Bobby Evans

There is a list of Celtic greats whose triumphs don’t match either their ability or their contribution to the cause. They offer a roll-call of footballing greatness – Tully, Fernie, Peacock, Collins, Mochan, McPhail, Fallon, to name but a few – and Bobby Evans sits comfortably in their company.

At times, he was even the leader of these great players. Yet, their relative lack of success was indicative of how Celtic were run in the immediate post-war years. It would only be when one of Evans’ team-mates from the 1950s, Jock Stein, returned as managed in 1965 that things finally started to change for the better.

Bobby Evans was an influential figure in Celtic’s ranks ever since he made his debut in 1944, and he experienced the highs and lows of the next few years – from narrowly avoiding relegation in 1948 to winning the League Cup with a 7-1 victory in 1957.

He began his footballing life as an attacker before Jimmy McGrory switched him back to right-half, and from there he moved to centre-half remaining, as always, an imposing figure in the green and white Hoops.

PRELUDE TO PARADISE
The early years of Bobby Evans’ footballing career were spent around the South Side of Glasgow, initially with Sir John Maxwell’s Primary and the Boys’ Brigade then Maxwell Thistle and Thornliebank Methodist where a crunching tackle on Tommy Pilton of Dumbarton saw Pilton recommend the young Evans to St Anthony’s juniors. He signed for the Govan Hoops on January 24, 1944 but his performances in green and white at Moore Park soon caught the eye of the big team in the Hoops from the other side of the city. He signed for Celtic on July 23, 1944 just a week after his 17th birthday.

DEBUT BHOY
Bobby Evans was introduced to the first team during war-time football and he made his debut in the second game of the League – Southern Division on August 19, 1944 against Albion Rovers, just under a month after he joined the club. A 10,000 crowd turned up at Albion Rovers’ Cliftonhill and witnessed the debut of the teenage Evans in a game won 1-0 thanks to a penalty converted by the legendary Jimmy Delaney. By the time the war ended and football returned to normal, Evans was an established first-team player, though the decision to sell Delaney to Manchester United in 1946 was a portent of what was to come over the next few years.

Evans’ first piece of silverware  came in the 1951 Scottish Cup, when Celtic beat Motherwell 1-0 courtesy of a John McPhail goal.

HIGHLIGHTS
Bobby Evans was the first Celtic captain to get his hands on the League Cup, raising it aloft in 1956 after the Hoops beat Partick Thistle 3-0 in a replay following a goal-less draw in the first final. That was a significant success – Celtic’s first since the 1938 league championship – but it was to get even better the following season when the Hoops retained the trophy, hammering city rivals, Rangers, 7-1 in the final at Hampden.

Bertie Peacock was now captaining the side, but Evans remained a pivotal figure in the heart of the Celtic defence and he, like his team-mates and the entire Celtic support, would have savoured the rare but memorable triumph over Rangers. Evans’ first piece of silverware had actually come in the 1951 Scottish Cup, when Celtic beat Motherwell 1-0 courtesy of a John McPhail goal, while there was the double success of 1953/54, when the team, on the back of winning the Coronation Cup in the summer of ’53, stormed to glory in both the league and Scottish Cup. It was a triumph befitting a team brimming with talent but the club didn’t build on that success.

BOWING OUT
On April 30, 1960, Celtic welcomed St Mirren to Celtic Park for what would ultimately be Bobby Evans’ last game for the Hoops. The 10,000 crowd saw Celtic take the lead through Neilly Mochan after only three minutes and Stevie Chalmers struck twice to make it 3-0 for the Hoops before the break. However, St Mirren produced a stunning comeback in the last 12 minutes of the match, scoring three times to ensure a share of the points. After 537 appearances for Celtic, Bobby Evans was bowing out at the age of 32.

It took only £12,500 from Chelsea to prise Evans away from Celtic in 1960. It was a major surprise at the time and soured Evans’ relationship with the club. There was a contractual dispute and Celtic weren’t portrayed in the greatest of lights.

After 16 years at Celtic Park, he departed for London but his heart wasn’t in it. After a year in England, he moved on and continued to play at a decent level for another six years. Some say Bobby Evans delayed his move south far too long and should have left Celtic earlier. However, if that is the case, his only crime was an obvious love of his club.

CROWNING GLORY
Celtic have made a habit of winning one-off trophies, and Bobby Evans was involved in securing three of them. There was the Victory-in-Europe Cup in 1945, the St Mungo Cup in 1951 and then the Coronation Cup in 1953.

"Victory seemed to make us believe in ourselves as we went on to win the league and cup double the following year."

Evans later said of the Coronation Cup triumph: ‘As everyone knows, Celtic were only invited to participate in the Coronation Cup to make up numbers. Maybe we were spurred on by the presence of the English sides, but we played our best football of the season in those matches. We beat Arsenal, Manchester United and Hibs and I really enjoyed the tournament. Victory seemed to make us believe in ourselves as we went on to win the league and cup double the following year.’

FERGUS’ FAVOURITE
Bobby Evans, like many of his contemporaries, was a popular figure with supporters who appreciated his efforts, and perhaps even the constraints they were operating under.

"Bobby Evans was a player who I believe certainly deserves his place in the club’s history"
Fergus McCann

Fergus McCann, who saved Celtic in 1994 and laid the foundations for the subsequent success the club has enjoyed, was a huge admirer of the red-haired defender of the 1950s.

‘Everybody has their own preferences,’ Fergus said, ‘but Bobby Evans was a player who I believe certainly deserves his place in the club’s history because he was a dominant figure in the team in the early 1950s and in a team, by the way, that was not doing particularly well.

537 CELTIC CAREER APPEARANCES
League: 385, Scottish Cup: 64, League Cup: 88

11 CELTIC CAREER GOALS
League: 10, League Cup: 1

5 CELTIC CAREER MAJOR HONOURS
League Titles: 1, Scottish Cup: 2, League Cup: 2