Celtic in the Thirties: Unpublished works of David Potter – Paddy Connolly | OneFootball

Celtic in the Thirties: Unpublished works of David Potter today features Paddy Connolly…

The late David Potter

Paddy Connolly, Celtic in the Thirties graphic by Celtic Curio

Paddy Connolly’s Celtic career barely touched the 1930s but he did play a few games in this decade, even though he was better known for his achievements in the 1920s. He might have, with better management, played for Celtic for a lot longer than he did.

He was born in Hamilton in 1901, and was therefore, mercifully, just too young for the Great War. He joined the club from Kirkintilloch Rob Roy in the middle of the 1921/22 season. He was slightly built, but what was immediately apparent was that he was possessed of great speed. In years to come he would deserve the name of “The Greyhound”, and it was commonly believed that he was faster than Eric Liddell, the British Olympic champion of 1924 and WR Applegarth the famous professional sprinter of the day.

Paddy Connolly, Celtic FC. Photo The Celtic Wiki

He was a right winger, but not in the Jimmy Johnstone sense of being a bag of tricks, nor of the Jimmy Delaney “roving commission” type of player. His role was to get the ball, charge down the right wing and cross for the head of McGrory. Paddy himself in later years delighted to tell the story of how as a young player, he was taken aside by the prodigiously talent and street-wise Patsy Gallacher and told that when he crossed the ball for Mr McGrory, he had to make sure that the lace was facing away from Mr McGrory’s head!

He would struggle for a while to get the right wing place in the team, for the sitting tenant was Andy McAtee, one of the club’s all-time greats, but he was too good a player to be left out altogether, and he was tried on the left wing. This proved to be more than a little successful, and it was on the left wing that he played in the 1923 Scottish Cup final against Hibs. It was not a great game, but Connolly with a long swinging ball found Joe Cassidy in the move that led up to the only goal of the game, and Connolly had his first Scottish Cup medal in the game that meant so much to so many people.

McAtee disappeared from the scene in 1924, and Connolly got the right wing spot as a good team developed. He played a large and important part in the Scottish Cup semi-final 5-0 defeat against Rangers in which the tactics were to suck Rangers into the midfield, prevent them from scoring and then hit them on the break. Connolly was up against the hard tackling Ulsterman Billy McCandless. In the second half, it was as if McCandless wasn’t there as the greyhound tore past him time and time again.

Celtic in the Thirties – Volume One

Celtic in the Thirties – Volume Two

In the final, Gallacher and McGrory earned immortality, but the following year 1925/26 saw one of the best forward lines in the team’s history as Connolly, Thomson, McGrory, McInally and McLean won the Scottish League for the club to the delight of the fans who revelled in the wing play of Paddy Connolly and Adam McLean. Adam was a steady and reliable winger, but he could not match the ripple of anticipation when a ball from Peter Wilson or Jean McFarlane found “the Greyhound” who had already anticipated the move.

He was phenomenally popular, not least because he was simply a supporter who could play. At the end of the game, he would happily merge in with the crowd, and not everyone would immediately identify him as the great football player that he was. Diffident, self-effacing and still in awe of men like McGrory and McInally, Connolly seldom put himself forward, and this was perhaps the reason why one niggardly cap for the Scottish League against the Irish League in 1926 was the only International honour won by Connolly. He was certainly good enough to deserve more.

Rather surprisingly, Jimmy McGrory puts Connolly as the best right winger that he had ever seen, ahead of McAtee, Thomson, Delaney, Tully and Johnstone. Yet he denies that Paddy was “classy”. He says quite simply that he was fast and direct and knew how to cross a ball. A good cross, of course, only becomes a good cross if there is someone waiting for it. Very often McGrory would indeed know where exactly to wait for the crosses of Paddy Connolly.

He won another Scottish Cup medal against East Fife in 1927, and won a Glasgow Cup medal three years in a row in the late 1920s, but these were difficult times for Celtic, not least because a new stand needed to be built and paid for. Maley tried in vain to sell Jimmy McGrory and John Thomson, and tried to reduce the wages of others, one of them being Paddy Connolly.

Author Matt Corr gets to see copies of Celtic in the Thirties, Volumes One & Two – out now on Celtic Star Books.

Celtic in the Thirties, Published by Celtic Star Books, 4/11/24. Image: The Celtic Star

Paddy was the mildest of men and loved the Celtic with a passion but he was not keen to be taken to the cleaners either. He did in 1928, 1929, 1930 and 1931 hold out against signing, although he always did yield in the end. This did not, of course, increase his value in the eyes of Willie Maley who, paranoid as always, began to see him an a rebel or an agitator.

Things became more complicated when a rival appeared on the scene for the right wing spot. This was Bertie Thomson, and once Bertie established himself on the right wing and, more importantly, in the heart of Maley, there was no way back for Paddy Connolly. He played for Celtic for the last time in the Glasgow Charity Cup final in May 1930, a very honourable 2-2 draw, but Rangers then won by the toss of a coin!

The early 1930s saw him being loaned out to teams like Morton and Shelbourne, then he was transferred to Hibs and then Airdrie, before quietly (and in many ways characteristically) slipping out of the game. But he remained a Celtic supporter, and there was a report of the game in the Scottish Cup in February 1939 at Celtic Park in a Scottish Cup replay against Hearts when the gates had to be shut and thousands were locked out of the ground. One of them was Paddy Connolly!

We do not know a great deal about the subsequent life of this naturally quiet man. He was a publican at one point, and died in Hairmyres Hospital on February 18 1969.

David Potter

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Matt Corr’s wonderful new books, Celtic in the Thirties, Volumes One & Two are both out now on Celtic Star Books and you can order a signed copies by clicking on the links below…

CELTIC IN THE THIRTIES, VOLUMES ONE & TWO BY MATT CORR – OUT NOW! Order your signed copies below…

Celtic in the Thirties by Celtic Historian Matt Corr is published in two volumes by Celtic Star Books. OUT NOW!

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