FOR English football 1966 and all that was the beginning and end of their national team's good times, if you are to believe those who view anything other than winning a World Cup as failure.

For Celtic, as it so happens, that wasn't such a bad year and, in particular this very week, exactly 50 years ago, was when it all the fun began for the club and it didn't stop for quite some time.

If you need a start date for the modern Celtic, then January 12, 1966 is as good a place as any when an estimated 70,000-plus crowd, watched their team beat Dynamo Kiev by three goals to nil in a European Cup-Winners' Cup quarter-final thanks to two future Lions, Tommy Gemmell and Bobby Murdoch who got two.

The club had tasted European success before. Two seasons previously, and this is something often overlooked, they made it to the semi-finals of the 1964 tournament when they rather controversially lost to MTK Budapest. The Hungarians managed to overcome a 3-0 first-leg deficit to win 4-0 at home. Those present claim that the referee, whose performance had not overly impressed the Celtic party, attended the post-match dinner with two lovely ladies either side of him. As if such things ever happened!

The win over Kiev, however, felt at the time like the first big European victory for Celtic and the fact it came in the same week of a 5-1 Old Firm win meant a serious marker had been set down by a club which had gone 12 years without a league title.

“I would agree with you that the win over Kiev could be said to be the start of Celtic’s European tradition,” said David Potter, respected author and club historian. “Kiev were a strong team and the fact they came from Russia, who up until then did not put teams into European competition, made them seem almost mysterious.

“I recall at the time that the newspapers wondered what they would have for breakfast. I think we were all a little disappointed when these men from behind the Iron Curtain turned up and looked just like us.

“Celtic has enjoyed one good run before, two years previously, but they were naïve when they played MTK away and believed the referee would be fair to them. He was not.

“But this was the tie, a quarter-final of course, which really grabbed the attention and imagination of Celtic fans who, because the team were doing so well at home, really thought they could go on and win a European trophy.

“In the previous rounds they had played Go ahead Dev from Holland, who I hadn’t heard of and then they did nothing after that, and Aarhus of Denmark, so this was the first big test. This is where it began for Celtic in Europe, 50 years ago, and few would have guessed what was around the corner.”

Celtic fans of a certain age, or even those who like the stories of the past, will know that apart from the result, this match under floodlights was memorable for giving the supporters a glimpse of what was to come.

Potter said: “This was the game when George Connolly, as a ball-boy, played keepy-uppy around the track before the game. Those who saw it claim he kept the ball up 400-odd times and would kick it high into the air and still control it. That definitely happened. Some 60,000 people were utterly bamboozled. He was only 16.”

These were different times. Kiev reportedly turned up at Celtic Park on the morning of the game to train. There was apparently nobody there to let them in.

There was no Billy McNeill that night, the captain succumbed to a rare injury, John Cushley proved to be a superb replacement and Murdoch even missed a penalty. However, Stein knew a thing or two about putting out a team to face anyone and Celtic ran out more than comfortable winners.

A 1-1 draw in Kiev, fought out despite Jim Craig’s red card, set up a semi-final with Liverpool, one of the giants in England even then. A 1-0 win at Parkhead was cancelled out by Liverpool’s 2-0 win at Anfield, and yet there was a sting in the tale.

Potter recalled: “Late in the game down in Liverpool, Bobby Lennox got past big Ron Yeats and scored a goal that would have taken us through to the final; the away goal rule had just been introduced. The linesman could not believe Bobby was so fast and flagged him for being off-side. Celtic were done.”

Now this was a long time ago, of course, so why does it matter now, particularly because Celtic’s current standing in Europe is not what it was, it’s fair to say.

It’s important because this is the 50th anniversary of when the Stein era truly began. The 1965 Scottish Cup had been won but that may have happened anyway and only Stein could have led those players to such success at home and abroad.

Celtic came close to a quadruple that season. They lost to Rangers in the Scottish Cup in a replay and there was the European disappointment, but did win the league, the first of nine, and League Cup. The clean sweep had to wait another 12 months.

Potter said: “That was the season which gave everyone great belief ahead of the club's greatest season. Celtic were on a crest of a wave."

It took a few years for them to fall off.