Bobby Murdoch

‘When Bobby Murdoch played, Celtic played.’ That is the collective agreement among his Celtic team-mates, and in a team bursting at the seams with world-class talent, there can be no greater accolade than that. Murdoch was central to Celtic’s success under Jock Stein, developing a midfield partnership with Bertie Auld that was the envy of the football world.

And Bertie Auld was fulsome in his praise of his friend. He said: ‘I loved playing alongside this boy. He could do everything. He could tackle, he could shoot and he could pass. Everything Bobby Murdoch did was stamped with class and authority. His vision was phenomenal and you would have had to go far to actually meet a nicer bloke.’

"I loved playing alongside this boy. Everything Bobby Murdoch did was stamped with class and authority."
Bertie Auld

Murdoch played nearly 500 games for Celtic and scored 102 goals. He could have played more, and scored more, were it not for the ankle injury that sometimes meant an enforced absence from the team, or the fact that he was allowed to leave the club in 1973.

Celtic’s legendary manager, Jock Stein said: ‘As far as I am concerned, Bobby Murdoch was just about the best player I had as manager. I only let him move because he had run out of challenges with Celtic.’

Bobby Murdoch always remained a Celt, a supporter first and foremost, who was one of the finest players ever to grace the green and white Hoops. He left us far too soon.

PRELUDE TO PARADISE
Although raised in Rutherglen, within walking distance of a match at Celtic Park, boundary rules meant that Bobby Murdoch travelled deeper into Lanarkshire for secondary schooling and, like Billy McNeill, played for Our Lady’s High in Motherwell. Indeed, he did have a trial for Motherwell but once Celtic came calling, there was no doubt where he would end up. He signed for his Bhoyhood heroes on October 23, 1959 and the youngster was farmed out to Cambuslang Rangers.

DEBUT BHOY
Celtic’s 1962/63 season kicked off with a home League Cup tie against Hearts on August 11. The legend has it that 22-year-old John Divers forgot his boots and the re-shuffled side saw the just-turned 18-year-old Bobby Murdoch drafted into the side at the last minute, although it is also claimed that he was always going to be playing that day and it was, in fact, Charlie Gallagher, who was drafted in to replace Divers.

Either way, both players would score, with the Celtic debutant netting the first of his 102 goals for the club just seven minutes into the game. Gallagher added a second and John Hughes completed the scoring. For the 41,000 fans at Celtic Park, it was their first glimpse of a player who would go on to become a Hoops legend.

HIGHLIGHTS
If plaudits and testimonials from fellow professionals, team-mates and opposition players alike, were converted into medals, Bobby Murdoch would have struggled to stand up under the weight of them. However, he did build up a more than substantial collection of the real things while he was a mainstay of the greatest side in Celtic’s history. He won eight of the nine-in-a-row championships as well as four Scottish Cups and five consecutive League Cups. Then, of course, there was the European Cup in 1967 to make for a haul of no fewer than 18 top-level medals. It was something that the young Bobby Murdoch had dreamed about, and discussed with his fellow Celt, Billy McNeill.

"As far as I am concerned, Bobby Murdoch was just about the best player I had as manager."
Jock Stein

BOWING OUT
In season 1972/73, Bobby Murdoch played in 40 games in all competitions and scored seven goals but the following term would prove to be very different. He played only one game before moving to Middlesbrough on September 17. That solitary game came in the final sectional game of the League Cup on August 29 away to Arbroath.

The crowd of 5,101 saw Kenny Dalglish open the scoring, only for Tommy Yule to equalise two minutes before the break. However, second-half goals from Bobby Lennox and Paul Wilson gave Celtic a 3-1 win. Just a few weeks later, one of the greatest footballers Celtic had ever produced was on his way out of Paradise and down to Ayresome Park and Middlesbrough.

APPRECIATION SOCIETY
Inter Milan manager, Helenio Herrera, who had witnessed his side being taken apart by Celtic, described Bobby Murdoch as ‘my complete player’. Indeed, it seems that, at various times in his career, there was interest in taking the midfielder to Argentina, with Boca Juniors said to have been monitoring his progress in the early years of his career, while River Plate apparently enquired about him in 1967 following the World Club Championship games with Racing Club. There was no chance of Celtic letting go of the player at that time, however.

"My complete player"
Helenio Herrera, Inter Milan manager

ONE OF OUR OWN
Bobby Murdoch had the very same attitude as another Celtic legend, Tommy Burns in that he always considered himself just to be a supporter who got lucky. Both men, sadly, passed away for too young, and their love of Celtic Football Club and mastery of a football were only two of the things that linked them. Poignantly, they both passed away on the same date, May 15, with the Lisbon Lion’s death in 2001 at the age of just 56 followed, seven years later, by Tommy Burns, who was only 51. The affection that both men were held in by Celtic supporters is something that was always reciprocated.

KINGS OF EUROPE
The pinnacle of Jock Stein’s reign at Celtic, and the crowning achievement for all the players, came on May 25, 1967 is Lisbon’s Estadio Nacional, when Celtic beat Inter Milan 2-1 to win the European Cup. It was a triumph that would have been unimaginable to Bobby Murdoch and his team-mates just a couple of years before that, yet now they were the undisputed Kings of Europe.

The victory in Lisbon, as has been well-documented over the years, was a triumph for attacking football over the ultra-defensive Italians and their ‘catenaccio’ style of play, which attempted to stifle and smother all attempts to attack. The European Cup was won that night in the Portuguese capital by a Celtic side playing, in the words of Jock Stein, ‘pure, beautiful, inventive football,’ and central to that was, of course, Bobby Murdoch.

485 CELTIC CAREER APPEARANCES
League: 291, Scottish Cup: 53, League Cup: 84, Europe: 57

102 CELTIC CAREER GOALS
League: 61 Scottish Cup: 13, League Cup: 17, Europe: 11

18 CELTIC CAREER HONOURS
League Titles: 8, Scottish Cup: 4, League Cup: 5, European Cup: 1