Hampden's greatest game ever: 50 years on from Real Madrid v Eintracht Frankfurt

• Hungarian legend Ferenc Puskas scores from an acute angle to make it 3-1

FOR MANY, it was the greatest game ever played, won by the greatest team; a match that touched a generation of Scots, opened their eyes to the subtleties of European football and left those who were there with a lifetime of gratitude. On Tuesday, it will be exactly 50 years since Real Madrid beat Eintracht Frankfurt in the European Cup final at Hampden.

By winning their fifth consecutive European Cup there, the Spanish giants came to have a deep affection for Glasgow, where they would also win in 2002, but if truth be told, the pleasure was all ours. Ferenc Puskas scored four, Alfredo Di Stefano three, in a breathtaking 7-3 triumph that some have described as a turning point for Scottish football, a mesmerising demonstration of the way ahead.

Their flawless white strips brought unprecedented glamour to Glasgow, but they weren't the only stars who came out that night. Quite apart from the Scottish referee, Jack Mowat, the crowd of 127,620, made up almost entirely of Scots, is still a record for the European Cup final.

The morning after it was announced that tickets would go on sale, 40,000 queuing Scots snaked back and forth along the Hampden car park. By four in the afternoon, there were none left. Half a century later, those who were lucky enough to bear witness are still paying tribute.

ANDY ROXBURGH (Queen's Park player)

I didn't just go to the game, I went to their training session at Hampden the night before. I was a youth player at Queen's Park, and the groundsman arranged for me to get in because Ferenc Puskas was my boyhood hero. I was literally standing on the pitch as they warmed up. Gento, their flying winger, was puffing on a cigarette as he casually flicked the ball about. It shows you how times have changed. When the fitness trainer blew his whistle, Gento threw his cigarette on the grass and sprinted the length of the pitch. After that, he jogged back to the halfway line, picked up his fag and started again. He won the sprint, of course. By a mile. During the game, there was a counter-attack when he ran that same stretch at electric pace, played it to the front post, and Puskas headed it in. I was waiting for him to go back and pick up the fag.

People like Di Stefano, Puskas and Gento had an aura about them. We think nothing of it nowadays, but these were superstar foreign players. And, in many ways, they were way ahead of their time. Their two star strikers didn't even come from Spain. One was from South America and the other from Hungary. It was a taste of the future.

I call them the knights in white satin. The three teams who have won the European Cup at Hampden have all played in white. Even Bayern Munich. The crowd was grey, there were no track ads, and of course the footage is black and white, but when you were at the game, you had this beautiful Hampden surface, and these stars in an all-white strip.

The thing that struck me forcibly was the crowd. It was like 127,000 had come almost to pay homage to football. This crowd was almost entirely neutral, cheering for both teams. No-one who was there will ever forget it.

It's funny how a game played by two foreign sides has become such a big part of Scottish football history. It touched a generation. In 2002, when Zinedine Zidane scored his wonderful volley, it was at the other end of the pitch from where Puskas had done the same. As it went in, I had images in my mind of 1960.

Its impact on everybody was enormous. Alex Ferguson, who was a first-team player at Queen's Park, was also there. There was a romance about it.

SANDY McBAIN (fan)

I do stadium tours in the Scottish Football Museum at Hampden, and we are regularly asked to name the greatest game we have ever seen. Without hesitation, it is Real against Eintracht. I was on the terracing with my brothers that night, and the sport became technicoloured after that.

I can remember lots of gasps from the crowd. Gento would get a ball from behind, flick it over the full-backs, and just run. When a ball came to Puskas on the edge of the box, he stopped it and hit it, almost in one movement. Bang. Right in the top corner.

Puskas was my hero because I had seen him play for Hungary at Hampden in 1954. When younger people joke to me about my age, I say, "listen, if I wasn't old, I wouldn't have been at that game, and I wouldn't have seen Puskas". I've got his autograph framed in my house.

The day after the 1960 final, all my school mates could talk about was Real. It became a rule that everyone in the school team had to be able to say "Dominguez, Marquitos, Santamaria, Pachin, Vidal, Zarraga, Canario, del Sol, Di Stefano, Puskas, Gento". We went to the teacher who ran our team and said, "look sir, I know we can't change the colour of our jerseys, but if we go and buy them ourselves, will you let us play in white stockings?" He did, and that was our tribute to Real.

About a month ago, I was doing a stadium tour when a couple of late admissions wanted to join in. One of them said to me, "this is Mr Canario". I couldn't believe it. I said "oh, for God's sake" and went over to give him a hug, pictured above. I had to tell everyone else on the tour that they were in the presence of a legend. I mean, this is a guy who has played not only with Puskas and Di Stefano, but with Pele. He said he didn't play for Brazil as often as he would have liked because the other outside-right was Garrincha. After the tour, we took him back up to the museum, and I showed him a few things from the game. We put some images on the screen of the Madrid players training at Rugby Park. I was chuffed to bits, and so was he.

BILLY McNEILL (Celtic player)

There wasn't a person in the ground who didn't admire what Real did that night. It was real, stylish football, magnificent. The Celtic team were taken along by the club, which meant most of the Lisbon Lions were there. I think they always had the memory of that game in the back of their minds. It gave us something to aim at.

Everywhere you looked in that team there were brilliant players. Puskas, Gento, but most of all Di Stefano. After we won the European Cup, we were fortunate that he asked us to play in his testimonial. What an honour.

HUGH McILVANNEY (journalist)

I was in the stadium in Mexico City when Bob Beamon broke the world long-jump record. Even when he was in mid-air I knew that I was seeing something historic. You had the same feeling at Hampden that night.

I was working for The Scotsman in those days. Before the game, I went to see the Madrid players in their hotel, and they were playing snooker. When the coach walked in, they just put their cues down. They didn't even finish their shot. I remember thinking, "so that's how professional players behave."

In the semi-finals, Eintracht had annihilated Rangers 12-4 on aggregate so they were a terrific team in their own right, but they were torn apart that night. Di Stefano was a giant of the game. I met him years later in Argentina, and what struck me was his power. His arms were like a blacksmith's. In that great Real Madrid team, he was blatantly the boss.

Perhaps above all I remember the reaction of the crowd, who stayed around for about an hour afterwards. It was a great tribute to the Scots' relationship with football. We may not be great at playing it, but we do know what it represents and we know when it is being done properly. Nobody had to tell them that what they were seeing was a bit out of the ordinary.

After it had all finished, I was walking down the stairs from the old press gantry when one of the older reporters turned to me and said, "aye, it's all very well that stuff, but the punters here wouldn't stand for it". I said, "stand for it? They've just waited around for an hour after the final whistle."

KEITH TAYLOR (ball boy)

My family has a long history with Queen's Park, who provided the ball boys for matches at Hampden. My great grandfather was president, and my great uncle was secretary, so my brother and I had our names put down almost as soon as we were born. You had to suffer Queen's Park games on a cold February afternoon, but you also got the plum games, the internationals, the European Cup final.

I had also been a ball boy at one of the Scotland-England games so I knew what to expect. The roar you heard when you emerged from the Hampden tunnel, especially when you were only 11 or 12, is something you never forget. It was absolutely deafening.

When the game started, I remember watching it and thinking, "these boys are quite good". It was an unbelievable exhibition of football. My father was in the stand, and after one mesmerising piece of play by Real Madrid, a punter behind him shouted, "hey ref, count they white jerseys". It looked like there were about 15 of them on the park.

At one point, Gento lost his boot after a tackle near the touchline so I picked it up and handed it back to him. After that, I didn't wash my hands for about two weeks. When the game was finished, the Real Madrid officials gave us a club badge. I still have it in a drawer somewhere.