Happy Birthday, Charlie!

Charlie Gallagher is celebrating his 80th birthday this week, and the View reflects on the impressive career of a great Celt whose corner kicks have gone down in club folklore.

- Paul Cuddihy

Charlie Gallagher’s Celtic career, which spanned three decades from 1958 until ’70, is so much more than just some corner kicks, albeit they are two of the most significant set-pieces ever delivered by a player in the green and white Hoops.

The inside-forward made his debut in a League Cup against Raith Rovers in August 1959 and would go on to play 171 times for Celtic, scoring 32 goals, making his last appearance in 1968, although he remained at the club a further two years. Despite playing with Kilmarnock Amateurs in the late 1950s, not even the persuasive powers of Willie Waddell at Rugby Park could make Charlie sign for the Ayrshire club once Celtic’s name was in the hat.

Gallagher would remain at Celtic for over a decade as the club was transformed from perennial underachievers into one of best teams in the world under Jock Stein.

During that era, the silky midfielder would make a massive contribution to those achievements in the greatest Hoops side ever assembled, and narrowly missing out on a place in the European Cup final in Lisbon.

He picked up Scottish Cup, League Cup and League medals, playing in the 1965 Scottish Cup final – Celtic’s first trophy success under Jock Stein – while he also won two international caps for the Republic of Ireland.

Yet, his name will live on among the Celtic support mainly for two specific corners. The first of these came against Dunfermline in the Scottish Cup final on April 24, 1965. With eight minutes to go, the teams were locked at 2-2, when Celtic were awarded a corner out on the left.