Jock Stein saw Willie Wallace and Joe McBride as his dream partnership

The Celtic Star

·21 December 2024

Jock Stein saw Willie Wallace and Joe McBride as his dream partnership

Willie Wallace and Joe McBride was Jock Stein’s the dream partnership, however fate intervened before Stevie Chalmers wrote himself into Celtic folklore…

During Celtic’s historic 1966/67 campaign the team played some wonderful football. We were like a well oiled machine back to front, more so in an attacking sense due to our sensational creativity and firepower.

Joe McBride, Celtic FC, photo The Celtic Wiki

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One of the main reasons for that was Joe McBride who was absolutely lethal in front of goal, netting a sensational 36 goals before a knee injury curtailed his campaign in December.

Despite that great flair and deadliness Jock Stein still reckoned that he was missing a piece of his jigsaw and decided to solve that conundrum by persuading the board to splash out a club record £30,000 on Hearts attacker Willie Wallace.

Willie Wallace, Celtic FC, Photo The Celtic Star

Most folk assume that Willie was brought in to replace the injured Joe, but Big Jock was a keen admirer of the player for some time and his plan was to partner Willie with Joe in what he reckoned could be one of the best striking partnerships the country had ever seen.

Joe McBride was deadly in front of goal and was the supreme poacher, while Willie could play anywhere across the forward line as he was such a creative player, but more importantly he also knew where the goal was. So you could see the logic in Jocks idea.

It unfortunately didn’t happen and although the two would play together on a few occasions Joe succumbed to his injury and was ruled out for the entire season.

Celtic though had a great pool of talent and that gave Stevie Chalmers, who was seen as the third choice next to Wallace and McBride, the chance to become the main man up front.

The rest as they say is history as Stevie accepted the challenge and filled the void that Joe’s absence left. Stevie would finish the season as the top scorer in the European Cup and of course scored the winner in the final against Inter Milan writing himself into Celtic folklore.