FIFTY years ago - on November 5th, 1967 - the most brutal football match ever involving a British football team took place in Montevideo, capital of Uruguay. That it featured Celtic, who had lifted the European Cup four months before by playing pure, beautiful football simply added some cruel irony to what unfolded that afternoon in Montevideo.

The Estadio Centenario had tasted its finest moment 37 years previously when it hosted the first ever World Cup final between Argentina and Uruguay. That evening early in November 1967 was surely its worst. Celtic’s opponents were Racing Club, the champions of Argentina and their encounter in Montevideo was the third and final instalment of a series to decide who would be crowned champions of the world.

The first two games were characterised by a degree of on-field violence and malevolence from the Argentinians never before witnessed by the Lisbon Lions, all of whom were tasty characters themselves. At the end of 90 minutes six players had been sent off and footage of the game suggests that a violent popular uprising was taking place rather than a football match.

A goal by their captain Billy McNeill in the first leg at Hampden gave Celtic a 1-0 lead to take to Buenos Aires for the return leg. Their subsequent 2-1 defeat led to this decider in Montevideo.

Bertie Auld, the skilful enforcer of that great team, recalls that he and his team mates soon realised that this was to be a game like no other any of them had ever played. “After the second or third foul on Jimmy Johnstone, the wee man came up to me and said; “That’s the fitba oot the windae, Bertie.

“I can’t tell you how disappointed we all were at how those games against Racing Club proceeded,” Auld added.

“We’d been looking forward to playing the champions of Argentina so much as we wanted to show the South Americans that we were the best team on the planet.

“But it was clear from the outset that there was to be no football being played in these matches. The Argentinians had obviously realised that they wouldn’t defeat us by playing football so they resorted instead to stopping us playing football by any means possible.

“The worst was the spiting; each of us was drenched in spit.”

If you watch a video of McNeill’s towering headed goal at Hampden on YouTube, you will see him immediately turn to his Argentinian marker and make an angry gesture. It was an uncharacteristic flash of raw hostility by Celtic’s talismanic statesman and captain.

Auld noted it at the time too. “Before the corner that led to the goal one of their defenders had walked up to big Billy and run his finger slowly across his throat, and then began pointing at him.

“Billy’s gesture was effectively him saying: ‘get it roon’ ye’”

The tone of the second game in Buenos Aires was set before the kick-off when Celtic’s goalkeeper Ronnie Simpson was struck heavily by a missile thrown from the crowd and was forced to exit the proceedings with blood pouring from an angry head wound.

The pattern of brutality on the field followed that which unfolded in Glasgow. Auld recalled that afterwards, Celtic’s aristocratic chairman Bob Kelly appeared in the dressing-room.

“I never once saw Bob anywhere near the dressing room when Jock Stein was manager apart from that one occasion. He was seething and said to Jock: “Look, if they want it that much, just let them have it. We’re not playing a third match against them.”

Stein though felt that his team’s reputation would be tarnished if they refused to play again. So, the Battle of Montevideo went ahead and the mayhem commenced.

Some of the Celtic players, following 180 minutes of Racing Club’s sleekit intimidation and the incessant assaults on Jimmy Johnstone finally snapped. Bobby Lennox, an innocent in the proceedings, was wrongly dismissed and when his manager tried to push him back on, a policeman brandishing a sword suggested otherwise.

Jimmy Johnstone was next to go after reacting to yet another attack. The great John Rafferty, writing on the game, described the assault as “a flying kick which just missed decapitating Johnstone”.

John Hughes was next to go, basically for clubbing the Racing goalkeeper to the ground.

Auld though provided the piece de resistance, an act of defiance against the injustice and the referee’s weakness. After he became the fourth Celtic player to be sent off the following conversation took place.

Referee: You, Number 10, off you go…”

Auld: “I’m sorry ref; I don’t understand; no comprende …”

Referee: “You are sent off…”

Auld: “You can f*ck off…”

Referee: “Play on…”

Later Tommy Gemmell targeted one of Racing Club’s worst culprits and felled him spectacularly from behind with an adroitly placed kick between the legs, easily eclipsing Gemmell’s other great relapse two years later when he booted Germany’s Helmut Haller up the jacksie for a sly ankle tap.

The record shows Racing Club triumphed 1-0 to become world champions, while Celtic were disgraced by dishing out some exceedingly violent retribution on their opponents. They were each fined £250, basically their win bonus for lifting the League Cup the previous week.

Let’s though, not rush to judge and condemn. These young Scots were never going to be allowed to win this match and after displaying admirable restraint, they finally showed that you mess with Glasgow at your peril.

But surely, in this year of all years, and in the spirit of natural justice, Celtic could pardon the Lisbon Lions for the sins of Montevideo and reimburse those £250 fines - plus 50 years’ interest!