Buchanan's historic and gastronomic Euro goal

Indeed, the fact that Hibs started 1955 with a heavy New Year's Day 5-1 league defeat at the hands of city rivals Hearts and crashed out of the Scottish Cup a month later to the same team by 5-0, did not deter the French newspaper L'Equipe, the organisers of the first European Cup, from inviting Hibs to compete in the first competition held that season.

So it was that in the first leg in Germany in September 1955 Hibs crushed the German team Rot-Weiss (red and white) of Essen where Hibs legends Eddie Turnbull, Lawrie Reilly and Willie Ormond stuck four goals past the Germans to win 4-0.

Cue Wednesday, October 12, 1955 and a young 18-year-old Hibs reserve winger or centre forward called Jock Buchanan who was sitting during that early Autumn evening before that second leg match at Easter Road in his mother's home in 35 Burgess Street, on the shore in the Port of Leith.

Buchanan, who had just finished earning his daily bread as a painter, and who had joined Hibs in 1954 from local juvenile side Edinburgh Waverley, explained: ''I was very much a reserve player playing second string to Lawrie Reilly and Gordon Smith who had played in the first game in Germany against Rot Weiss. My only original interest was to go that night to Easter Road stadium as a spectator. So when my mother told me to tuck in to my favourite meal of mince and tatties I didn't just have one helping but two massive platefuls before heading up Leith Walk to Easter Road Park.

''As I was about to enter the stand at the stadium, the Hibs programme editor, the late Magnus Williamson, said to me: 'Congratulations Jock you are playing on the wing in place of Gordon Smith'.

''I replied: 'I hope you are joking I am still bagged up with mince and tatties'.

''Just then Hibs manager Hugh Shaw appeared and told me to get stripped as I was needed. Gordon Smith, Lawrie Reilly and goalkeeper Tommy Younger were fog-bound in Copenhagen after playing for Scotland so Jimmy Adams, our reserve goalie, reserve centre forward Jimmy Mulkerrin and myself were all playing.''

So it was that Buchanan lined up in a Hibs team that contained no fewer than three future Hibs managers, Eddie Turnbull, Willie McFarlane and Willie Ormond against a German side who fielded Helmut Rahn who had scored the winning goal against a Puskas-led Hungary in the 1954 World Cup final in Switzerland.

Buchanan continued: ''If you ask today's youngsters who scored the very first European Cup goal on United Kingdom soil more than likely they would tell you Bobby Charlton, but I can still remember my historic strike although at the time it was just another goal to me.

''Hibs left winger Willie Ormond slung the ball over into the six-yard box in front of what is now known as the Famous Five stand at the bottom of the Easter Road pitch slope and with the Germany goalie miles off his line I had an open goal so I just tapped it in to put us one goal up. Although the Germans later equalised (through Abromiet) the goal didn't really matter as we had a four-goal lead from the first leg anyway.

''Believe me, I was relieved we had that four-goal lead because after scoring that historic first European Cup goal my mother's mince and tatties started to kick in and it is also just as well I'd scored in the first five minutes because my legs became progressively heavier and my bloated stomach made me more and more sluggish as the match progressed. As substitutes weren't allowed in those days I just had to go through the motions in the second half.''

Someone else who clearly recalls that goal is Edinburgh publican Tommy Preston who wore the Hibs No.6 jersey that autumn evening in 1955.

Preston recalled: ''Jock had a simple task to ram the ball home past the Germany goalkeeper but you can't take it away from him that he - not your Bobby Charltons or Nat Lofthouse's - scored Britains first ever home European Cup goal.

''Jock Buchanan was dead unlucky as a winger and centre forward that he was up against Lawrie Reilly and Gordon Smith for a place in the Hibs first team. In fact, Jock holds another record that went unnoticed because he did it in Hibs reserves. He scored 60 goals one season which I think is a record for reserve league football that still stands but his time at Hibs was sandwiched between two of Hibs greatest goalscorers Lawrie Reilly and Joe Baker and he never quite made it in the first team.''

It is a viewpoint endorsed by Buchanan who ironically also blames then Hibs chairman Harry Swan for his own premature departure from Easter Road.

''People still praise the late Harry Swan for being a soccer pioneer but I didn't like the guy and I received scant recognition from him for scoring that European Cup goal. Later on when I was happy playing with the reserves and scoring a barrowload of goals, Swan forced me in 1961 to go to Raith Rovers where I was totally unhappy, so much so that I left the Kirkcaldy club after a year to go to Newport County in Wales at the invitation of former Celtic and Scotland legend Bobby Evans.

''Home sickness drove me back to Edinburgh and I eventually finished my playing days in the late 1960s after several seasons playing in Borders League football.

''But I still have the memory of that first ever Scottish and British European Cup goal scored in the UK to look back on. Oh, and by the way, I still love mince and tatties even although they probably stopped me from scoring Britain's first ever European hat trick!''

Just for the record, that Hibs team that Jock Buchanan played for in that first European Cup tie played in the United Kingdom in October 1955 was: Adams, McFarlane and Paterson, Thomson, Plenderleith and Preston, Buchanan, Turnbull, Mulkerrin, Combe and Ormond.