Joe McBride scored 43 goals in his first season for Celtic and his deadly marksmanship led the Hoops to the title for the first time in 12 very long years. Unbelievably Joe started his second season, 1966/67, in even deadlier form and with a remarkable 37 goals before Christmas he looked set to rewrite all the record books until tragedy struck. Half-way through Celtic's grand slam season, which culminated in the European Cup victory in Lisbon, Joe's season was ended by a broken leg in a match at Pittodrie on Christmas Eve. Sadly the injury also ended the Celtic career of a man who had scored 86 goals in 94 games for the club.
McBride, who went on to have a relatively successful career at Hibs and Dunfermline, has two League Cup winners medals and he was at Hampden yesterday to publicise Sunday's Co-operative Insurance Cup Final. As he looked towards Celtic's clash with the old enemy Joe revealed that, remarkably, he had never scored against the Huns in a first team game.
"I had eight games against Rangers, six victories, one draw and one defeat and I never scored in any of them." he said "We had a 5-1 victory, a 4-0, a 2-0, and I still didn't score. When I'm asked about it, I always say I didn't need to score in those days but it would have been nice. I can always say I had a bit of success against Rangers, in regards results."
"And I managed to score against Rangers on a regular basis for the other teams I played for." he added, " But I only scored for Celtic against Rangers in a reserve game at Ibrox. Kenny Dalglish, Lou Macari and myself scored in a 3-0 win, that was the only time."
McBride doesn't know why Jan Venegoor of Hesselink and Georgios Samaras are struggling to hit the back of the net for Celtic at the moment although, as he knows through painful experience, coming back to your best after a lengthy time out with injury is not always so easy. "Samaras and Vennegoor of Hesselink are having a bad spell but that can turn at any time," said McBride. "There's not a footballer in the game that hasn't gone through a lean spell, although theirs is a bit more lengthy than we would like to see. Both of them seem to have had bad injuries and, make no mistake, as you get back to fitness, you are not as sharp as before you got injured.
"But Vennegoor of Hesselink should have scored with a late header against St Mirren in the cup game." added the man known as 'SuperJoe', "If he had got that header in then it would have made a hell of a difference. But I hope one of them gets a goal on Sunday; they will be on the road again."
McBride also insists that team-mates of the mis-firing front men could also be doing more to help them out and he thinks that Aiden McGeady could be the very man to provide the chances for big Jan and Sami in tomorrow's Final if only he can suppress his selfish streak and become more aware of the guys around him. "McGeady has incredible talent." said Joe, "He has incredible ball-skills but I still think he is lacking in the ability to read the game to the advantage of his team-mates. It's end product essentially. I've seen improvement in him but not as much as I want to see. And he has a lot of shots on goal when he shouldn't - when he should be concentrating on trying to get it into the key area for the big boys."