ON THE face of it there would appear to be little to say about a Celtic goalkeeper who completed a 10-year stint without winning a Scottish Cup medal or, indeed, without even appearing in a final. A league championship medal likewise eluded him and yet no-one who saw Willie Miller keep goal will ever forget it.
He had been blessed with technical ability, elegance and, above all, courage. Had there been a conspicuous gallantry medal for goalkeepers, his cupboards would have been full of them. He arrived at Parkhead in 1942 at one of the lowest points in the history of the east end club. He came up to senior football in the timehonoured way at St Rollox in the juveniles and Maryhill Harp in the juniors.
Goalkeeping had been a problem for Celtic ever since their keeper, Joe Kennaway, had returned to his native Canada at the outbreak of war in September 1939. One or two guest keepers, such as Hunter of Kilmarnock and Johnstone of Aberdeen, were tried out with little success. The young keeper, ready to start the season 1942-43 was coming in to a fraught situation. The former chairman, Willie Maley, had parted acrimoniously from the club shortly before. After his departure, the club seemed content to sleepwalk through the rest of the war. The handful of players left from pre-1939 days had become cynical as the new arrivals seemed on the whole to be substandard.
But not this one. What impressed about Willie Miller was his graceful athleticism and his courage. He was intrepid to the point of foolhardiness. In any run-of-the-mill fixture he would imperil his safety three or four times per match. Time and again he would hurl himself at the feet of an advancing opponent and scoop the ball from his toes.
There was an irony here. Every day when Willie Miller entered the main doors at Parkhead he came under the eye of the large picture of Johnny Thomson, a Celtic goalkeeper who had also been brave that one time too often.
The finest example of Willie Miller's naked courage was provided in the inter-league match of 1947 on a snowbedecked Hampden. Those looking back through the files will see the record simply reading: Scottish League 1, Football League 3. What had happened was rather different.
The Football League forward line contained three other great forwards of that time in the persons of Stanley Matthews, Horacio Carter and Wilf Mannion, and these three, Matthews in particular, were carving up the Scottish League defence at will. This was causing the Scottish rearguard considerable bother. In the course of the first half, Johnny Kelly of Third Lanark, a perfectly valid choice, was given such a runaround by Matthews that to all intents and purposes his career was finished.
Four times Miller plunged to the ground to thwart English forwards and on the fifth he did not get up. The trainer emerged and mopped up copious amounts of blood. Chalkwhite, Miller staggered off and George Young took over in goal. Ten minutes passed and then a roar as Miller wearing a turbanesque hat went to outside left and an even bigger roar when he started the second half in his own position.
Almost at once Dennis Westcott of Wolves was clean through and before anyone realised what had happened Miller had plunged earthwards and come up with the ball.
He brought out the chivalrous side of his opponents' character. Late in the war, at the height of an unsavoury Old Firm battle, he was forcefully charged by an opponent, and the miscreant was equally forcefully rebuked not by Miller but by Billy Williamson of Rangers.
The warwas by now over but apparently no-one had told the Celtic board. In the five years after the war, the Celtic club drifted along like the Marie Celeste. In 1948, Morton put Celtic out of the Scottish Cup at the semi-final stage and Miller would never again be as near to the major prize.
His was a strange international career. A 1-0 win against Luxembourg was his only international success but when capped against England at Wembley he played well in securing a 1-1 draw.
He was a connoisseur's keeper. In those days when bumping the keeper was a sport within the sport, his cutting out of crosses was a delight to watch. Only Jimmy Cowen of Morton has been in the same class in this regard.
In the other kind of timing he was not so fortunate. Ten years at Parkhead did not bring the medal which young George Hunter acquired after a couple of matches. He was moved on to Clyde and in his four years at Shawfield he maintained his policy of arriving either just too soon to be in the honours parade or getting there just as the great doors swung shut.
His last couple of seasons were spent with Hibernian, and although the absolute edge had gone, he remained a fine keeper.
By force of circumstance, much of his keeping was on the plane of damage limitation.
At a time when Celtic had the occasional good player, if hardly ever a good team, Miller provided flashes of hope and poetry. Miller could not any more than any man make a bad side a good one, but he could and did invest it with the cloak of respectability.
