, but I think that may be due to extenuating circumstances: at a time of shortages, there perhaps wasn’t the raw film available to cover it.

“Given that in the immediate post-war years there was a shortage of blue cloth from which to make international jerseys and for one Scotland international, Tommy Walker of Hearts provided the ten outfield jerseys for the Scotland team from his personal collection, it is not inconceivable that there simply wasn’t the film available to capture that 1947 game. But, as I say, that’s just about the only “missing” game I can think of.”

The Coronation Cup was a tournament between the best of Scottish and English football. Aberdeen, Celtic, Hibs and Rangers represented Scotland while Arsenal, Manchester United, Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur represented England.

The Scots won the cross-border head-to-heads by five games to two, before an all-Scottish final, watched by 107,000 fans, Celtic, who apparently were only invited because they could guarantee big crowds, beating Hibs 2-0.

While today’s top teams on both sides of the border are packed with overseas players – almost all the talent back then was British.

The Manchester United side featured in the archive footage contained eight then-current or future internationalists: Carey, full-back partner John Aston, Chilton and Henry Cockburn in the half-back line, “Busby Babes” Violett and Byrne, centre forward Rowley and Pearson up front.

The Rangers team, though missing some first-picks included internationalists Young, Johnny Little, Willie Woodburn, Willie Waddell, future Scotland manager John Prentice, Northern Ireland’s Jimmy Simpson and South African penalty king Johnny Hubbard.

The Celtic team, captained by Jock Stein also included internationalists Bobby Evans, John McPhail, Bobby Collins, Neil Mochan, Mike Haughney and the two Northern Irishmen, Bertie Peacock and Charlie Tully.

Hibs fielded their immortal Smith, Johnstone, Reilly, Turnbull and Ormond “Famous Five”, as well as internationalists Tommy Younger, Jock Govan, Hugh Howie and Bobby Combe.

Newcastle had Lisbon Lion Ronnie Simpson in goal, behind internationalists Frank Brennan, Jackie Milburn, Bobby Mitchell and iconic captain Joe Harvey.

Tottenham Hotspur included Peter Baker and Tony Marchi from the immortal 1961 “Double” squad, Bill Nicholson, manager of that great side, was in the team alongside Eddie Baily, his assistant in the Double days.

Aberdeen’s side included Scotland caps Fred Martin, Davie Shaw, George Hamilton, Paddy Buckley and Harry Yorston and Arsenal had in their side the great Joe Mercer, Scotland cap Alex Forbes and future top manager Bill Dodgin.

Definitely a clip to remind us of a whole different football world.