William McNeill (no middle name) was born on March 2, 1940, in Bellshill, about 10 miles east of Glasgow, Scotland. This little town of 20,000 people, has produced many soccer legends, including Hughie Gallacher, Matt Busby, Brian McClair and Ally McCoist; and also boxing champion Scott Harrison and singer Sheena Easton.
Billy McNeill was signed by Glasgow soccer team Celtic in 1957, from a nearby junior team, Blantyre Victoria. The team was not very good at the time, until the arrival of a new manager, a centre-half who had helped the team win "The Double," both the league title and the Scottish Cup, in 1954: John "Jock" Stein. (That's pronounced "steen," like it was Scandinavian, not "stine," like it was Jewish.)
The Scottish top flight has long been dominated by 2 teams from Glasgow: Celtic and Rangers. In the Scottish Football League Division One (1890-1946), Division A (1946-55), Division One again (1955-75), Premier Division (1975-98), Premier League (1998-2013) and Premiership (since 2013), here is the title count: Rangers 54, Celtic 49, Edinburgh team Heart of Midlothian (a.k.a. Hearts) 4, Edinburgh team Hibernian (a.k.a. Hibs) 4, Aberdeen 4, and everybody else... 7. Or, to put it another way: The 2 Glasgow giants, known as "The Old Firm," 103, and everybody else 19.
The origin of the term "The Old Firm" is in dispute, but it may go back to a sportswriter comparing them to "two old, firm friends" leading up to the 1904 Scottish Cup Final. If this was ever true, it is has long since become a lie. No pair of teams in British Isles soccer hates each other more.
Rangers Football Club was founded in 1872, and didn't start out as a symbol for anything other than men who enjoyed football (soccer). But in 1912, shipbuilders Harland and Wolff, which hired only Protestants, never Catholics, saw sectarian trouble at their hometown shipyard at Belfast, Northern Ireland, and set up a new one in the Govan section of Glasgow, taking some of their Ulster Protestant men with them.
Seeing this, many Glasgow Protestants began working there. Since Rangers were the closest team, the Northern Irish transplants followed the lead of their new Glasgow workmates, and became Rangers fans. With World War I coming on, and the Eastern Rising and the Irish Civil War that followed, Rangers became a team representative of British Unionism and the Scottish establishment. To this day, their Ibrox Stadium, on the city's West Side, has fans waving Union Jacks much more often than the Scottish Saltire, the Cross of St. Andrew.
The Celtic Football Club -- sometimes abbreviated to "CFC," but, when said in full, "The" is always used, much like "The... Ohio State University" -- was founded in 1887, specifically to deliver money and other resources to the poor Irish Catholics on Glasgow's East Side, where Celtic Park, a.k.a. "Parkhead," would be built.
Their crowds began to match those of Rangers, and, seeing Rangers as the team of the Protestants that were oppressing them, their fans began to wave the green-white-orange tricolor that is the flag of the Republic of Ireland. Saltires are as rare at Parkhead as they are at Ibrox.
In response to this, Rangers fans ended up hating Celtic and their fans as much as vice versa. From the 1920s until 1989, Rangers never signed a player they knew to be Catholic, until finally breaking the barrier with formerly Celtic star Maurice "Mo" Johnston, who ended up being verbally abused by, and receiving death threats from, not just his old fans, but those who were supposed to be cheering him with his new team. He failed there after just 2 years, and bounced around, ending his career in America with the Kansas City Wizards (now known as Sporting Kansas City).
No soccer team in Ireland -- either in the Republic or in Northern Ireland -- is as popular in its homeland as Celtic or Rangers are there. Some English teams, particularly those who've had success with Irish players such as Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United, are popular in Ireland, but neither as much as Celtic and Rangers.
The competitive rivalry between the teams is incredibly close: Rangers have won 160 competitive matches, Celtic have won 157, and there have been 99 draws. But it gets incredibly nasty. Rangers fans have been known to chant profane things about the Pope -- whoever the Pope is at the time -- and Celtic fans have returned the favor by saying the same things about Queen Elizabeth II, even though she's half-Scottish herself.
But when Jock Stein arrived in 1965, Celtic had won just 1 league title since 1938 (and he was there for that one, in 1954). Over that same span, Rangers had won 11. Things turned around: With McNeill scoring the winning goal, Celtic defeated Dunfermline 3-2 in the 1965 Scottish Cup Final. The Scottish Footballer of the Year award was first awarded, and it was awarded to McNeill.
Stein named McNeill his Captain. Together, they led "The Hoops" (named for their green and white horizontal stripes) well: From 1966 to 1974, they won 9 straight league titles (a feat Rangers would match in 1997), They also won 7 Scottish Cups and 6 Scottish League Cups.
And then came 1967. The European Cup, the tournament now known as the UEFA Champions League, was first run in the 1955-56 season. No British team had yet won it, or even reached the Final. On aggregate, Celtic beat FC Zurich of Switzerland 5-1 (including a stunning 3-0 away win), Nantes of France 6-2 (including 3-1 away), Vojvodina of Yugoslavia (now in Serbia) 2-1, and Dukla Prague of Czechoslovakia (now in the Czech Republic) 3-1.
The Final was set for Estadio Nacional in Lisbon, Portugal, with Celtic playing Internazionale Milano, who had won the Cup in 1964 and 1965, becoming known as "La Grande Inter." Celtic took the pitch with this starting XI, all of them from within 30 miles of Glasgow: Goalkeeper Ronnie Simpson, right back Jim Craig, left back Tommy Gemmell, central midfielder Bobby Murdoch, centreback and Captain Billy McNeill, centreback John Clark, right wing Jimmy "Jinky" Johnstone (often called the greatest player in Celtic history), centre forward Willie Wallace, centre forward Stevie Chalmers, central midfielder Berti Auld, and left wing Bobby Lennox.
Simpson saved a shot from Sandro Mazzola, a 2nd-generation Italian calcio star (that's what Italians call soccer, and his father Valentino Mazzola had starred for Turin team Torino in the 1940s), before Craig fouled Renato Cappellini, resulting in Inter being awarded a penalty in only the 7th minute.
The score remained 1-0 to Inter past the hour mark, because of Inter's renowned defensive style, known as catenaccio -- "padlock." Auld hit the crossbar, and Johnstone headed a shot over it. Giuliano Sarti saved a free kick from Gemmell, and he hit the bar with the rebound. Entering the 63rd minute, the Hoops were dominating, but the Nerazzurri (Black & Blue) were winning.
Finally, Celtic broke the padlock. Craig passed from the right wing to Gemmell, who fired from 25 yards, and Sarti couldn't stop it. 1-1. Celtic kept up the attack, until the 84th minute. Murdoch had a shot, and Chalmers saw that he could deflect it in. The final score was 2-1 to Celtic. They were the 1st British team to win the European Cup.
They had won the League, the Cup, the League Cup, and now the European Cup -- not just a Double, not just a Treble, but a Quadruple. Counting the Glasgow Cu, a minor trophy, they became the 1st European team to win 5 trophies in a season. They remain the only team in Europe ever to pull either of these feats off, and would become known as "The Lisbon Lions." In reference to Protestant songs about King William III, who suppressed a Catholic revolt in Ireland in 1690, Celtic fans honored their Captain by singing, "There's only one King Billy, and it's McNeill!"
King Billy McNeill got Celtic back into the European Cup Final in 1970, losing to Feyenoord of Rotterdam, who thus became the 1st Dutch team to win it. He retired after the 1975 season, having played 822 games for the team, which remains a record.
He appeared for the Scotland national team 29 times, scoring 3 goals, but never at the World Cup. Scotland did not qualify in 1962, 1966 or 1970. Scotland had perhaps its best World Cup team ever in 1974, with 4 Celtic players making the squad: Johnstone, midfielder David Hay, defender Danny McGrain and young forward Kenny Dalglish. But McNeill was 34, and past his prime.
It shouldn't have surprised anyone that he went into management. He took Aberdeen to 2nd place and the Scottish Cup Final in 1978, and that showed Celtic that he was ready to take charge. As boss at Parkhead, he won the League in 1979, 1981 and 1982, the Scottish Cup in 1980, and the Scottish League Cup in 1983.
He was lured away by English team Manchester City, and he got them promoted back to Division One in 1985. He managed 3 years at Maine Road, then the 1986-87 season at Aston Villa, but he couldn't save them from relegation. He returned to Celtic for 4 more years, including a League and Cup Double in 1988 and another Cup in 1989. He went into football media, briefly taking one last management job, as caretaker manager at Hibernian in 1998.
Since 1963, he had been married to Liz Callaghan, a former professional dancer. They had 5 children. In 2002, he was voted Celtic's greatest Captain. He was elected to the Scottish Football Hall of Fame in 2004. In 2015, a statue of him holding up the European Cup was dedicated outside Celtic Park.
But he had already begun to fall victim to dementia, and was unable to participate in 50th Anniversary celebrations for the Lisbon Lions. Billy McNeill died this past Monday, April 22, 2019, in the Glasgow suburb of Newton Means. He was 79 years old.
He was preceded in death among the Lisbon Lions of 1967 by manager Jock Stein in 1985 (famously suffering a heart attack while managing Scotland against Wales in a "Home Nations Championship" match in Cardiff), Bobby Murdoch in 2001, Ronnie Simpson in 2004, Jinky Johnstone in 2006 and Tommy Gemmell in 2017. There are 6 surviving players: Stevie Chalmers is 83, Bertie Auld is 81, John Clark and Willie Wallace are 78, Jim Craig is about to turn 76, and Bobby Lennox is 75.