CUP UPSETS

[the hibLOG]

I suppose you could say they are paying good money for old rope! C'mon the Staggies!

Rangers and Celtic have been proving for years that there is no direct correlation between wages paid and quality of player/performance.

[1960sfitbafan]

I'm always surprised when they include Hamilton beating Rangers in 1987. It's a strange situation when one Premier League team beating another is deemed one of the greatest upsets of all time.

The very same goalkeeper that played for Hamilton had another shutout the following season as Rangers went out of the cup at Dunfermline - always a good pub quiz question !!!

No cup upset ranks with Berwick 1967 though.

[LEATHERSTOCKING]

Oh ye of short memory! Queen`s Park losing 3-2 to Battlefield @ 2nd Hampden in the Cup 3rd Round in 1884 & Arthurlie beating Celtic in 1897`s 1st Round rank with Berwick`s feat. Queen`s were the holders & Battlefield little more than a Hampden feeder club in 1884 and Arthurlie weren`t even in the league when they beat Celtic 13 years later. If Rangers had beaten Vale of Leven in the 1877 Final, it would have constituted one of the biggest shocks in Scottish football because Vale were one of Scotland`s Big Four & Rangers one of dozens of Glasgow minnows then.

[lbb]

The very same goalkeeper that played for Hamilton had another shutout the following season as Rangers went out of the cup at Dunfermline - always a good pub quiz question !!!

Dave McKellar? Never knew that. Always imagined it was Ian Westwater.

No cup upset ranks with Berwick 1967 though.

I beg to differ although I am biased.

[1960sfitbafan]

Dave McKellar it was.

I'm intrigued to learn which cup upset ranks above Berwick 1967 in the all time shock results lists !!!

[lbb]

I'm intrigued to learn which cup upset ranks above Berwick 1967 in the all time shock results lists !!!

Any number of Celtic's calamities over the last decade or so - Raith Rovers, Inverness (2), Clyde and Falkirk spring to mind. Some of them over extra time, replays or with home advantage.

Stenhousemuir and Queens Park beating the not-so-dandy Dons.

[1960sfitbafan]

I'm intrigued to learn which cup upset ranks above Berwick 1967 in the all time shock results lists !!!

Any number of Celtic's calamities over the last decade or so - Raith Rovers, Inverness (2), Clyde and Falkirk spring to mind. Some of them over extra time, replays or with home advantage.

Stenhousemuir and Queens Park beating the not-so-dandy Dons.

Fair enough, your opinion.

I still reckon Berwick's win over the big Rangers stands out.

The Scottish Cup holders, most of whom were full internationalists, knocked out in the 1st round by a part time side from the lower division that had to play two preliminary ties to get there - and who were unable to win more league games than they lost that season, with a manager who had just taken over as boss.

You pays your money and you takes your choice !!!

[HibeeJibee]

For me Berwick's win takes it due to the huge disparity between the sides.

That season Berwick did pretty poorly in the League, winding up 10th with 16-6-16 in Second Division, 26 places below Rangers (equivalent of midst of Second Division today). League Cup resulted in bottom finish, in group with Ayr + Cowden + Raith.

Rangers narrowly finished 2nd in the First Division (by 3pts), reached the Final of the European Cup-Winners' Cup and lost aet, lost the League Cup Final to a Celtic team winning 4 trophies including the European Cup, and had various internationalists in what was the year of England 0-1 Scotland.

[lbb]

Celtic reached a European final the year they lost to Inverness in the Scottish Cup.

The thing about Celtic's defeats to lower opposition (and I genuinely don't mean to go on about it) is that they weren't shocks in the traditional sense i.e. minnows get battered, nick a goal and then hang on for their lives. Losing 3 at home to Inverness; a cup final after extra time and penalties; Clyde didn't even have a team at the start of 05-06 and were a laughing stock with their 'Pop Idol'-style auditions. Yet they scored twice and had two unfortunately disallowed (in the interests of parity, I should say Clyde had earlier that season taken Rangers to extra time in the League Cup).

So, is it worse to lose 1-0 in a 'freak' result or to deservedly lose and even by a couple of goals at that?

I'm not trying to have Berwick expunged from the records but I'm wary of it becoming a lazy shorthand for cup upsets in Scotland.

[Scottish]

Celtic reached a European final the year they lost to Inverness in the Scottish Cup.

Not the year they were beaten at Parkhead they didn't. You mean when Martin O'Neill contemptuously sent a reserve side to Inverness and got deservedly beaten for his trouble. It was the Rangers first team that got humped at Berwick who were a far more lowly side than ICT.

The thing about Celtic's defeats to lower opposition (and I genuinely don't mean to go on about it)

Aye, right.

No amount of obfuscation can overcome the perception that for most people Berwick is the upset to end all upsets. A matter of opinion of course but in this instance I'd go along with it. Leatherstocking has a point though. At the time the victories of Battlefield and Arthurlie were absolute sensations on a par with Berwick. Looking past the OF the Hibs-Edinburgh City match has to be up there as well.

[Scottish]

a Celtic team winning 4 trophies including the European Cup, and had various internationalists in what was the year of England 0-1 Scotland.

I'm sure Celtic fans will still argue it was five trophies (Glasgow Cup plus three domestic and the big one). The old joke was that the only thing they didn't lift that year was the Torrey Canyon (younger readers can google).

Oh, and a pedant writes: it was 2-3 at Wembley.

In fact there's a very good book available about that season

Dead tree edition

Amazon Kindle edition

[bobby s]

An interesting - or not - Hibs cup upset from 1949. Hibs lost the league cup semi final to Dunfermline when the fifers were 11th in the second division. Hibs finished 2nd in the top division that season, whilst Dunfermline failed to get promotion, ending up third.

Dunfermline lost to East Fife in the final.

[MadMac]

1986/87 League Cup: Forfar 5, St. Mirren 1. Not so much the victory itself, but the magnitude of it against a very good Paisley side who were regularly qualifying for Europe and went on to take the Scottish that season.

[Scottish]

Before anyone else does I suppose I'd better mention Stirling Albion's 6-2 League Cup win over Scottish Cup holders Kilmarnock who ended the season in 4th.

And, for balance, B Division Killie's 1-0 win over Rangers at Hampden in the League Cup semi-final of 1952-53. I believe this was the first time Rangers had been eliminated from a major cup competition by a lower league side. They had previously lost at home to Cowdenbeath in the League Cup but had struggled through after extra time in the second leg.

But those and the others mentioned above pale into insignificance compared to the events in Northumberland in January 1967.

[Snuff]

Wonderful thing football debate, I have certainly enjoyed the varying views on this thread.

However, and this is not simply a case of two Kilmarnock fans sticking together, but, it has to be Berwick beating Rangers as THE shock result.

Interesting footnote. No substitutes back then, so Berwick's 12th man was Davie Paterson, who, as an Ayr United player in 1965 had scored the goal which beat the newly-crowned Scottish Champions Kilmarnock in that season's Ayrshire Cup Final.

Davie, who was for many years a stalwart of Ayr Cricket Club is one of the nicest guys around, so I have long since forgiven him that goal - for which he still gets drinks bought for him in Ayr; although never in Jim McSherry's pub.