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History

Celtic Football club was founded on 6th November 1887 in St Mary’s church hall in the Calton area of Glasgow by Marist Brother Walfrid. The club was originally formed on charitable grounds as a means to raise money for the poor of the east end of Glasgow. Just over six months later on 28th May 1888 Celtic played their first official game against Rangers at the first Celtic Park. Celtic won the game 5-2 and the first ever goal scorer for the club was Neil McCallum. The Celtic kit that day was not the famous green and white hoops but a white shirt with a green collar and a red Celtic cross on the breast. The colours switched to green and white vertical stripes around 1890, before finally changing to their iconic hoops in 1903.  

In 1889 just one year after their first official game and in their first full season Celtic reached the Scottish Cup final. They were to lose the game 2-1 to Third Lanark but three years later in 1892 they found themselves in the cup final again. This time they won beating Queens Park 5-2 and so collected the club's first trophy.  

Celtic were in a hurry, in the same year they won the Scottish Cup for the first time they also moved to the ground where the present stadium still stands. One year later in 1893 Celtic won their first Scottish League Championship.  

Since those early victories the club has gone on to win 42 Scottish Championships and 34 Scottish Cups, they have also won the Scottish League Cup 14 times.  

The club's most famous night though was on May 25th 1967 when 11 men from in and around the Glasgow area became legends. Celtic had already completed a clean sweep of domestic trophies when they took to the pitch in the Estadio Nacional for the final of the European Cup. Their opponents that day were Inter Milan who had won the trophy twice previously in preceding years 1964 and 1965 under esteemed coach Helenio Herrera. Inter’s infamous cattanccio style of counter attacking football would be put to the test by Jock Stein’s all out attacking, entertaining game. Despite going 1-0 down to an early penalty Celtic would strike back with two second half goals from Tommy Gemmell and Steve Chalmers to become the first British team to win the European Cup. The team that day of: Simpson, Craig, Gemmell, Murdoch, McNeill, Clark, Johnstone, Wallace, Chalmers, Auld and Lennox, went down in History as the ‘Lisbon Lions’.  

Celtic reached the final of the European Cup again in 1970 where they lost to feyenoord 2-1 after extra time. Celtic also reached the UEFA Cup Final in 2003 under Martin O’Neill where they lost 3-2 to Porto after extra time.

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