Lisbon Lion Jim Craig to unfurl the league flag at Paradise before Celtic take on Kilmarnock in the season opener…
Tomorrow is Flag Day at Paradise, and Celtic yesterday confirmed that Lisbon Lion, Jim Craig will unfurl the league flag ahead of the 4.30pm kick-off against Kilmarnock before Brendan Rodgers and his Celtic squad begin the defence of their title.
The Celtic legend was part of the most famous team in the club’s history, and he is sure to receive the warmest of welcomes from supporters when he steps out on to the pitch at Celtic Park.
Jim Craig played 231 times for Celtic, scoring six goals
Jim made his Celtic debut in a European Cup-Winners’ Cup tie against Dutch side, Go Ahead Deventer, in October 1965, and over the next seven years would go on to play 231 times for the Hoops, scoring six goals.
In that time, he won seven league titles, four Scottish Cups, four League Cups and, of course, the European Cup in 1967, when Jock Stein’s Celtic side defeated Inter Milan 2-1 at the Estadio Nacional in Lisbon.
Sadly we have so few out of our Lions still with us. Willie Wallace is out in Brisbane, Australia and is well into his 80s. Jim Craig, Bobby Lennox, John Clark and John Fallon are all to be cherished as they always have been since 25 May 1967.
And when we applaud Jim tomorrow we will all remember Ronnie Simpson, Tommy Gemmell, Bobby Murdoch, Billy McNeill, Jimmy Johnstone, Stevie Chalmers, Bertie Auld, John Hughes, Charlie Gallacher, Jim Brogan, Willie O’Neill and Joe McBride plus of course Jock Stein, Sean Fallon and Neil Mochan.
Celtic legends all. Jim Craig tomorrow with proudly represent them all.
David Potter’s thoughts on Jim Craig
Jim Craig is an unusual sort of football player. He will probably remain for all time the only dentist ever to win a European Cup medal, and he is certainly one of the very few who have ever successfully managed to combine both careers, even though he needed to miss the US tour of 1966 because he was doing his finals at Glasgow University.
He got a game or two in seasons 1965/66 but it was January 1967 that he began to appear regularly for the club, Jock having replaced the Gemmell/O’Neill combination with Craig/Gemmell after a rare bad game at Tannadice on Hogmanay 1966.
From then on, Craig never looked back, and the word that one heard often about him was “tidy” – tidy in his appearance, his tackling and his distribution. There was even something tidy about his departure in 1972, when he decided to go to South Africa. He soon returned, however, to practise dentistry and to make a huge contribution to Celtic by writing about the club and appearing on TV and at supporters’ functions.
He won League medals from 1967 to 1972, Scottish Cup medals in 1967, 1969, 1971 and 1972 and League Cup medals in 1967/8, 1968/9 and 1969/70, and was capped once for Scotland.
He remains a well-loved Celt. His wife is Elizabeth Farrell, daughter of a one-time Celtic Director.
