George McCluskey made his mark in just 15 minutes
against Ajax and he's hoping for a similar Celtic result tonight
- but maybe without the drama
BENCHMARK
FOR SUCCESS
Exclusive interview: Martin Dalziel
CELTIC against Ajax is a fixture that brings back
memories for George McCluskey of one of the
greatest nights of his Hoops career but it was a
night that almost never happened.
He famously scored the winner in a 2-1 away victory
over the Dutch giants in the European Cup in 1982,
propelling the Celts into the next round of the tournament
on the back of 4-3 aggregate victory,
The victory went down in Celtic history and marked a
famous night for the Bhoys on the continent but it was a
night that may never have been as McCluskey was close
to not even going on the trip, never mind coming on as a
sub to score the winner.
The striker was carrying an injury to his thigh that
had ruled him out of starting the match but Billy McNeill
shrewdly took him on the journey to Holland under the
guise of 'team morale,'
Little did McCluskey know that McNeill had every
intention of using the forward if the game was slipping
from Celtic's grasp, and that's exactly what happened,
"I had taken a knee in the thigh before the match and big
Billy asked me to take a pain-killing injection to go on the
bench," McCluskey said, "He said he didn't think I'd need to
go on but I agreed to do it anyway and then of course with
the way the game went I ended up playing.
"Near the end we needed to score and he kept Charlie
Nicholas and Frank McGarvey on and brought me on too,
Big Billy hadn't done that much before, We'd normally
rotate between any two out of the three of us but on that
night he ended up playing all three.
"1 actually didn't think I'd be travelling but he'd said to me
beforehand that he wanted me to travel and then we'd see
how the game went, I was quite happy to go in the end,
"It was good foresight from him. The talk was just for me
to go over and be there with the squad and help get the
boys going but then the morning of the game I went to his
room and he told me he wanted me on the bench. He was
thinking well ahead of our chat, the big fly-man."
Despite having little time to mentally prepare for
his match-winning cameo in the Olympic Stadium in
Amsterdam, McCluskey said he felt no nerves when he
took to the pitch with roughly 15 minutes remaining and
the teams level on the night,
The sides had drawn 2-2 at Celtic Park in mid September
in the first leg of their first round qualifier with all of the
goals coming in the first-half but that thrilling encounter
left the onus on the Celts to go on the attack in the return
leg two weeks later.
A sublime goal from Nicholas got the Bhoys off to a flier
in the first-half but Gerald Vanenburg levelled matters
after the hour mark,
Enter McCluskey, who, with little more than two
minutes left on the clock and the hopes of more than
3,000 travelling fans weighing on his shoulders, gathered
a pass on the edge of the area and placed a precise shot
beyond the stranded Hans Galje in the Ajax goal, sparking
some of the wildest celebrations the club has seen,
McCluskey said: "I actually felt really relaxed about it.
When you go on as a sub you're not under any pressure at
all. It's different from starting a match. When you go on as
a sub, if you can get something done it's a bonus, so you go
on without any fear of doing something wrong.
"It ended up working well. The ball fell to Frank and a
defender came out to him so he slipped it to Charlie and
the same thing happened to him so he passed it to me.
"When the defender came out to meet me I pretended
to hit it with my right but dragged it across my body with
my left and I caught it really well. I always remember that.
I caught the strike as well as I could and hit it with good
technique but not too hard,
50
