THE huge, noisy, elated crowd in the centre of Aberdeen had to be silenced by Eddie Turnbull and his players. Let the Lord Provost speak, they urged.
Silence fell. The Lord Provost, R.S. Lennox stepped up to address the fans. “Today the sun is shining”, he declared. “The
long winter is over. It is Eddie Turnbull’s birthday and we have won the cup. What a perfect weekend”.
He added that the victory
was a triumph for Aberdeen
and, perhaps more significantly, for football in Scotland.
Few neutrals had given Turnbull’s Aberdeen a chance against Jock Stein’s Celtic in
the April 1970 Scottish Cup final, but, watched by a crowd of 108,000, the Dons ran out 3-1 winners and took the silverware for only the second time in
the club’s history (the first occasion had been in 1946-47).
Goals from Joe Harper (penalty) and Derek Mackay (two) gave them victory and made them only the second team that season to take three goals off Celtic. Bobby Lennox scored for the Glasgow side.
Turnbull, who was celebrating his 45th birthday, is seen above celebrating with Harper and Jim Forrest. Team captain Martin Buchan is pictured, main image, lifting the trophy; at 21, he had become the youngest player to captain a cup final side. Seven years later, he would lead Manchester United to an FA Cup final victory over Liverpool.
Celtic, for their part, had already beaten Leeds United in the first leg of the epic 1970 European Cup semi-final.
A few days after the Aberdeen match, they defeated Leeds again to reach the final, against Feyenoord, the Dutch champions, in Milan, though they would lose that game 2-1.
They ended the season having retained both the league and the Scottish League Cup.
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